Join me on 14 December 2021 for a live webinar. I’ll be talking to selected experts from across Practical Law’s editorial team as they look back on 2021 and ahead to 2022. We’ll be talking about key developments in ESG, data privacy, employment and compliance and what to look out for on the horizon. Meet the speakers and register for free.
The Centre for Legal Leadership’s final webinar of 2021, hosted in conjunction with Thomson Reuters, considered working effectively across the organisation. This post highlights the themes raised by the panellists and via questions from the audience.
Understand the business
Get out into the business so that you can really understand it. Your aim as an in-house lawyer is to become a trusted adviser who can be relied on to provide a confidential ear in challenging times. Get to know your clients and key stakeholders, and learn about their goals and motivations.
As we approach the end of 2021, and after yet another rollercoaster year for data privacy, it seems a good time to reflect on what is currently on the plates of data privacy professionals and areas on which to keep a watching brief, notably the recent DCMS and ICO consultations. (For our summary of the DCMS proposals see Article, DCMS data protection reforms: summary of consultation proposals and for more on the ICO data transfers consultation see Article, ICO consultation on international data transfers: what to do now.)
In-house lawyers should be aware of several key climate change announcements made during COP26 and of the publication of the Environment Act 2021. In addition, this month there have been noteworthy developments in diversity and inclusion, and corporate governance.
Legal panel reviews are a well-established way for corporate legal teams to formally appoint a group of law firms to their panel, establish common ways of working and benefit from more competitive rates and volume discounts. While the purposes of a panel review may be well understood, panel reviews are complex projects that require thoughtful planning and handling.
At the beginning of the month, I attended The Economist’s General Counsel (GC) summit in London, which brought together a cross-section of senior in-house counsel from a range of industry sectors. Here are some of the themes discussed across the day.
The Centre for Legal Leadership’s latest webinar, hosted in conjunction with Practical Law, looked at leading and managing in-house legal teams. This post highlights the main themes covered in the discussion.
Leadership is a mindset
Being a leader is about more than simply being a manager; it’s a mindset. Leaders need to be curious and show interest in both their colleagues and clients as they set the tone for their team’s culture.
A contributor mentioned a senior executive who reminded them that they should be showing up as a leader in their organisation every day. For example, if they got into a lift in the morning, they should be saying hello to everyone present. If they were not saying anything, they needed to question why that was.
In 2015 GC100 (the association of general counsel and company secretaries working in FTSE 100 companies) published a short guide, Overcoming the barriers to in-house lawyers doing pro bono work. The GC100 Executive Committee is keen to build on some of the lessons learned since the guide was published and, where appropriate, continue to support pro bono efforts by the in-house community.
To help gather the insights needed, the Committee issued a short survey to build an understanding of the current landscape for pro bono work among the in-house community. The summary of responses to this poll will inform GC100’s ongoing work and potential actions to support this important aspect of the legal and governance professions. This post highlights some of the key themes from the survey, which closed on 15 October 2021.
Key developments for in-house lawyers this month focus on climate change, with the 26th conference of the parties (COP 26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) being held in Glasgow on 1-12 November 2021. In advance of COP 26, the government has published its long-awaited Net Zero Strategy.
The COVID-19 pandemic era has demanded new and evolving ways of working. But as working practices change, especially with the adoption of remote and hybrid working, some elements of an in-house counsel’s work have become even more important.
Having clear and consistent guidelines and approaches has always been important to the delivery of effective outcomes, but perhaps even more so in a world of wholly or partly distributed teams, where it can be difficult to oversee the approach to issues in person. In that context, one method of establishing such guidelines, legal playbooks, could become an increasingly important resource.