Interviewed for our annual in-house lawyer survey, leading GCs give their take on risk management, becoming business advisers and collaboration
Agile minds
‘Digital technology is something that is upon us. A lot of law firms and in-house departments will start thinking about how we harness the power of AI or technology to help us and not feel threatened by it. How do we make life simpler and not do the mundane? It’s about a mindset of being agile – the world is always changing, last year everyone has seen how rapidly change has come upon us, political and economic. So how do you equip yourself to embrace the good things about change?’
Carol Hui, chief of staff and general counsel, Heathrow Airport
Innovation blocker
‘The reality is that you should be spending half of your time thinking about challenging processes, as well as looking at risk. These things would make GCs very innovative but it’s about being willing to take the short-term hit to benefit long-term. The traditional practice of law isn’t that easy to be innovative about, that’s the problem. Look at Brexit and the legislative process.’
Sam Ross, general counsel, ComplyAdvantage
Sounding board
‘In-house legal has become more sophisticated so we’re going to law firms and saying “we’ve fixed this problem – do you agree that we’re right?”, rather than “can you fix this for me?” We’ve done a lot of restructuring around Brexit and how we’d deal with Europe coming into London. We bounced all our restructuring plans and analysis off Freshfields.’
Chris Newby, general counsel of AIG EMEA and chief operating officer, AIG Europe
Feeling the heat
‘Every GC I’ve spoken to is under pressure. Every year the finance director knocks on the door and asks you to find a way of doing something cheaper next time. A lot of GCs now are reporting directly to the chief executive rather than the finance director and there’s pressure to square the circle.’
Mark Amsden, group general counsel and company secretary, chief risk and governance officer, Royal Mail
Career switch
‘What has to change is where a GC comes from. It won’t be common practice in five to ten years to have them come from a traditional legal route. They will have already spent more time in the business. What will also change is what happens to a GC afterwards – we’ve not seen much of them go into wider business roles but that’ll become more common.’
Alison Kay, group general counsel, National Grid
Overcoming obstacles
‘[Female representation in law] has improved, but it’s been frustratingly slow and there is a lot more work to do on inclusion generally, so that the profession reflects society. You’ve seen more improvement in-house than in law firms. There are law firms that have really engaged on diversity and inclusion as a business imperative and some that haven’t. The law firm model and the partnership process has been a barrier against more diverse partnerships, but we as clients also have to work with the law firms on their diversity initiatives, as we do with other businesses within our supply chain, and keep improving ourselves.
Andrea Harris, group chief counsel and head of sustainability, WPP
Come together
‘At a senior level, the in-house legal community is good at sharing ideas and it’s important to get out there and network. I know lots of other GCs and we meet regularly but the challenge is getting the law firms to collaborate with us – not to compete with each other but to work together to find solutions. The Magic Circle is beginning to realise that they have to work together.’
Justine Campbell, group general counsel, Centrica
Broader horizons
‘The biggest change in the last three years is that the GC is a business unit owner and accountable in the same way someone with a P&L is. I’m responsible for cost, I’m responsible for delivery – that’s the operational side. But then we have a very active board doing lots of different things, so the strategic advice is absolutely key. But how do I equip my team and make sure I’m equipped with the right skills to run it? It’s broadening out those skills, which is going to be the trend for a while.’
Claire Chapman, chief general counsel, Capita
Upward-facing dog
‘People used to come in-house for general roles. You’ll have expansion in that at junior and at the mid-level but hiring at mid-senior, senior levels will be of specialists who can come in by themselves and make a difference in areas like antitrust or employment or data privacy. That creates development opportunities for all of us, which flies in the face of the private practice model: you can’t touch an employment law matter unless you’re an experienced specialist, whereas we have to be more flexible than that and we enjoy being flexible too.’
Nick Havers, chief counsel UK and Ireland, Marsh & McLennan
Value add
‘We continue to see how highly legal teams are valued. They add diversity to any business, when you have a lawyer around the table you get another perspective. We’re business people with legal skills, as opposed to stand-alone lawyers. That’s been driven by the focus on corporate governance and the quality of in-house teams and the fact that more and more good people are wanting to move in-house. I had eight interviews for various roles this week and at least two thirds of them have said that they look around their law firms and at partnership and think: “That’s not what I want.”’
Matt Wilson, associate general counsel EMEA, Uber