A day in the life of an in-house lawyer

For the last two decades, their star has been ris­ing. Once con­sid­ered pure­ly as pro­fes­sion­al advis­ers, in-house coun­sel are now viewed as val­ued busi­ness part­ners who help shape and deliv­er cor­po­rate strate­gies. As reg­u­la­tion has pro­lif­er­at­ed and the chal­lenges to busi­ness inten­si­fied, legal input in the ear­ly stages of busi­ness devel­op­ment and legal over­sight of oper­a­tions has become ever­more vital. The respon­si­bil­i­ties of in-house coun­sel have grown accord­ing­ly.

Research by the Wash­ing­ton-based Asso­ci­a­tion of Cor­po­rate Coun­sel (ACC) tes­ti­fies to the con­tin­ued strength­en­ing of the posi­tion of the chief legal offi­cer (CLO) or gen­er­al coun­sel (GC). Its 2020 Chief Legal Offi­cer Sur­vey reveals that 80 per cent of CLOs now report to their chief exec­u­tive while 76 per cent attend board meet­ings and 73 per cent are almost always engaged by their exec­u­tive lead­er­ship team on busi­ness deci­sions. Giv­en this trend, what is the world of the future in-house lawyer like­ly to look like?

The importance of recruitment and nurturing talent

Recruit­ing and nur­tur­ing tal­ent will be cru­cial for GCs, while those aspir­ing to work in-house will have to devel­op and hone cer­tain skillsets. Though legal capa­bil­i­ties are essen­tial, com­mer­cial aware­ness and an abil­i­ty to work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly are just as cru­cial.

Adele Callaghan, senior busi­ness direc­tor of legal recruiters Hays Legal, says: “GCs are seek­ing com­mer­cial­ly focused lawyers who are tech­ni­cal­ly strong and solu­tions focused, who can quick­ly estab­lish cred­i­bil­i­ty with key stake­hold­ers in the busi­ness, from the board and man­age­ment team to more junior col­leagues. In-house lawyers need to be approach­able and suc­cinct and able to quick­ly grasp the core issues in busi­ness sit­u­a­tions.”

Strong legal com­pe­ten­cies are required by Rose­mary Mar­tin, GC and com­pa­ny sec­re­tary at Voda­fone Group, who leads a glob­al team of 460 peo­ple. Above all, how­ev­er, her team mem­bers must pos­sess empa­thy, enthu­si­asm, ini­tia­tive, adapt­abil­i­ty, and an abil­i­ty to under­stand the busi­ness and help it progress.

“Your organisation’s geo­graph­i­cal reach or oper­a­tional focus can shift quick­ly and new areas of law and busi­ness must be under­stood and mas­tered rapid­ly,” she says. Work­ing with busi­ness col­leagues, she stress­es, requires good social and influ­enc­ing skills, and an abil­i­ty to appre­ci­ate their busi­ness aims.   

GCs may have to cast their net wider than ever to recruit those with the right skills. Helen Lentle, direc­tor of legal ser­vices for the Welsh Gov­ern­ment, recruits nation­al­ly for her expand­ing depart­ment. “I recruit peo­ple from var­i­ous sec­tors and back­grounds, and not nec­es­sar­i­ly peo­ple with pub­lic law expe­ri­ence. I want bright, com­mit­ted peo­ple who can pick up things quick­ly and move across our 18 teams from health to plan­ning,” she says. Her depart­ment has embraced remote work­ing for some time and con­tin­u­ing it beyond the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic will enable Lentle and oth­ers to recruit lawyers who are based in more diverse loca­tions. 

General counsel must be tech savvy

A con­sid­er­able ongo­ing chal­lenge for in-house lawyers will be the abil­i­ty to embrace tech­nol­o­gy. “In-house lawyers need a good knowl­edge of tech­nol­o­gy and how it can affect not only how the legal department’s work is done, but how the organ­i­sa­tion oper­ates. This and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) will be major aspects of the in-house lawyer’s life in future,” says Mar­tin.

In-house coun­sel can also expect to be work­ing along­side a greater range of oth­er spe­cial­ists in their depart­ments, includ­ing legal oper­a­tions exec­u­tives, project man­agers and those with spe­cial­ist tech­ni­cal skills. Martin’s own depart­ment now has a legal dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion man­ag­er.

