Why does the legend not resize when I modify the legend font size in MATLAB 2013 ?

In a subplot, the legend box does not update its size and location when the font size of the legend text and the sample line lengths are decreased. To resolve this issue, I tried specifying the legend explicitly like this

hleg =  legend('a','b',c','d')
set(hleg,'Position', [x0,y0,width,height]);

But this time, the legend remains invisible and behind the plot. Is there a way to work around this issue ?

[Star Strider]

What was your original code? It would help to know what did not work and why the fix failed as well.