When Process Ownership Goes Wrong: How Putting Work on the Wrong Team Creates Risk
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Many years ago, I took a role as Head of the North America Client Service Team for a large financial services firm. It was an exciting challenge because the team had potential but needed structure, accountability, and clarity.
One of my first fires to put out came quickly. My team had updated the wrong legal data into our database. That mistake triggered a regulatory issue and required a full review of more than 300 client accounts.
It was a tedious weekend, Father’s Day weekend no less, combing through investment management agreements line by line. And I remember asking myself one simple question:
Why is Client Service reviewing legal agreements at all?
At my previous firms, Legal handled all contract reviews. Here, it had somehow fallen to Client Service. When I raised the concern with our Chief Administrative Officer, he said, “That’s not how we do it here.”
That sentence stayed with me because it represented the exact mindset that keeps organizations stuck.
Rather than fix the root issue, we tried to engineer around it. We built an enormous spreadsheet checklist that asked Client Service Representatives to identify non-standard legal clauses for review. On paper, it looked like control. In practice, it was chaos.
There was constant back and forth between Legal, Client Service, and clients. To make matters worse, we added a weekly committee to approve any “risky” clauses, yet approved nearly every single one.
Eventually, a client service rep missed a clause. Legal caught it just days before the client’s account funding. The client refused any changes, Legal refused to sign off, and the issue escalated all the way to the CEO.
My boss wasn’t happy. When I explained that our reps weren’t trained to interpret legal terms, the answer wasn’t well received. But it was the truth. Client Service wasn’t failing, the process was.
The real issue was that Legal had offloaded part of their function because of capacity. The result was increased risk, slower turnaround, frustrated teams, and an eroding client experience.
I decided to make a case for change. I built a proposal showing how other firms handled this function, mapped out the inefficiencies, and outlined the potential compliance exposure.
The outcome was clear. We created a Legal Contract Specialist Team, a small but expert group responsible for all agreement reviews and negotiations.
The impact was immediate. Legal partnered with the new team. Client Service focused on clients, not clauses. Turnaround times improved. And leadership finally saw how ownership drift had been driving chaos.
The Takeaway
When the wrong team owns the wrong process, everyone loses. The work slows, risk rises, and culture suffers.
Before assigning ownership, ask yourself:
Who has the expertise?
Who has the accountability?
Who has the authority to make decisions?
If those three don’t align, you don’t have a process. You have a problem.