The rule you shouldn’t remove yet

Why do smart executives sometimes want to remove the rule that protects them?

You know the situation.

A business team looks at a contract process.

Five approvals.
Three checks.
Several legal steps.

Someone says:

"Do we really need all this?"

It feels bureaucratic.

Slow.
Annoying.

So the pressure begins.

“Let’s simplify.”
“Legal is slowing things down.”
“Surely we can remove this step.”

But here is the danger.

The English thinker G. K. Chesterton proposed a powerful idea known as Chesterton’s Fence.

If you find a fence across a road, you should not remove it until you understand why it was built.

Because someone, at some point, had a reason.

In law this happens constantly.

A clause that looks unnecessary.
A compliance step that feels excessive.
A process that seems old-fashioned.

Often those rules exist because something went wrong once.

A dispute.
A regulatory investigation.
A deal that collapsed.

The memory disappears.

The rule remains.

A useful habit

When someone proposes removing a legal control, ask one question:

"What problem was this originally designed to prevent?"

If nobody knows the answer yet…

it’s probably too early to delete it.

Good GCs don’t defend bureaucracy.

But they understand the hidden history inside systems.

And when companies redesign processes, enter new markets or simplify structures…

this is exactly when clients call us at Ambar.

Senior lawyers.
Niche experts.
Fractional counsel when judgment matters.

No fixed cost.
No learning curve.