Canadian Lawyer InHouse

45 CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE MARCH 2018 SECOND SNAPSHOT T H E L A W Y E R Amy Avis T H E C O M P A N Y Canadian Red Cross • General counsel & vice president of risk and compliance • Joined Canadian Red Cross as university student in 2009 • Articled with Canadian Red Cross • Graduated University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, Common Law 2011 • Building out enterprise risk management strategy for Canadian Red Cross P r o f e s s i o n a l P r o f i l e for India and says that sealed it for her. "I said, 'I'm in.'" From there she progressed up through the ranks, becoming senior legal counsel. "When the former GC left the organiza - tion, I think our executive management had a choice in that moment and it was either to bring in someone external or mentor me and believe in me to do the role," says Avis. The agency chose to support Avis and in October of last year they promoted her into the GC function. "It's to the credit of the or - ganization that they did that, quite frankly," she says. Nothing in law school really prepared her for the job. Although she took international law courses, it didn't begin to ready her for her role at the Red Cross. "The courses were quite academic and high level, and talked about treaties and things that don't have a lot to do with in - ternational commercial legal issues. I often think about the fact there are conventions and treaties on what you can and cannot do, but, realistically, if you're in a country and someone holds you up at gunpoint, you're not going to argue the nuances of what they can and cannot do," she says. She didn't set out to be an in-house law - yer — the way law school is largely oriented is for private practice and the recruitment drive is toward that career path, she says. "I didn't realize a job in-house at a charity like this existed," says Avis. She got a public interest fellowship with the University of Ottawa and received a grant and had to find a humanitarian orga - nization to work with for the summer. She approached the Red Cross legal department and convinced them to take her on. "I kind of fell into it and then kind of fell in love," she says of her role at the charity. When Avis joined the Canadian Red Cross legal department there were three people and this year it now numbers eight. "It has grown and evolved quite a bit since then — our op - erations in Canada have changed so much in the last nine years," she says. "When you're drafting memos in law school, you're drafting then as you would in private practice, which is so different than how we practise law. We have to be seen to be shoulder to shoulder with the operation and business units and leveraging our un - derstanding of operations and having that really good pulse on risk and reward and being joint in the decision-making. That's so not the mentality of lawyers tradition - ally — which is to write a memo on what you can and cannot do and heavily caveat your advice, which isn't really helpful in in-house but particularly so in an emergency or a di - saster. I think even more so that disconnect is something I've had to contend with in my practice," she says. With the help of some mentors, Avis has found her own style of managing. "For me, it's to know your limit and seek out expert advise; we're not experts in every - thing and, because a lot of things we encoun- ter are so novel, I'm not shy about knowing my limitations. I know my organization and operation and I can take what they've given me and leverage it better than anyone, but certainly I don't know everything about ev - erything," she says. The Red Cross has local counsel in the jurisdictions in which it operates. Avis relies on external counsel for advice on things such as privacy protection and cybersecurity. "We absolutely need external support for the unique work that we do," she says. Like any in-house function, Avis says, she works to prove the value add to the organi - zation, but it's even more important when resources are so finite and spending on ad- ministration writ large is viewed by the pub- lic as negative in the charitable sector. "Absolutely, we try to run as lean a func- tion as we possibly can. I would say it's about being right-sized for the operations. We don't want to be too big, but we also don't want to be too lean with the view that it then materializes in later risks," she says. One of the larger projects she has been working on is the enhancement of the orga - nization's risk management framework. "We work in inherently risky environ- ments, so to me that means we have to have increasingly more discipline as to when we do and do not assume risk, and so we have invested heavily in risk management and ERM. I think just getting that engrained into the culture of the organization — not to say they aren't invested, but it's a process and that's been my main initiative. I'm happy to report it's taken off and people are really in - vested in the process," she says. Right now, she's working on a risk appe- tite statement so that when the organiza- tion has to, for example, deploy doctors for an Ebola response or is trying to figure out how to medevac someone from a situation or responding to asylum seekers coming from the U.S. because their visas are being re - voked, the organization knows how to evalu- ate its response. "For me, in any given moment or in the thick of something, the north star is the risk appetite of the organization. It's something I've invested in understanding what that risk appetite is — you have to have the clarity to set that and hold yourself accountable to it in any given moment when faced with a go or no-go decision." IH

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