Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
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LAW DEPARTMENT MANAGEMENT Lifelong learning Time-starved lawyers face hard choices in keeping up with their continuing professional development needs. By Robert Todd Perhaps more than any other vocation, law demands lifelong learning from practitioners. Of course, lawyers face similarly unprecedented demands for their time, making it that much more difficult to meet the demand for constant retooling. That's why Alex Shorten — a former vice president and general counsel at both Imperial Parking Corp. and Weyer- haeuser Canada — recommends leaders of any in-house law department, regardless of size, proactively plan their team's continuing professional development goals for the year ahead. For those operating on a calendar year, it means sitting down sometime in the fourth quarter to consider the department's objectives for the upcoming year. He says the biggest mistake in-house counsel make when it comes to continuing educa- tion is poor planning. It leaves them scrambling late in the year to meet law society-mandated hours, and sees them sitting for hours listening to content that is only tangentially relevant to them. And they're wasting company money while doing so. Shorten notes the organization may have successor plans for individuals within the law department, which could see them take on senior management roles. A lawyer viewed as a possible target for those plans would need to prioritize CPD sessions aimed at areas such as leadership, financial literacy, and general business knowledge. At the same time, if the company appears headed toward a merger or acquisition in the year ahead, and its in-house lawyers aren't up to speed on that area of law, it's essential for them to take a session concentrating on M&A early the following year. And Shorten, who is now a senior associate counsel at Bull Housser & Tupper LLP in Vancouver, says that should be the case even if the company is relying on outside counsel for that type of work. "At least you know what it's about and how to relate to the internal people that you will perhaps be the go-between with outside counsel," he says. "You can just pick any topic you want that's relevant to what's likely to happen in the upcoming year." While CPD can be viewed as a unique opportunity to retool and grow as a professional, many lawyers recoil at the thought of even having to fulfil the bare-minimum law society-mandated hours. Shorten doesn't believe fulfilling those bare-minimum requirements is close to enough for INHOUSE JUNE 2011 • 39