Every week at Crafty Counsel, we get to know more about one of the members of our in-house legal community. This week, we round up their thoughts on working in-house to explore their favourite parts of their roles, and the biggest challenges of being an in-house counsel.
The best parts of working in-house
Being at the heart of the business
Many of our in-house legal community members say the connection to the businesses’ core is the best part of being in-house.
Emily Garvey is General Counsel at the Westcoast Group. She notes that her favourite part of her role is getting to work with every aspect of the business. “There’s nothing that legal doesn’t touch.” Emily says this has allowed her to learn a lot about the business itself alongside being an in-house lawyer.
Similarly, Contis’ General Counsel Adeola Adebonojo is fascinated by business strategy. She even took the time to complete an MBA, which can be put to work as an in-house counsel. “It’s hard doing the day-to-day and supervising that. But you see everything that affects the business and having your colleagues wanting to hear your view is a huge attraction.”
You see everything that affects the business and having your colleagues wanting to hear your view is a huge attraction
Adeola adebonojo
Shifting your mindset as an in-house lawyer to be more strategic
How can you be at the heart of decision making as an in-house lawyer? Liiv’s General Counsel Harj Gill shares his advice for being more being more strategic. “Part of the strategic conversation about the direction of the business” is more than just bringing legal skills to the table. It requires a “mindset shift, thinking more like an executive sponsor”.
This mindset drives in-house lawyers to have a thorough knowledge of all departments within an organisation. Harj believes this will “only enriches your experience as a good adviser”. Having a big-picture view means “you have more visibility to influence a conversation or to bring in considerations that may have not otherwise been factored in”.
No two days are the same for in-house lawyers
This is particularly true for those who run a tight legal team, such as Alex O’Connell. He heads up a lean team, with only one other lawyer, and together they “manage the whole business”. Alex says he loves being part of a company that prides itself on “being quite lean”. It means that his days are “ very full and very varied” and he rarely does “the same thing twice”.
Challenges of working in-house
Being an in-house counsel is not without its challenges, especially in businesses which have fairly small or new legal functions.
Workloads vs. resources
Resource is the biggest challenge when you’re running a small legal team, says Medigold Health’s General Counsel Sebastian Goldsmith. “There are so many things I want to do to make the business more efficient but you can’t implement them all.” This is especially true when dealing with “day-to-day” legal tasks or with a lean budget. He is strategic about how he spends his resources; and shares how he is looking into different matter management platforms currently. But, he is careful about adopting the wrong legal tech or too hastily.
It all depends on what the return on investment is
sebastian goldsmith
Showcasing the value of in-house legal to the business
Ben Miller-Bridgland is Senior In-House Counsel at Moneybox and says that because his legal team is still in its infancy. This infancy means there is still work to be done in integrating with the rest of the business. Ben is working to help the business understand what ought to be sent to legal and what legal doesn’t need to be part of.
“There is a tendency in many businesses to rush to Legal for most things, if there are words on a page.” He says that it can be “tricky to set boundaries and allocate whose responsibility is whose, but it’s all part of empowering the business.”
Creating healthy boundaries when working in-house
While some see it as a positive, being such a close part of the business can be a challenge. Emily, for example, says that there is only one client when you work in-house. “You live, eat and breathe your client and there’s no getting away from it”.
Hui Min Langridge is Head of Legal at Aptos. She shares how it has been essential for her to create a distance between her own self-worth, identity, and work. “If you have a healthy mindset about yourself, then a lot of these internal or external conflicts get viewed in a more positive light. It gives you the resilience to face these challenges head-on.”
In-house lawyers should seek to find a healthy balance between the needs of the business and one’s own needs. Ed Walker is General Counsel at Abellio. Ed believes that at the end of the day, we should take our jacket off and tell ourselves we did a good job. This means we will be ready to “take on the next challenge”. Ed believes that without this, working in challenging and high-pressure situations will have an inevitable impact on a person’s mental health and well-being.
Hanging up your jacket requires you to also put down your phone and laptop so that you can truly switch off before the start of another busy day. Difficult to do in practice, but vital to survive, he says.
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