Our inaugural GC Powerlist: Ireland launch brought together Dublin’s legal elite to celebrate the achievements of 100 of the country’s finest in-house counsel.
The latest addition to our GC Powerlist series was launched on 7 October, highlighting the most influential in-house counsel in Ireland. The inaugural GC Powerlist: Ireland was released at a reception for those included in the publication, hosted at sponsor McCann FitzGerald’s Dublin office.
To celebrate our annual GC Power List report, Legal Business this summer teamed up with DLA Piper and Thomson Reuters to hold an evening reception and debate to explore the topic of teamwork and give senior in-house counsel an informal chance to network.
Our discussion panel comprised British American Tobacco’s Western Europe legal head Benoit Belhomme, Credit Suisse’s EMEA general counsel (GC) Maria Leistner, ITV’s GC Andrew Garard, Diageo’s GC Siobhan Moriarty and AIG’s EMEA legal head Chris Newby. Bringing a private practice view to the proceedings was DLA Piper co-chair Sir Nigel Knowles, with Legal Business editor-in-chief Alex Novarese chairing the discussion. More than 50 senior in-house counsel attended the reception at the The Ivy’s private members’ club on 24 June.
The GC Power List will return in 2016.
Continue reading “GC Power List Summer Reception – In search of excellence”
In a shameless shout-out for my own shop, I’m making up this opportunity to highlight what is already one of our favourite projects. Next week we’ll be holding our GC Power List Summer Reception at The Club at The Ivy.
Continue reading “GC Power List – the 2015 Summer Reception looms”
On 24 March 2015 Legal Business held the GC Power List 2015 reception, sponsored by RPC, Barclay Simpson and Thomson Reuters at the Grosvenor Hotel, London.
Photos from the event can be viewed here.
Continue reading “Legal Business Awards – GC Power List 2015 Reception”
To coincide with the annual launch of our GC Power List, we asked the City’s most experienced private practitioners: what makes an outstanding in-house legal team?
‘A good in-house team has the ear of the commercial client, an understanding of its drivers and the strength to speak out when it is going down the wrong path. Teams should ensure they understand the varied approaches to dispute resolution, adopt appropriate methods in different transactional documentation, and consider mediation as a clean and proactive process for disputes at any stage.’
Katie Bradford, head of property litigation, Linklaters
The Power List 2015 settled on 50 exceptional legal teams but there is a wealth of talent in the employed profession. Here we highlight some other strongly tipped corporate counsel.
Steadily gaining a reputation in the market is the small but respected legal team at FTSE 250 company Capital & Counties Properties (Capco), a London property company demerged from Liberty International (now renamed Intu Properties) in 2010. Continue reading “Beyond the 50”
Top-level general counsel give their views on what marks out an exceptional in-house legal team in a risk-driven global economy.
‘You can tell who the really great lawyers are by the way they interact with their business colleagues. Those who are constantly being consulted, being involved as a core member of the team, sometimes leading the negotiations. You can see the dynamics in the discussions and the negotiations – which are the lawyers that are genuinely very respected. And those are the lawyers which are getting the best outcome.’
‘Like a doctor, you need to understand your patients to give the right remedy. You share the pain as well. Controversial industries like ours tend to have a culture where lawyers are more part of the business. You have to frequently adapt and people know legal is a crucial element to maintain a licence to operate.’ Continue reading “Boardroom Horizons: The Market View”
The 2015 Legal Business GC Power List puts the strength and depth of top in-house legal teams under the spotlight. With these teams largely forced to re-boot post-Lehman, what does it take to become the best in the business in a risk-driven economy?
In the last two years, Telefónica UK has reduced its reliance on external legal advice to the extent that its spend on law firms has fallen by 66%. Meanwhile, at BT, from which O2 span off in 2001 before being acquired by Telefónica in 2005, commercial external legal spend is down a startling 90% since 2010. Despite this, the volume of legal work required by both telcos hasn’t diminished: it is just being handled more efficiently in-house.
Continue reading “The A-Teams – In Pursuit of Excellence”
