GC's Advice For Lawyers (You Might Want to Read This)

I attended the 30th Annual Marketing Partners Forum in Southern California last month and sat in on the General Counsel Panel discussion. I get a lot out of these sessions. I haven’t been to a GC panel in a half dozen years so I was a little surprised (not really though) that the messages haven’t changed. The general counsel may change, but the themes remain surprisingly consistent: Understand our business; partner with us; be efficient; and collaborate, among others.

While the General Counsel are becoming involved in more areas of the business, especially as a result of Covid, their core responsibility remains enterprise risk. The conversation examined the evolution of the Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel roles in light of increasingly lean staffing and support and the ways in which outside counsel may be well-positioned to help bring more resources, more support, and more collaboration to the relationship.

Some of these comments might need more context. Sorry about that. These are my cryptic notes. But there are nuggets of goodness in them, nonetheless.

The General Counsel were from Sallie Mae, TMX Group, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, Inc., and Stretto.

On the GCs Changing Role in the Company:

“We have an enterprise-wide lens. As the general counsel, the CEO and I are the two C-suite executives that see the total enterprise. The other C-Suite occupants view things through the lens of their areas. But the CEO and I have a total enterprise view on things.”

“I work on everything to do with corporate strategy. I think GCs are increasingly integral to setting corporate strategy.”

“The General Counsel is increasingly filling the company spokesperson role. How things are communicated to the marketplace is increasingly falling to the legal department to determine.”

On What In-house Counsel Need From Outside Counsel:

“Outside counsel must have very strong business acumen. We need them to understand business, understand our business, and couch their advice in the context of our business. I value the ones that can do that. It makes my job easier.”

“Things that worked for other companies will not always work here.”

“We need relationships that are an extension of ourselves.”

“The highest value I get from outside counsel is when they can connect me to others. Help me find new resources, new experts. New ways to see things that I didn’t have before my relationship with them. That’s what I value.”

“How outside counsel staff matters says a lot about how you think and how much you care about my business. Staff your matters thinking about the long-term relationship, not the short-term profitability.”

“Don’t overanalyze things or spend a lot of time crafting the perfect argument in your memo. Good enough is good enough a lot of the time.”

“Think about how you can become ‘entrenched’ in our business. How can you provide such value that the business can’t operate without you.”

“We need outside counsel to always be looking ahead. Help us see around corners. Help us prepare for what might be down the road.”

“Don’t just invest in me. Invest in my direct reports. They carry the weight in my department. I don’t have the time to meet with everyone nor do I want to. I’ve organized my department and given authority to my direct reports. If they believe in you, that’s sometimes all I need to know.”

“We look for curious, fearless, resilient, and agile lawyers, both for our department and in outside counsel. There is not much creativity or flexibility in outside counsel. I value that highly when I find it.”

“Cross-functional successes are the best successes. Find ways to get outside counsel together. Be open to helping us with our special projects. Be open to working on multidisciplinary projects and help us form teams to address the big challenges we have.”

“I have 20 internal clients, all of whom think they are the most important. Responsiveness is critical to me. The speed of decision-making is important in my company. For us, it can be a competitive advantage.”

“Don’t try to pass someone off as a specialist who isn’t really knowledgeable about our problem. One example I’ll share, I was introduced to a “specialist” about an issue we were having. After speaking with him, I didn’t get any insight let alone an answer to my question. Very frustrating. Don’t put someone up as a specialist if they are not truly a specialist in the area.”

“We work in a multi-stakeholder environment. We must balance the concerns and needs of numerous stakeholders – all of whom believe they are the most important person. Be sensitive to this dynamic.”

On legal budgets:

“Inside counsel are expected to stay within their corporate budgets. Outside counsel needs to understand that our requests to reduce costs are attempts to avoid going over budget.”

“We are expected to manage costs and stay within budget. It’s a big part of our job now and a key part of our evaluations.”

“Yes. We want you to cut costs. But we also want to know how it can be streamlined.”

“Invest in us. Spend the non-billable time. You will be paid for it later.”

“We are looking for more ways to connect to customers and suppliers. Help us do that. Have skin in the game. Partner with our business.”

“The one conversation I can be sure I will have with my outside counsel will be about rate increases. I’d like to have other conversations with them.”

On General Counsel’s Top Concerns.

“What’s at the top of our list of concerns, right now? We are concerned about ESG; legal operations; corporate governance; corporate and crisis communications; cloud services and anything cyber-related; ERP; health law; employment law; government relations; and regulatory, especially the strategy function.”

If you have questions regarding this or other conversations held at the Marketing Partner Forum, I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at [email protected] or [email protected]