Trust over hierarchy: What every legal team should prioritize

Culture is the difference between a legal team that blocks and one that drives the business forward. Kerry Linacre explains how trust, openness, and connection have shaped a legal function that’s embedded, respected, and high performing.

“What I’m really passionate about, and what has kept me here for all this time, is the culture,” says Linacre, who has been UK Legal Director at one of Europe’s largest credit management companies for 11 years. A tenure that, by her own account, has everything to do with how the business treats its people. 

The intrinsic link between psychological safety and high performance

It’s a well-known fact that a culture is key to business success. Research from Harvard Business Review shows that people who work at companies with a positive corporate culture are happier, healthier, and more productive. 

Linacre is a firm believer that a positive work culture fosters psychological safety, which drives high-performing legal teams.

“When people trust and respect one another, they can have honest conversations about things that might have gone wrong,” she says, “allowing issues to be dealt with before they escalate, and ensuring that people feel seen and heard.”  

Her claim is backed by numerous studies, with Forbes reporting that companies with strong cultures have seen a 4x increase in revenue growth and higher average returns.

As a legal leader, Linacre has always seen culture as paramount and understands that this isn’t fostered through flashy mission statements, rather it’s built on human connection and consistent behaviors.

“I know that the time my team spends doing a daily quiz, or discussing our weekends in our catch-up meetings, is crucial to creating a high-trust environment,” she says.

Shared experience and understanding of one’s colleagues are far more powerful than business values on the intranet. Linacre sees quality time with her team as a sure-fire way to create “respect, honesty, and cohesion,” which shapes how her team communicates, handles pressure, and grows together.

Human connection is what takes a group of lawyers and turns them into a team. But connection alone doesn’t explain why Linacre’s team performs as well as it does – that comes down to something harder to build: safety.

Leadership is crucial role in building safe teams 

Demonstrative leadership is crucial to fostering safe workplaces. “Culture comes from the top,” says Linacre. “Our CEO has created a culture where people feel like they are respected, valued, and can admit to mistakes.”

This creates an environment of trust, respect, and honesty, where people feel safe and empowered at work.  

Linacre reflects on previous roles where she worked under volatile managers. “You don’t feel safe to challenge ideas and to say what’s on your mind when you don’t know what mood they’re going to be in that day.”  

In low-trust environments, where people feel judged, mistakes are buried and can fester until they become problems of far greater consequence for the business.  

She has focused on a non-hierarchical structure, where lawyers can share their ideas, regardless of the seniority of their role, and know they will be acknowledged and treated with respect, no matter the viability of their idea. That internal shift, it turns out, is inseparable from the team’s reputation across the wider business.

Earning respect from the wider business

The adage of the legal silo is a tale that lawyers are no doubt getting sick of telling. Linacre believes this issue is cyclical, stemming from the wider business seeing legal as a hindrance, but also from counsel themselves feeling removed from the end results of their work.

To combat this, she’s always been completely transparent with how legal’s strategy connects with wider business objectives and communicates this with her team.  

“When people can see how we are feeding into that strategy, they understand how we contribute to the business’s success as a team,” she says.

When counsel can see the positive impact of their work, their engagement with other departments increases significantly, not to mention their motivation. “A huge aspect of job satisfaction lies in understanding how you contribute,” she says.

In her current role, Linacre has managed to break the stereotype of the legal silo. “We feel like we get respect as a legal team. 

“The business definitely looks to us for guidance and assistance, not just roping legal in at the last minute.”

The legal team is embedded in the business, operates with low-hierarchy and high support, and connects individual work to strategic impact. 

By making culture as her team’s North Star, Linacre has proven that thriving legal teams are built upon a simple principle – trust. Perhaps legal leaders would do well to ask themselves whether their team feels the same way about coming to work.