Adam Woodhall, Chief Executive, Lawyers For Net Zero
What is the #1 misconception about the legal function in business today?
- That in-house lawyers are only responsible for legal matters: GCs are clearly now key corporate leaders. The skills and knowledge a GC now needs is so broad and deep that it takes a special person, and team around them, to deliver that. In addition to legal insight GCs need to utilise commercial savvy, emotional intelligence, as well as being a business psychic – enabling their organisation to stay ahead of the game whilst competitors are targeted by regulators, activists and shareholders.
How do you see the profession of in-house law changing in the second half of 2023?
- There are many indicators that GCs and their teams are increasingly utilising their position as corporate leaders to drive climate and ESG action in their organisation. Whilst this is happening all over the world, it does appear this is being led by the UK in-house legal sector. Looking into my crystal ball, I’d predict that this will only accelerate the rest of this year, and go into 2024.
What has been your greatest achievement in your current role so far?
- It’s been a real privilege to be part of the momentum that is building in the UK legal sector regarding climate and environmental issues. Recent highlights being the Law Society sharing it’s powerful ‘Climate Change Guidance’, the Legal Charter 1.5 being launched many of the UK’s biggest law firms, many young lawyers joining Legal Voices for the Future, and of course the ongoing success of the Chancery Lane Project and their climate clauses. Our Leaders Programme is also going from strength to strength, with many global GCs participating including those from Rolls Royce, Centrica, National Grid, BUPA and Specsavers.
Barry Matthews, Group Deputy General Counsel, Pennon
What has been your greatest achievement in your current role so far?
- Landing the first acquisition of a solar project to kick start our renewable energy self-sufficiency strategy and underpin our operational Net Zero 2030 commitment.
How do you see the profession of in-house law changing in the second half of 2023?
- More for less. The ever-present drum beat of a GCs existence for over a decade!
What are the top 3 external influences impacting Legal right now?
- Inflationary pressures on employee needs
- Ever increasing focus on ESG and balance of return for shareholders
- As always…advances in tech, in particular AI
What is your department doing to attract fresh talent?
- The launch of a Solicitor Apprenticeship programme in partnership with BARBRI and Danmar
- Supporting the roll out of the Social Mobility Business Partnership programme (www.smbp.org.uk) to the Great South West
Mila Trezza, Executive Coach and Founder, Coaching Lawyers by Mila Trezza
How do you see the profession of in-house law changing in the second half of 2023?
- In-house legal teams will stay focused on remaining efficient in 2023 as well as continue expanding their role outside the traditional remit of legal advice.
- Many in-house lawyers are now viewed as “more” than advisers. They project manage and serve as governance, ESG, and compliance reference points. They take on workstreams from other departments —many even move into board roles. Some of these legal teams are still in the process of identifying the exact perimeter of what has become, de facto, their broader remit. The challenge, for those in-house teams and their leaders, is often tied to spelling out more precisely their new responsibilities - thus ensuring full recognition of the value they bring to organisations.
How are you ensuring your team has commercial awareness and can help make decisions about the strategic direction of the company?
- I believe the most effective way in-house legal teams develop commercial awareness is by regularly hearing it directly from business people.
- Consistently exposing in-house lawyers to the thinking of decision-makers requires planning and creating opportunities such as meetings, internal workshops, and regular one-to-one conversations.
- At the more junior level, lawyers begin developing commercial awareness from an observer role, which then develops into a contributor role and eventually evolves into an effective adviser and influencer role. A legal manager aims to guide, encourage and support this transition.
What career advice would you give to your younger self?
- Make a priority surrounding yourself with plenty of great mentors and people who challenge your ideas but also allow you to be “you”. Choose your role models carefully, and remember that as you develop in your career and complexity multiplies by the year, greater role models may help you make the real leap. It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a company to raise a leader.
Andrew Wingfield, Co-Founder, OFF ROAD LEGAL
What is the #1 misconception about the legal function in business today?
