A company's legal exposure isn't a matter of feeling, it's an operational fact – and ten questions can map it out with surprising accuracy. This self-check is the business-owner's version of the retail quiz: on paper, about a minute per question. Every "yes" is one exposure point – the overall picture speaks for itself at the end.
- 10 questions across five areas: customers, suppliers, employees, infrastructure, and the regulatory environment.
- The result isn't a quote, it's an exposure map – raw material for the needs assessment.
- Even 3–4 "yes" answers signal that dispute exposure is an everyday reality for the company, not a theoretical risk.
Customers and revenue (1–2)
1. In the past two years, has an invoice of yours gone unpaid for more than 30 days? 2. Do you have a customer that a significant share of your revenue depends on – where a breakdown in the relationship would really hurt?
Suppliers and contracts (3–4)
3. Does your performance depend on suppliers or subcontractors – where their delay becomes your delay? 4. Do you regularly enter into contracts that a lawyer hasn't reviewed – from a template, by email, verbally?
Employees (5–6)
5. Do you employ anyone – even just one person? 6. Has there been a dismissal, a termination of employment, or a serious workplace conflict in recent years?
Infrastructure (7–8)
7. Do you rent premises, an office or a workshop – or let out a company property? 8. Does the company have vehicles that staff drive?
Regulatory and online environment (9–10)
9. Does the company operate in a licensed or regularly inspected field (construction, hospitality, transport, financial-adjacent services)? 10. Do you sell or contract online – a webshop, a platform, distance contracts?
Reading the result
0–2 yes: the company's legal contact surface is narrow – legal protection typically isn't the first cover to prioritise here; the portfolio order may well start with other elements. 3–6 yes: dispute exposure is an everyday reality – the points show which modules are worth requesting a quote for. 7–10 yes: the company operates on dispute-intensive ground – here, a combination of structured legal protection cover and working with a lawyer is the sensible direction. Whichever band you land in: the result isn't a verdict, it's a map – and the needs assessment picks up exactly from here.
Good to know: the self-check as a management tool
The value of these ten questions multiplies if you use them not as a one-off test but as a management routine. Three proven applications. In your annual strategy round: rerunning the self-check shows how the company's risk profile has shifted – growth typically brings new "yes" answers, without anyone noticing. Before big decisions: a new market, a new type of partner, your first employee, your first rented premises – a line on exposure belongs in the decision-prep material too. And when bringing in a co-manager: having your finance or operations lead fill out the questions separately makes the differences quite telling – who sees risk where, and what nobody is looking at. Legal exposure, after all, isn't a legal topic – it's an operational one, and like every operational topic, it improves by being discussed regularly and in structure. These ten questions give that conversation a framework; and for the next step, there's the needs assessment.
One reassuring sentence to close the questionnaire: a lot of "yes" answers doesn't mean the company is running badly – it means it's running. Legal contact surface is a by-product of genuine business activity: wherever there are customers, staff and partners, there's friction too. The question is never whether exposure exists, but whether it's managed – and that's exactly what these ten questions measure.
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