Canadian Lawyer InHouse

I have a senior team of five vice presidents who report up to me and I am actively mentoring all of them, and I think all of them are potential candidates for my succession. I think with all due modesty we have serious candidates in-house. David Allgood, RBC hire the best external and internal legal talent and focus on creating value and mitigate risk. I felt if I could achieve those two things then alignment and credibility would be built and those themes have been consistent in our department in the last few years. MARK JOHNSON: I am the first general counsel at Infusion and I started two years ago. They had two other staff, but there was dissatisfaction between the sales function and legal. Particularly they felt legal was slowing things down. One of the first things I did was walk around with the stakeholders and listen to what they wanted and then try to implement what they were saying. The other challenge was the senior leadership team was very young. They had never worked with lawyers before. HARRIET LEWIS: In the 25 years since I joined the university it's doubled in size in terms of numbers of students and the square footage of the classrooms. There was a lot of legal activity on the horizon. It was very unusual in Canada at the time to have in-house counsel at the university because all of the money the university had was supposed to support the academic side, but as the world became more litigious and focused on rights it became apparent legal advice was needed by all parts of the university. The case was made that we needed help and it became recognized as adding value, then we got the resources to have additional lawyers. 20 • a u gu st 2013 ARIF AHMAD: I joined Re:Sound two- and-a half-years ago, and when I arrived the interesting thing about the structure of the legal department was how it worked with external counsel. It allows us internally to build up in-house expertise while working with external counsel. We are a group of five. We have three lawyers, a paralegal, and the coordinator. ness mean it is a combination of our work and the business partners as well. JOHNSON: When you say business case David, do you have to compare salary to cost and saving in external fees? ALLGOOD: We have various boxes that need to be filled out and one is: What is the alternative? Which is roughly how much do you think the hours would be over the particular year? So we do a cost comparison to outside counsel and tend to hire lawyers in the three-to-five-year range. We price that out accurately and compare it to what we think the outside legal fees would be. Sometimes you look at that and you might say, well, maybe we can go outside but another aspect of the business case is the view that to deliver effectively they need to be sitting beside the business. TRACEY DURAND: I have been the first lawyer into an organization three times — I sometimes say I am a glutton for punishment. Most recently with Sodexo I came in and they had been receiving legal support, but I would say the legal support, because there was not someone on the ground here in Canada, was viewed somewhat as optional. Sometimes that was okay but sometimes it was optional in areas where it should not have been optional. I too had to establish the value legal could bring to driving the business, and my experience has been that it really is the thing that helps you to gain credibility. INHOUSE: Do you have to make a business case each time you want to add a lawyer in-house? ALLGOOD: Every time. That became part of the discipline and the context in growing the group and trying to grow in areas we felt the business partnership was important. We have it quite structured that it requires the case to be made by the lawyer and a particular group or leader in that particular group, but it also requires the business partners to sign off. Unless it's in strict legal areas such as regulatory affairs where I may make the business case, but the product lawyers and other lawyers that work actively with the busi- INHOUSE AHMAD: I think more and more, organizations are bringing expertise inhouse, rather than paying for it externally, but the expectation is there that there is a savings that comes with that. I just filled a maternity leave position for the year and it wasn't that there was opposition but I still had to make the case for how it makes sense and how that person will be utilized. DURAND: I've absolutely had to make the business case but I have been extremely lucky. I have actually had other departments make the business case either for me or with me and quite often it has been the sales department, which is interesting. I think if you can get to that environment where you have other departments supporting you, that is really helpful because it shows you are adding that value and they see the value of the function and what you're bringing to the table. LEWIS: I have partnered with other areas in the university in making the case — in both the research area and also human resources, in making the business case where we needed more help. They've been able to contribute financially. I will hire

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