Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50875
because the board sees general counsel as being independent to the corpo- ration. This reporting line is critical and, certainly in Canada and North America, that is more likely to be the case than in other parts of the world. FISHER: I see this issue less, per- haps than others, of the importance of organization chart reporting lines. To me, it is the issue of access and access is earned. So, I don't care if I am the jun- ior lawyer on a file, if I have something to say to the president that needs to be said, the measure of the success is that the president is prepared to hear that from whatever source that may come from. The fact that I can't see you because you don't report to me, is not the right answer, so I think there are some lines. KREBS: Well, it strikes me to your point of, if you aspire to the role of trusted advisor or persuasive counsel- lor — certainly trusted advisor — if they don't know your name, you prob- ably haven't achieved that role yet. . . . And to come full circle to the start of the conversation about showing value and talking about value and pushing, with respect to your outside counsel, both of you or, in fact, all of you have made the point about how you have to do it internally, as well. There are many ways, either through the advice that you provide, through the money that you save and on the legal side, through the things that you prevent, whatever it is, so you have to have your seat at the table, but . . . it's not like you are taking out advertisements and saying, "come to me," sort of thing. But you create for yourself or for your department, you create your own brand. You have whatever that brand is, and it might be trusted advisor. FISHER: I don't think it may amount to a billboard, but I don't think counsel should be afraid to be ardent self- promoters for themselves and for their departments, and a large part of this is not just "Here's the money we spent, and here's the result we got," more importantly on occasion is engaging in this kind of activity by having your inside counsel at the front line. These are the situations that would have hap- pened that we avoided, and those would have had far more disastrous conse- quences. We need to say that we are in control of the design of the game, and that we have worked around to provide solutions for problems that would have happened if we hadn't been proactive in cutting them off beforehand. And that is a critical role. We have to continue to reinforce that because, ... to help you navigate legal obstacles, outside your window and around the world... Untitled-1 1 INHOUSE AUGUST 2011 • 6/27/11 9:10:19 AM 21