- I believe the #1 misconception - which is really two misconceptions - is that business teams tend to believe the legal function is less important than it is and legal functions believe they are more important than they really are. To differing extents, they can both be right! This points to the importance of any efforts which are aimed at removing such misconceptions and clarifying a common concept of what the legal function is there to do - which is the basis of collaboration.
What are the top 3 external influences impacting Legal right now?
- Cost, cost and cost. Profit is becoming scarce for some organisations in the current climate, and the legal function has not escaped from being viewed as a 'cost centre' and therefore expected to deliver some form of cost savings. Law firms have not delivered dramatic cost reductions in the services they offer, so any way to reduce external legal spend which is for the account of the company in question is a target - and the temptation is to move that to the legal function. Finally, positively, the cost of technology has lowered dramatically while increasing in power. This is clearly an opportunity for all.
What career advice would you give to your younger self?
- You are not a lawyer. What I mean by this is that a person's idea of what they want to be is heavily vested in such labels as 'I am a lawyer'. But it is a pretty meaningless concept when you look at the diversity of activities, specialties and career options which exist in, or adjacent to, the profession. Therefore, I would encourage prospective lawyers to think more about the actual environment they want to be in and the type of contribution they want to make, not just the label.
Peter Impey, Co-Founder, OFF ROAD LEGAL
How do you predict technology will transform how legal departments operate and deliver services in the next 3 years?
- Only the brave make predictions! A full answer is not possible here so suffice it to say I think that the availability of technology will continue to catalyse a more profound revolution in the legal function. Successful digital transformation requires so much to happen prior to tech deployment and I think legal departments will transform through shifts in strategy, skills mix, investment blend, leadership and collaboration. The resulting digital legal department can deliver more for less freeing people to act as strategic partners to the business. The aim is for standard legal work to move to self-service as the service delivery model changes, while the energy of the core legal team shifts to data-driven insights for improved risk mitigation and controls. The successful legal departments will extend through digital collaboration to internal stakeholders and at the same time become more tightly integrated to external partners and customers.
How do you see the profession of in-house law changing in the second half of 2023?
- The first half of 2023 was notable for the explosion of ChatGPT. While Facebook took three years to reach 50M users, ChatGPT had 100M users two months after launch. This fast adoption raises awareness of possibilities and expectations grow quickly. In the second half of 2023 more progressive in-house teams will start thinking about their strategies for deploying generative Ai as part of their legal tech toolsets. These will act similarly to ChatGPT in function but tailored to the legal context and use cases.
- I think in-house teams will want to leverage the incredible capabilities of this new and accelerating revolution. Already there are ‘large language model’ generative Ai applications going to market within the legal sector, and we are already seeing demand for clever chatbots and contract assistance (reviewing, creating and so on). The challenge is to prioritise and deliver change while maintaining and improving levels of performance. This is a skill that is achieved through 'portability' which is possible when enough attention is paid to the 6Ps of purpose, people, planning, process, platform and performance.
What is the #1 misconception about the legal function in business today?
- “Legal teams are blockers: they say 'no'. Legal people are dinosaurs, stuck in their ways, slow to adopt technology, resistant to change and reluctant to accept realities of modern working life.” In our experience this view misunderstands the role of legal as risk managers for a business and underestimates the flexibility and willingness of legal professionals to embrace new working practices and tools. To reverse this misconception a GC must work hard on communication while relying on data to manage internal clients from the business. At the same time a GC can (i) develop a clear internal change strategy to empower their lawyers through upskilling and adoption of best practices and (ii) establish the business case to invest in a) best in class legal tech and b) operational headcount to support the department.
Rebecca Cater, Head, The Centre For Legal Leadership
What has been your greatest achievement in your current role so far?
