Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m M a r c h 2 0 1 4 29 realistic about the commercial realities of the cost associated with in-house legal departments, especially when it comes to operating regional hubs. "Don't automatically assume down- sizing or shutting down a regional legal team equates to a cost saving," she says. "In fact, it can often be the opposite with an increased reliance on external legal service providers." Despite some of the difficulties in maintaining regional departments (e.g. cost, communication, etc.), if a business has substantial offshore operations, opting not to have a local in-house legal team "seems to be counter-intuitive to a robust risk strategy connected to the practice management of an in- house legal team." At the end of the day, Hindmarch says each jurisdiction — even ones considered similar — have their own particular legal nuances that are difficult to appreciate if you don't have person- nel on the ground. "Certainly, if organizations are looking to close or downsize regional legal teams then legal department heads need an appropriate counter-strategy in place to meet the challenges of doing business in foreign jurisdictions." importAnce of fAce time I ncreasingly complex relationships are another risk of reporting to someone outside Canada. The legal obligation may be to the people you are working with in Canada but the reporting relationship is often to a global general counsel or someone higher up the C-suite chain. "Sometimes there is the potential for those things to come into real or perceived conflict," says Fisher. "So I can see why some [in-house] may say 'I don't want to get into that. I want to look my boss in the eye and say: 'This is the advice I'm giving you and I'm not concerned about political conse- quences of a larger organization.'" The reality, he says, is if you can work at the head office of a large Canadian company you may have fewer concerns about your stability. But the fact remains there are huge numbers of subsidiaries of foreign companies in Canada. "It's the nature of the economy," he says. DuPont's Tuckett moved north to the Canadian office from HQ to take on the role of general counsel here in Canada in June 2012. Prior to that he was corporate counsel at DuPont's headquarters in Wilmington, Del., serving as commercial counsel supporting its crop protection business platform. When he was approached about the job in Toronto, he jumped at the chance. At the time, the Canadian team had six people — four lawyers and two paralegals — handling a range of legal matters from contracts to employment, IP, environ- mental law, as well as antitrust issues. He believes strongly in getting regular face time with the U.S. team and making sure for reasons of both professional growth and the health of the local legal department he gets to the head office regularly. "Even though we're close in terms of flight time, it does take a good bit of effort and planning to remain connected to your global leadership because you're not involved in the regular meetings in the U.S.," says Tuckett. "So if you want to keep abreast and you have to get yourself invited to those meetings whether by phone or, I schedule meetings with the leaders whenever I'm in town so I can raise any local issues with them." OF CANADIAN LEGAL NEWS A DAILY BLOG WWW. W CA CA CANA N DI DI D AN A LA LA LA L WY WY W ER ER ERMA MA M G. G. G. G CO COM/ M/ M/LE LEGA GALF LF LFEE EE EEDS DS [ W [ S ] POWERED BY CANADIAN LAWYER & LAW TIMES LegalFeeds-1/2-CL-Mar-14.indd 1 14-02-18 8:22 AM

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