But since legal depart­ments have flat­ter struc­tures, nur­tur­ing and moti­vat­ing team mem­bers are key con­sid­er­a­tions for GCs. A range of train­ing and work oppor­tu­ni­ties are used to enhance their com­pe­ten­cies. Lentle’s in-house team can access a range of tech­ni­cal and soft-skills train­ing both in-house and exter­nal­ly, and lawyers can vol­un­teer for large projects. The Step Oppor­tu­ni­ties pro­gramme she has devel­oped enables them to gain short-term expe­ri­ence in oth­er areas of the civ­il ser­vice, includ­ing oth­er juris­dic­tions. “All this is huge­ly impor­tant for main­tain­ing inter­est and moti­va­tion,” says Lentle. 

Cather­ine John­son, group GC of Lon­don Stock Exchange Group, encour­ages her legal and com­pli­ance staff, and espe­cial­ly more junior lawyers, to work across teams that serve dif­fer­ent busi­ness divi­sions. “We encour­age sec­ond­ments to busi­ness teams with­in the group and to dif­fer­ent juris­dic­tions. We offer a range of train­ing on legal and busi­ness skills, and do a lot of men­tor­ing,” she says.

Accord­ing to ACC research, GCs pre­dict greater reg­u­la­tion, risk man­age­ment, cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, data pro­tec­tion, pira­cy and greater finan­cial scruti­ny will be the mat­ters occu­py­ing them most in the future. Added to this is the rel­a­tive­ly new con­cern of social media, espe­cial­ly its impact on rep­u­ta­tion­al risk. “Rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment is a big part of what we do now and will be in the future,” says Mar­tin. A range of tools will be har­nessed to address such issues. 

What the future holds for in-house lawyers

While exter­nal law firms still pro­vide spe­cial­ist advice and trans­ac­tion­al sup­port where need­ed, high-vol­ume, rou­tine work is now fre­quent­ly out­sourced to legal ser­vices providers, a trend like­ly to con­tin­ue. John­son has out­sourced more stan­dard­ised work to var­i­ous organ­i­sa­tions. “This makes the han­dling of this work cheap­er and quick­er, and allows my team to focus on val­ue-added work,” she says. In the mean­time, a weath­er eye must be kept on the offer­ings of new ser­vice providers, such as the new legal arms of the Big Four account­ing firms. 

The savvy use of tech­no­log­i­cal process­es can help GCs scru­ti­nise and mon­i­tor their work­flows, and prompt more cre­ative solu­tions for work man­age­ment. The newest tool avail­able to aid in-house coun­sel is AI, which is like­ly to be a stan­dard aid in future. “We’ve used AI effec­tive­ly in large dis­clo­sure exer­cis­es and com­plex mat­ters, which involve high lev­els of doc­u­men­ta­tion like merg­ers and acqui­si­tions,” says John­son. “When peo­ple get used to it, the ben­e­fits will be sig­nif­i­cant.”

On the peo­ple man­age­ment side, giv­en that more organ­i­sa­tions will be adopt­ing more flex­i­ble work­ing arrange­ments, a big issue will be the super­vi­sion of those who work remote­ly, espe­cial­ly more junior in-house coun­sel. What­ev­er the chal­lenges in-house coun­sel con­front there­fore, they can be assured that their well­be­ing will be of greater con­cern too.

New roles for in-house counsel

Many gen­er­al coun­sels (GCs) now serve their organ­i­sa­tions in addi­tion­al capac­i­ties and more are like­ly to do so in future. For exam­ple, Rose­mary Mar­tin is com­pa­ny sec­re­tary of Voda­fone Group, while at Lon­don Stock Exchange Group Cather­ine John­son also man­ages com­pli­ance. Oth­er func­tions for which GCs may be respon­si­ble are human resources, risk man­age­ment, cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty, inter­nal audit and cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions. All com­ple­ment the legal role and stand adja­cent to it. 

GCs may also sit on their organisation’s board of direc­tors. This is less com­mon in the UK, where it may some­times be seen as imping­ing on their role as an objec­tive advis­er, though this may be less of a con­cern in oth­er juris­dic­tions.

As evi­denced by the Asso­ci­a­tion of Cor­po­rate Counsel’s 2020 Chief Legal Offi­cer Sur­vey, it is increas­ing­ly com­mon for GCs to be mem­bers of exec­u­tive com­mit­tees along­side mem­bers of the chief executive’s team and those from oth­er key dis­ci­plines. Mar­tin, John­son and Helen Lentle, direc­tor of legal ser­vices for the Welsh Gov­ern­ment, serve on the exec­u­tive com­mit­tees of their organ­i­sa­tions, while Lentle also sits on the Welsh Gov­ern­ment Board, which sup­ports the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary. Such trends high­light the increased appre­ci­a­tion of the vital role the in-house lawyer can play in stew­ard­ship of their organ­i­sa­tions.