Asia: in-house team management
GC talks to founders of legal departments in Asia about the risks and rewards of drawing up the blueprint for an uncharted legal function.
In the Middle Ages, map makers would often depict a place where ships could sail off the end of the world. The dangerous straits of uncharted territory were marked by pictures of ferocious sea monsters, vividly suggesting the terrible fate in store for the unwary sailor who tried to go where there were no instructions for the journey.
In many ways, starting a company’s legal function is a similarly unmapped domain. ‘There are just no guidelines about how to do it,’ one new GC recently remarked in frustration at the myriad of possibilities to be considered. By contrast, law firms generally employ a ‘one size fits all’ model, and even in alternative providers the original blueprint may be discernible just below the surface.
