Practical LawConferences

Every business is distinctive and in each case, the legal team has a slightly different role. But there are certain responsibilities the general counsel is expected to bear and the smaller the executive team, the more likely each executive is to carry more hats.  Hear our panel of top executives discuss what they expect from the head of their legal team in their businesses.

• Managing and balancing multiple responsibilities
• Combining legal and non-legal responsibilities: where are the conflicts and how do you manage them?
• Accepting and avoiding new responsibilities: how to fix the  boundaries of your role
• Making the most of different reporting lines: how can your manager support you?
• Influencing at a higher level
• Working effectively with different parts of the business
• Conducting skills audits: what skills are needed for each hat and how do you gain them?

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When the SRA launched its statement on regulatory reform in May 2014, it said it wanted to make sure that it was regulating small firms proportionately and doing what it could do support them. But how much of what the SRA does truly applies to leaders of small and medium legal teams? And how does it affect the in-house lawyer?

• SRA compliance: what does it mean to you and your team and what ways can you ensure you’re compliant?
• How can disciplined matter management help you manage your team and work?
• Incorporating pro bono work in your role and within your team
• Techniques for risk management – identifying and mitigating risks
• A reminder about privilege: the clients’ right, but only when being advised by currently regulated practitioners – what does this mean in practice?

Often, as the head of the legal department, you are also responsible for managing external relationships with regulators, shareholders and trade associations among others. What are the best ways of identifying the relationships that you should be developing and what you need from those relationships? From strengthening and maintaining those relationships and ensuring you’re in a strong position, to negotiating and liaising with key internal and external stakeholders.

• Identifying and prioritising your relevant external relationships
• Managing your needs and goals for key relationships
• Achieving internal stakeholder buy in, alignment, commitment and resource
• Skills and resources needed by you and your team
• Establishing realistic timelines and goals: managing expectations and outlining methods of measurement
• Pros and cons: working with and through formal and informal trade groups
• Establishing a management feedback and reporting communication line

It’s key to familiarise yourself with the way your business uses technology in different functions, not only so you can ensure the business applies all the relevant and necessary law and so that you can deal with e-discovery, subject data access requests and dawn raids effectively, but also so you can identify potentially opportunities to utilise it for you and your team. As a smaller team, you can often be more nimble and faster with implementing new systems, how can you utilise your size to your strength?

• Reasons why you should understand corporate technology deployed by your company
• Areas where you could help shape and influence the business’ IT strategy: from records management and training tools, to penetration testing and cloud services
• Leveraging the company’s technology to your advantage
• Leveraging your team’s size to your advantage: the challenges and advantages of smaller numbers (economies of scale, licence limits)
• How to use existing technology and software effectively through lateral thinking
• How to re-appropriate software and other programmes from different parts of the business to suit your needs
• What other resources are available and suitable? How could they support you and your team?
• Leveraging law firm and other third party resources

Utilising external providers effectively is pivotal to ensure efficiency and cost-effectiveness and is increasingly seen by corporate management as a demonstration of your business savviness and proactivity. Hear from our panel how you can optimise the relationship between the in-house legal team and external counsel. Ask them your challenging questions and engage in an open discussion regarding the ways general counsel and external counsel can work together for mutual benefit and the different ways they might adjust to suit your team size.

• How are smaller teams treated differently from large legal teams?
• Outcome focused: what are you trying to achieve and what kinds of suppliers do you need to do that
• The blocks and enablers on both sides: how to get over the line and past the teething trouble stage and build a long-term relationship
• What can you do to be the perfect client and why should you try?
• Why understanding how external providers operate and what their drivers are can lead to a better result
• Briefing and supervising your external providers and getting them to work collaboratively

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Amid the multiple responsibilities of a general counsel, you are also responsible for the resource mapping, hiring, welfare, development, retention and succession planning of a team of professionals. What makes a great leader? What are the skills you need?

• How is leading a small or medium team different from a large team? What are the challenges
• Having a clear departmental strategy from start to finish: what you should be considering
• How does your departmental strategy feed in to your resourcing decisions?
• Managing in, managing up, managing across and managing out – keeping your team renewed and challenged to meet both theirs and the business’ needs and best interests
• Leading a team and leveraging different resourcing models
• Motivating your team: what development opportunities can you offer with limited budget?

This session is delivered by a qualified PRINCE2 trainer.

Join us for this practical workshop exploring some of the factors to consider when project managing.

• How can you ensure quality is not compromised under time and cost pressures?
• What are the techniques for measuring quality?
• How can a PRINCE2 project process in particular help the legal process and team? When is it suitable?

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One of the biggest challenges for general counsel is measuring their output and the value they add. Although you think the business can’t function without you, sometimes it’s unclear exactly what value the legal team adds. At other times, the measurements are often too focused on cost savings and mechanical factors.

• Covering the first principles: what should you measure? What are you trying to show? Who are you trying to demonstrate to? Why? What should you be delivering?
• Making sense of the data: how to demonstrate what you need to show
• Minimising the pain, maximising the gain: effort to reward ratio
• Measuring the team as a whole – holistic verses department function focused measures
• Number crunching: using metrics to show productivity

This session is Senn Delaney approved and is delivered by an approved facilitator.

Join us for this experiential and interactive workshop illustrating a quick and simple technique that can be used to increase employees’ performance and their sense of fulfilment through structured coaching and feedback.

•  Gain positive experience receiving and giving feedback
• Develop your skills in providing more constructive feedback to others in your business and elsewhere
• The different ways to ask for feedback
• Dispel the beliefs that prevent people from providing feedback to others
• Demonstrate that coaching and feedback, if done correctly, can raise people’s spirits and help them be even more effective

As a legal manager, you are often expected to know exactly what’s on the horizon and consider how the business should prepare for it ahead of when it happens. This session will consider what it truly means to in-house counsel to horizon scan and what the different approaches are as well as a brief summary of some of the key dates and changes over the next year.

• Why does horizon scanning matter to you and your department?
• Who owns change? How does your business identify and prepare for legal developments?
• What are the processes you can have in place to manage horizon scanning?
• What are the top highlights and key changes expected in the UK, Europe and internationally?

Join a selection of external providers at our champagne roundtables to discuss the key developments affecting your business in an informal setting. Take the opportunity to share experiences and discuss in detail different solutions and suggestions on how to implement necessary and effective change.