- Having led the Centre for Legal Leadership since its creation in partnership with RPC in 2016, I have upheld CLL's core value – that our community is 'for in-house by in-house', and I highly value listening to lawyers varying in seniority, sector and background. This unique insight enabled me to understand that in-house lawyers are missing vital support, particularly focusing on improving leadership and personal development. Therefore, over the past 18 months, I have developed and successfully run two certified professional development courses in collaboration with The University of Law for in-house – The Effective In-House Lawyer and The Lead In-House Lawyer. The course was first explored by leading a series of roundtables comprising in-house lawyers to understand what the community desired from such a course. In-house lawyers wanted to hear from those working in the field rather than lecturers/coaches outside the legal profession. Hence, I sourced guest lecturers who wanted to share with the community, to teach on a variety of topics. The aim of each course was to combine thought-provoking teaching with a unique networking opportunity, combined with utilising a varied group of lecturers to inspire those from all backgrounds that they can succeed in this profession.
- We have held a successful run of The Lead In-House Lawyer (taking place between January and July 2023) and four runs of The Effective In-House Lawyer. With the new course in development with The University of Law – I have been extremely proud of this collaboration, as these courses deserve the credibility and support of this prestigious educational institution.
- The collaboration with the University of Law could not have been so successful without the endorsement and guidance of key partners within RPC. I'm incredibly proud of everything CLL has accomplished and thankful to the innovative foresight of RPC in championing such a unique knowledge and community hub for in-house lawyers.
How do you see the profession of in-house law changing in the second half of 2023?
- When thinking how to answer this question, I immediately thought of a quote one lawyer exclaimed at a recent CLL roundtable - "It feels like the world is in constant crisis". The past few years, have been a stream of unprecedented times from Brexit to the Covid-19 pandemic to the Ukraine war to a cost of living crisis with no clear sign of relenting.
- As a result, in-house lawyers are needing to evolve. It has never been more important to understand your organisation from top to bottom. This begins with listening to stakeholders, making sure you are aware of consequential decisions being made (hopefully ensuring legal are considered in these discussions) and making sure you are having a trusted relationship with key stakeholders. When these relationships are strong, it is much easier to gather the information necessary to increase the legal team's effectiveness and best serve your organisation. You must ensure you understand your organisation's goals, their risk appetite and how the commercials (yes, the finances!) are affected by these. And this high-level of understanding only comes from strong relationships throughout your organisation.
- With this knowledge of your company on a macro-level, you then need to understand on where the legal team, and you as an individual, sit within your organisation. Establish a strategy that aligns with your organisation's goals and prioritise in line with their priorities.
- Finally, and most importantly, demonstrate the legal teams value, and do this loudly. With the world in flux, it is necessary for the legal to be visible, to be viewed as business partners that progress business rather than block. Therefore, you need to spend time understanding the best way to communicate this to your organisation and its stakeholders. Some value can be easily displayed, such as finalising a high-value M&A deal, but a lot of the legal department's value resides in preventing "what could have happened", which is harder to communicate and harder to see from the outside. So tell people how you avoided litigation, or protected the organisation's reputation, and demonstrate how this saved cost overall. Learn how to market yourself and your team internally, because it is an unfortunate truth, that people will not fully comprehend the value of legal without you telling them – which can lead to the worst-case scenario, that your company only sees legal as a costly department.
What is the #1 misconception about the legal function in business today?
- That the legal function has no commercial awareness. This is the constant struggle for in-house legal departments. However, this is not true. In fact, the legal function is arguably the most well-positioned department to have a clear oversight of the business as a whole. The legal function is involved with all of the deals, transactions and the day-to-day running throughout every department of the organisation, this gives legal a keen awareness of an organisation's overall strategy and how that is progressing.
- Further, lawyers are intrinsically objective, analytical, creative thinkers and combined with their knowledge of the law and ethics, enables in-house lawyers to give unbiased but beneficial commercial advice. This misconception can lead to the legal function being erroneously viewed as purely a blocker or a 'red-tape' department. But if lawyers are brought onto projects early, legal are well equipped to find intelligent solutions, that avoid costly mistakes later down the line.