In-house legal work
In-house legal work
Since 2010, I've focussed exclusively on being an in-house counsel to global technology companies, big and small. For the companies I've worked for and my roles there, see the About page (and also find out what I was up to before 2010).
There are a lot of different experiences out there that people have with lawyers generally and with in-house legal teams in particular. There are also different cultural, sector-specific, and individual styles of providing legal services and approaches to lawyering. In my 20+ years of work in the legal profession, including the last 13 years in house at tech companies, I've seen a lot of different approaches and so I believe it is worth clarifying the style and approach that I apply as a GC.
Legal topics touch every part of any business, and I see the General Counsel role as to manage, prioritise, and triage those topics across every aspect of the business for their client. This includes managing risk as well as being a value-add on both the business and the legal side. Instead of just giving statements of what the law says, the GC applies legal principles and rules to the specific situation of the company, and focusses on practical and speedy solutions inline with the company's risk appetite. The GC also guides and builds their legal teams on this approach to lawyering.
A big part of being GC is being across all aspects of the business and acting as a guardian for the company and helping steer it through good times and bad times. In that sense, GCs can be "Wartime GCs" and "Peacetime GCs" and support CEOs and executive teams both through war and peace multiple times as needed through the evolution of the company. It is important to be flexible between the two perspectives while being a GC.
Often the GC is the "Chief Negotiation Officer" but it extends more broadly than just for sales deals, and impacts any area of the business where there are sticky problems that need solutions. The GC also needs space to work broadly across the business, and with this perspective to be able to "see around corners" to guide the business forward.
The GC should be a part of the executive team of the company, and attend board meetings (with investors) in order to get to really know the business, the senior teams and investors, and to help guide everyone through growth and managing the complexity of a global business. On the internal leadership teams (excluding investors), I would expect the GC role to be in the regular meetings for the C-suite group. This role in both the board meetings and C-suite meetings is as a facilitator and advisor for the topics being discussed. I've found that most of the time, you are just observing and listening, but ready to jump in if a complicated legal or business topic comes up. One of the valuable aspects of in-house legal in general, and the GC in particular, is that you get exposed to the entire business, and not just one part (say marketing).
The value in an in-house team lies in a group of legal professionals that "really know their client" and so can delivered the best, most efficient, and tailored advice to accomplish business goals. In order to accomplish that, and to really know the business, I practice (and lead legal teams to practice) an approach known as "embedded lawyering".
This means that a legal team should be closely aligned with the business by taking a very hands on approach to getting to know the teams and their goals and challenges across all internal departments of the business by acting as an extension of that department, and not solely as part of the legal department. A worked example with sales is for a commercial counsel to attend forecast calls, annual sales kick off events, other sales or Go-To-Market team meetings and events, and offer pro-active support to sales.
Another aspect of being embedded into the business is that legal should always be, and seen to be, a value add. Good in-house legal teams advise on risk - great ones provide workable solutions to challenges and to think and act creatively in their problem solving while realising that most risks are inherent to doing business.