Canadian Lawyer

April 2009

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MANAGING PARTNER Setting up in Mexico C Q Q Q I could go on at length about the culture. I think you are absolutely right, every company has a different culture. We sell, basically, goods that people want to buy, and so we try to make it fun for the customer and our slogan is "have fun while being the best." We try to translate that to the employee experience as well. Q Recruiting is an art to some degree, you are looking for a fit as well as qualifications. In retail, especially in consumer electronics, but in all areas of retail, you have to be able to turn on a dime, move quickly, dispense extremely in Mexico? There are two lawyers there. They have a dual reporting line, I have oversight, so yes they do answer to me, but they also have reporting to the country president. I think the most challenging part besides the difference in language [was] the difference in culture and the difference in legal system. They are not common law, they are based on civil law. Those were the three most challenging things, different culture, different lan- guage, and different legal systems. Q Best Buy Canada's in-house counsel is going international. BY KELLY HARRIS atherine Smith is the vice president of legal affairs and government relations for Best Buy Canada Ltd. based in Vancouver. Prior to joining Best Buy, she was senior counsel with TD Bank in British Columbia. In Canada, she supervises a team of eight, including three other lawyers. She has also recently been tasked with setting up a legal department for Best Buy in Mexico and talks to Canadian Lawyer about the challenge. practical advice, so we look for that type of person. And there is a casualness about our culture too, and by casualness I mean it's casual dress, nobody dresses in suits. Very different from banking. The world of consumer electron- ics was go, go, go. The learning curve was straight up. I was working with areas of law that I have never dealt with before and it was sink or swim. Q No not at all. They have retail back- grounds. We were very fortunate in having hired two experienced lawyers who have experience in the retail sector in Mexico. They are used to the pace, they already have a background in some of the areas that you would expect, such as advertising law and vendor contracts and that kind of thing. Q We deal with litigation in Canada, we don't have any litigation in Mexico, but there will be consumer mat- ters that will take place. We don't out- source much of our litigation at all, most of it is what I would call consumer litiga- tion so it is . . . within the small claims level and we would handle that internally. Now, whether we do that for Mexico is another matter. . . . One thing we've noticed with our Mexican legal affairs is we are doing a lot of permits and licences www. Catherine Smith . . . and those would ordinarily not be done within the legal departments in Canada and the U.S., but there seems to be an increased requirement for that kind of thing in many of the Mexican matters that we face, especially with leasing and municipal permits, so we have our law- yers taking care of those. Q The one thing I should maybe frame up for you . . . is [why is] this being done out of Canada and not the States? The way that it is structured at the moment is Canada is part of [the] inter- national group and we have obviously the Future Shop brand and the Best Buy brand and we were the first international acquisition that Best Buy made, so you have got what Best Buy does, and I think it is a very good idea [to] try and . . . lever- age the capabilities of the people right across the company. So for example, I speak fluent French and Spanish, and so I was asked if I would help out with the Mexican team and there are others that have been asked to help out with China. To be honest, as far as job satisfaction goes for me it keeps things fresh, it makes it exciting and jazzes things up. To read more of CATHERINE SMITH'S interview with Canadian Lawyer, visit us online at canadianlawyermag.com mag.com APRIL 2009 13

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