Pickings - Corporate Counsel's Day 2017 (31 October 2017)

Insights, inspiration, network and simply a good time - a very well invested day!

This year’s annual CORPORATE COUNSEL’S DAY took place on 31 October 2017 as part of the newly established Law & Management Day, which for the first time included all three annual conferences, i.e. also the other two well-known conferences “Management von Anwaltskanzleien” and “Compliance Management Day”.

This new conference format offered practitioners an extraordinary selection of relevant topics in various areas, from which the participants could pick and choose at their own discretion. Further, it provided an excellent platform to share thoughts and experience with peer groups and an opportunity to network cross functions and roles. This allowed not only to look beyond own borders but to get inspiration and good food for thoughts to improve the own daily business.

This year’s conference had a special focus on small legal departments and legal departments of small enterprises, since SMEs are still representing the vast majority of all companies and therefore are qualified rightly as the “backbone of the economy”.

The program offered a big variety of speakers, all General Counsel speaking openly about their roles and challenges, and sharing their experiences and insights with the participants of the conference. The speakers were Tabea Bürgler (Bossard Group), Michael Neff (Zur Rose Group AG), Marcel K?rting (VAT Group AG), Kinga Frater (Autoneum Management AG), Urs Schwartz (Victorinox AG), Patrick P. Sch?dler (Oettinger Davidoff AG), Michael H. Ghaffar (Molecular Health GmbH), Carsten Lüers (Verizon Enterprise Solutions), Daniel Petitpierre (SIG Combibloc Group AG) and Bruno Mascello (University of St.Gallen).

The speakers made clear that legal departments of SMEs - often staffed with one person only - face different challenges compared to big legal departments of international blue chip companies. A first in-house lawyer is usually hired in very interesting times for the company, for example when expanding and growing to new levels of size or when planning an IPO. However, when becoming the first in-house counsel of a company and receiving the mandate to build a legal department from scratch, the speakers recommended to apply a careful approach during the first 100 days being in charge. The initial time should be dedicated in particular to get to know the members of the senior management team and board of directors, to understand the business and processes of the company including the particular culture, to meet outside counsel having served the company so far, and to get familiar with any applicable regulatory rules. The key factor to survive and succeed the first 100 days was less about delivering a lot of legal advice (“the company survived also the previous 128 years without you”) but to show the right behavior and soft skills, such as being visible and approachable, being perceived as an enabler of the business, showing willingness in becoming an equal member of the existing team, and to stay flexible all the time. As a first legal counsel one should not jump to conclusions but rather take first the time to listen and ask, and to adapt to the new environment. After a first “warming period” there will be still sufficient time to continuously develop new guidelines and compliance standards, implement contract templates, and establish a legal risk management process. Building a small legal department has been compared with running a start-up business, on the one hand having a lot of room and freedom to build something from scratch and to consider one’s own needs, preferences and taste. However, it also became transparent, that on the other hand creating a new set-up and being very close to the business (“having a seat at the table”) is accompanied by new responsibilities as well, which has been discussed in the panel addressing the topic of independence.

The overall conference day closed with a firework, a very impressive key note of Richard Susskind giving an outlook on the legal profession based on the existing and expected technological developments which in particular will become relevant for the legal markets as well. Is it now the End of Lawyers? and what will be Tomorrow's Lawyers? 

Equipped with a big bouquet of new impressions the participants shared some last thoughts during a relaxed farewell drink which offered a further opportunity to build new bonds and relationships with the participants and speakers of the day.

SAVE THE DATE - 25 October 2018 - for the next annual conference Law & Management Day, including the three conferences Corporate Counsel’s Day, Management von Anwaltskanzleien and Compliance Management Day!

Looking forward to seeing you next year there again!

And if you meanwhile have any further input to the topic, questions or suggestions for any future conference themes, please do not hesitate to contact me anytime ([email protected]).

Your Law & Management Team

Executive School of the University of St.Gallen