Canadian Lawyer InHouse

23 CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 Master the law. Canada's leading law school offers a graduate degree in four unique streams: Business Law Canadian Law in a Global Context Innovation, Law and Technology Law of Leadership Apply today. Visit gpllm.law.utoronto.ca Questions? gpllm@utoronto.ca Untitled-8 1 2018-06-12 12:47 PM when working with customers' private data in light of new European Union General Data Protection Regulations and PIPEDA regulations. Legal is also partnering a lot more with IT this year on major projects and initiatives from a security perspective. INHOUSE: Are there specifi c regulatory challenges you have to deal with? SIDHU: We have had to develop a very ro- bust process for working with insurance in- dustry regulators; especially when it comes to our North American business where each state and province has varying requirements for not only our business as a whole but for individual insurance agents and adjusters. Insurance regulators tend to work very fast! This requires us to work closely with our insurance and human resources teams; en- suring that they are well educated on the re- quirements for initial licensing and renewals for individual agents [and] adjusters, among other topics. Ethical workplace behaviour, stress management, security awareness and privacy are active issues in the company. INHOUSE: What are the major issues you are focused on for the business units next year? SIDHU: We recognize that "legal culture" is different globally. This has always been challenging for us as we are headquartered in Canada with European operations. Under- standing the people piece and the employ- ment culture has been a huge challenge for us. We now understand that one size does not fi t all, and litigation and legal norms are per- ceived differently in each country and/or state or province. This is something we are going to be pursuing on an ongoing basis. We are going to work toward recognizing culturally based perceptions of leadership and collabor- ation. We are also going to continue to build strategies that fall in line with local culture. That also ties in with diversity and inclusion. In addition to this, many of the activities our business units engage in involve regulated sectors and we're really trying to instill a culture of "compliance by design," which involves increased consultations between our Legal team and our business units in the infancy stages of new projects and initiatives. Through this, we aim to increase awareness and comprehension among the teams about the importance of ensuring all our processes meet legal requirements and improve effi - ciency and clarity during the planning stages. INHOUSE: What is your approach to managing your resources with respect to external counsel? SIDHU: We are moving away from one or two big fi rms and using local counsel has proved to be benefi cial for us. They under- stand the norms and cultures of the juris- diction and have been able to provide a more realistic opinion and sound advice — much less corporate. It has also proved to be less expensive. IH

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