Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/1365049
www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse 5 How did you come to be at Google? I worked as an associate at Fasken, doing corporate commercial work that I didn't love, but after my first year, I was able to move into the technology group, where I learned a lot of business-oriented skills. The work there really helped frame the way I thought about working in the law. I learned to be as practical as possible when giving advice and not just to give a technical answer. I always try to give advice for improving a product or fixing a product that doesn't comply with laws. Those skills really helped with the move to Google in 2017. How has the ongoing pandemic crisis impacted your work? A lot of the work is the way it was before the pandemic, but there are many areas where things have shifted. We've seen a huge rise in e-commerce, and so there's been a lot of work supporting initiatives that the company has put forward to help businesses grow. Advertising has become even more important for a lot of these companies as they get online, so we have launched products to support smaller companies. How have you adapted to continue supporting the organization during the crisis? Like everyone else, we've had to learn to be flexible with our time and the time of our Q&A partners because everyone's dealing with different things family-wise or work-wise. We try to find ways to allow for connections that aren't necessarily tied to timelines and offer flexibility with scheduling. We're lucky to have a company invested in helping our employees and enabling them to be more productive. What do you like about being a mentor? One thing that is very important to me is being a mentor, both formally and informally in the profession, and particularly focusing on mentoring racialized lawyers. I have experience working in private practice and in-house, so I can offer a perspective on what that change has been like, so I really think I can help contribute to that conversation. I want to contribute my work as a mentor because this is a year of uncertainty for a lot of people — especially young lawyers coming into the profession. What other professional goals do you have for 2021? Another major area I want to focus on is leadership. I want to take on more leadership responsibilities in the work that I do in order to continue my career trajectory. I'm also excited about the idea of working on new ideas and new products. There's no shortage of new ideas and new products, so being able to work on new products with entrepreneurs in Canada would be incredible. The value of mentorship Years in the industry: 11 Areas of focus: Krishnamurti is the primary lawyer for YouTube and Play lines of business in Canada, dealing with everything from media and copyright issues to consumer protection and regulatory matters. He also supports negotiations with the Google Cloud business. Arun Krishnamurti Counsel, Google lawyers will stay the same to retain focused discussion space. In contrast, the additional expanded membership will unite all professionals in the legal system and enable those in the community to broaden their networks. The new model seeks to enhance participation and advance the goal of moving forward the business of law. In-house appreciation initiative announced by CCCA The Canadian Corporate Counsel Association has launched its new In-House Appreciation Initiative, which aims to promote words of appreciation, encouragement and professional connections amid challenges faced by the community today. Through this initiative, in-house lawyers can publicly recognize the achievements, support, mentorship and acts of kindness and efforts contributed to projects or programs of colleagues, professional acquaintances and peers within the in-house community. The new initiative will honour the positive impacts and influence of in-house lawyers on community members' lives and careers. BLG offers new suite of services Borden Ladner Gervais LLP has launched BLG Beyond, a new suite of services that grew out of a strategy for providing leasing services Nicole St-Louis developed while in-house at Loblaws Inc.'s real estate group. Beyond consists of five service centres that fall into two categories. Beyond's Managed Services include Beyond eDiscovery, Beyond Leasing and Beyond Lending. Its advisory services are Beyond Consulting and Beyond IP Strategy. St-Louis is the national leader of BLG Beyond and Beyond Leasing's national co-leader.