Barton, Jeremy
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(Article) GC Perspectives
01.04.2017
In the 1990s, many management teams went through the painful process of ?rightsizing' their businesses, that euphemism for redundancies and cut-backs. During the 2010s, legal management teams have focused on ?rightsourcing', my term for having the right activity done in the right way by the right people. Gone are the days when a general counsel's side of the equation to match supply with demand boiled down to a binary mix of in-house team and external law firm. Today's general counsel (or his or her department's COO) has a wide range of options on the supply side, manifested by the hybrid sourcing models adopted by so many of us. Agility and value for money are key drivers of a hybrid model. Beyond the tried-and-tested provision of commodity legal support from LPOs and interim support from law firm secondees, we are adding lawyers-on-demand and artificial intelligence to the mix, not to mention project managers and consultants. So the question I have been asking myself recently is, what is the right constellation of providers and solutions to meet the ever-changing demands of the business, and are we rightsourced to give high value advice and decision support in the shifting contexts of law and regulation, policy and ethics? -
(Article) GC Perspectives: Who should be the culture and ethics guardian?
01.07.2017
Over the last few years, there has been much discussion on the evolution of the role of general counsel (GC). Innumerable conferences have headlined the topic. Within this ongoing conversation, many have pointed to the influence that GCs have on matters affecting the ethical wellbeing of organisations. Some have portrayed the GC as the ?guardian' of a company's culture. While this may sound appropriate enough, there is a perspective that this is precisely not how a GC should be considered. -
(Article) GC Perspectives - Getting value from consultants
01.01.2018
By definition, general counsel (GCs) offer advice on matters that go beyond the law - you could even say that they offer strategic counsel more akin to a strategy consultant than a member of the legal profession. Perhaps this is the reason why so few GCs purchase advice from strategy or management consultants. In some cases they find themselves being part of a full back-office strategic and organisation design project that feels foisted on them by their CEO in pursuit of ever-elusive efficiencies. These projects, in turn, make a GC feel uncomfortable because the people at Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, Bain or the Big 4 are not, after all, in-house lawyers so how can they really understand the legal function? -
(Article) GC Perspectives - How close to technology does the GC need to be?
01.04.2018
As a general counsel (GC), I sometimes feel that the world of legal technology is like an overstocked sweet shop where there are so many apparently delicious temptations to choose from that the best option is to leave the buying choices to your head of legal operations or, in the absence of that particular wizard, to your loyal and overworked deputy GC. After all, it is just a matter of getting the latest apps and databases rolled out to the team, isn't it - a bit like updating my iPhone? On reflection, I would say that while the picture of a sweet shop is not too far from the truth, the best reaction is certainly not to distance oneself from the decisions and implementation involved in bringing new technology to the team. -
(Article) GC Perspective - The art of collaboration
01.07.2018
The theme of collaboration as an art is championed by Jeremy Barton, in his regular GC Perspective section. He proposes a new context for collaboration at strategic and individual levels. -
(Article) GC Perspective - Getting close to regulators (but not too close)
01.10.2018
There has been a lot of focus among GCs and their teams on the subject of collaboration - collaboration within the legal market, collaboration within the business and collaboration among colleagues. There is another area, however, where GCs need to cultivate quality collaboration with the regulators of their business. The perspectives set out below are built on discussions1 with a number of GCs across a range of sectors, including financial services, consumer goods, energy, transport, professional services and technology. -
(Article) GC Perspective - Defining moments
01.01.2019
Career planning is often discussed within in-house legal departments, if only to contrast the structured career that a lawyer might have in a law firm with the more open career track that needs to be pursued within a corporate. However, for many General Counsels (GCs), their career progression and growth has invariably been achieved not through a carefully prepared plan but through a combination of accident and fortuitous timing - being in the right place at the right time - or through the experience and lessons learned from a particular situation, often a crisis. It is these pivot points in the journey to becoming a successful GC that are the defining moments in that person's career. I take the view that these defining moments should not be filed away, left to gather dust until they re-emerge in an autobiography or memoir. With an awareness and a sharing of these moments, they can be put to good use in both the individual's continued growth but also importantly in the growth of those around them and in the profession more widely.