Five Questions for Willie Hernandez, Deputy GC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

In our new 5 Questions to a General Counsel series, I had the opportunity to interview Willie Hernandez. This series is meant to highlight in-house attorneys who have established themselves in their career, and who have advice for associates looking to work in-house, for companies that are trying to create a fledging legal department, and for other in-house attorneys who want to know about experiences at other companies. If there is someone you would like to see profiled, please recommend to rachel@carringtonlegal.com.

Willie Hernandez is the Vice President, Deputy General Counsel at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He has had roles at IBM, where he spent three years living in Shanghai, China and led IBM’s legal team spanning several continents, and at Amazon (Lab126). At Hewlett Packard Enterprise, he leads legal support for the growth areas of software, cloud, and IoT solutions. Willie sits on several nonprofit boards, and he serves as the Regional President of the Hispanic National Bar Association.

           1. As an associate, you focused on tort and commercial litigation. How did you market yourself as a young attorney and transition to more technology-focused work in-house?

Companies hiring early-career lawyers do not typically hire a candidate based on any particular skill or experience; rather, they hire them based on their potential. They look for candidates who demonstrate good judgment, integrity and client skills.

I think my case is a good example of this. While I spent my first three years in a traditional law firm litigation practice at Jackson Walker LLP in Dallas, IBM hired me into a transactional role. IBM hired me for my potential to serve the business, not specifically any case I litigated or any background in technology (which I did not have). 

This is not to say my litigation experience was irrelevant. To the contrary, it was through my litigation experience that I developed strong client skills and the ability to weigh issues and apply good judgment, skills that are equally applicable to future roles I would take on throughout my career. 

           2. As a young lawyer, did you have mentors or sponsors? If so, who and how did their advice shape your career?

As a first-generation college student, I was able to navigate college and law school by studying and working hard. But when I started practicing, I did not know how to navigate the professional world because growing up I was not exposed to professionals or the professional world. That’s where having great mentors came in.

My first mentor was a litigation partner at Jackson Walker, who gave me 80% of my work. He may not have seen himself as my mentor, but this partner invested time in me, and shared stories from his professional career that taught me not just about client work but also about navigating the corporate environment. Other mentors along the way, both formal and informal ones, put me in positions to learn new skills and grow as a professional, coached me through my development, told me when I made mistakes, and generally gave me a view of what the road ahead can look like and how to get there.  

You can be the smartest lawyer in the company, but if you don’t know how to navigate the environment, internally and externally, you will be limited in what you accomplish. Good mentors can help great lawyers become great leaders.

           3. In your various roles, you have managed or even help create legal departments. What are your thoughts on building successful and diverse teams?

You first need to understand what the business needs from the legal team. At a minimum, you need to fill the team with the right skill mix. But, then you want to find the right people, people who are passionate about the business and their role in supporting the business, and people who demonstrate integrity and good judgment. When you build a team with people you trust, and who trust you, you are well prepared to provide excellent client service. 

I also believe teams are stronger when the members have different backgrounds and experiences, so diversity is important. It’s diversity that provides teams balance, enabling them to look at problems from different perspectives and, in turn, offer more innovative solutions. That said, you only see this benefit when you build a culture based on inclusion, where every person, regardless of their background is encouraged to participate in all aspects of the group. Every person must value the team’s diversity and understand their own role in building an inclusive culture.  

           4. What are the traits and training necessary to be successful in your role?

In my role, I need to trust and be trusted by the members of the leadership team with whom I serve. I need to demonstrate integrity and use good judgment. I need to invest in the relationships I have with colleagues across the company and my own legal team. At the end of the day, I need to lead by example every day for me to be successful in my role. 

In terms of substantive training, this starts on Day 1 of your practice and occurs every day following. I have spent 20+ years at large global technology companies (IBM, Amazon and Hewlett Packard Enterprise), so my experiences exposed me to functional areas of a legal department that I need to understand to be successful.

The training that takes more deliberate effort is focused on the professional skills needed to be successful, such as emotional intelligence, communication, and client skills – the skills needed to build trust with the people around you. I recommend investing time learning and practicing these skills as early in a career as possible because over time these skills will separate the great leaders from the great lawyers.   

           5. As someone who has over 15 years of experience working in-house for technology-related transactions and services, how have you seen this particular industry change since the early 2000s?

The industry has evolved tremendously and continues to evolve. The technology industry was once dominated by hardware and software products, where enterprises were the biggest users of IT. Consumers consumed very little compared to today. The internet changed how we interact with each other and companies. And now, with just about everything connecting to networks and gathering and exchanging data, we live in a global data-driven economy where data is constantly gathered from every device that surrounds us and people and companies consider how to leverage that data.

It’s an exciting time for lawyers. At each step in this evolution in technology, the role lawyers play in the industry has become more critical. We still need to protect IP and drive IT development and sales (as well as all the traditional support lawyers provide like litigation, M&A, employment, etc.), but companies are being challenged by a regulatory landscape that is getting more complex and disruptive to their business strategies. Whether its complex data security regulations (that can vary by region), tariffs, emerging laws aimed at regulating how companies use location data, or protectionist laws masked as security regulations, governments are reacting to the changing technology landscape, making it more difficult for companies to execute their strategies globally, and lawyers are needed to help them navigate these obstacles.