Canadian Lawyer InHouse

JULY 2016 16 INHOUSE accused of. Our external spend is driven by business objectives. We are a company that puts innovation at the core of every- thing that we do and so that means we're constantly trying out new business models and new technologies, and, of course, the regulatory environment for payments is changing as well — that drives the external spend, I think, far more than "Do we need to increase growth internally in Canada?" THOUIN: I think we're probably in a similar situation where we have a combination of increasing growth and increasing compli- ance so my function is also driven by those requirements. As we make decisions about head count, some of the things we look at is the total spend. I also try to keep it sepa- rate; but for the people that I have conver- sations with, they don't always look at it as separate and that's normal, because to them it's the fi nal bottom line. But it's not just the actual number at the bottom of your fi nan- cial statement; it's the value that the person you would hire would give you within the company. You have to talk about value; you can't just talk numbers. I was able to build the relationship with our business partners in-house to show that having an in-house lawyer adds tremendous value, particularly if you're in a regulated area like ours. SILVERBERG: We operate under really tight fi nancial constraints. It's a very competi- tive business. When you're selling com- puter hardware, margins can be pretty slim so we're always very tight in terms of how we manage our budget and head count. I will say the Canadian legal team is incred- ibly lean for the size of the business that we own and manage. We're the gold standard globally for other countries in the organi- zation because our department can be half the size of comparable organizations around the world. We really work hard to maintain what we have and do the most with very limited resources. I don't see growing my department in the near term. SOCCIO: Historically, it's always been a one- person position for the legal function. We focus on building key relationships with law fi rms and managing legal affairs as best we can and the type of legal work that Navistar Canada is involved in doesn't really warrant a large department because it's defendant- side litigation on the product liability side • INHOUSE: Are you looking to add lawyers to your legal departments this year or make reductions? YOUNG: We just went through a separation from eBay last July. Two things are at play in our company today — we're replacing roles that we lost in the separation, and sec- ondly, now that we're once again a public company we're going through an organic maturation process, which requires that we look at growing functions in a different way than we have in the past. So we are in a growth phase. • INHOUSE: Do you have to justify the addition of new lawyers to the department against external legal spending? YOUNG: I try and keep those separate be- cause there's a risk, I think, that you're jus- tifying internal growth, with an external spend budget, which you don't want to be 11th Annual Canadian Lawyer InHouse General Counsel Roundtable Visit canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse to see our video coverage of these topics: Managing in-house, online June 27 Managing external counsel, online July 4 ůƚĞƌŶĂƟǀĞĨĞĞĂƌƌĂŶŐĞŵĞŶƚƐ͕online July 11 Handling RFPs, online July 28 Sponsored by: ǁǁǁ͘ǁĞŝƌĨŽƵůĚƐ͘ĐŽŵ

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