GC: You’ve been on a quite a legal journey throughout your career, starting at Clifford Chance and now leading the legal function at Airbus. Did you always imagine yourself moving in-house?
In-house life: John Harrison, Airbus
A tangled web – innovation, IP and patent trolls
There is no substitute for a good idea
In its most broad sense, that sentiment has been the foundation for intellectual property protections dating back as far as the Ancient Greeks. While not codified in law, the premise held was that by awarding effective monopolies to novel ideas, new concepts and developments could be shared with the world without fear of duplication. That concept evolved over centuries, as the relative protections afforded by intellectual property legislation developed into what we now know as modern patent law.
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Dissenting perspectives
In September, GC began its latest series of Dissenting Perspectives events, once again held in tandem with RPC. The series aims to take a different angle in considering the role and challenges faced by modern GCs and senior in-house lawyers. For this session we were considering how in-house lawyers can navigate one of the most ubiquitous and tricky concepts of the 21st century – personal brand.
Leading the law department: hire the best
For the inside counsel revolution to succeed, the General Counsel must follow a basic dictum: Hire the best. The key to the legal function’s credibility with the CEO and senior line executives is to seek broad-gauge lawyers who are outstanding technical experts, wise counselors and effective leaders to occupy the top specialist jobs in the company and to be general counsel in the main operating divisions. Placing the best people in senior lawyer positions across the company also has great ripple effects, as these individuals, in turn, build their specialty or business legal groups through other outstanding hires.
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Change is imminent
Alison Gaskins’ remit on joining Barclays’ legal department was formidable. Group general counsel Bob Hoyt told her in no uncertain terms, ‘I want to be able to have a conversation with my CEO which clearly states what the legal department is doing for its internal customers, including what it costs and why it costs what it does.’ A former management consultant with over ten years’ experience in COO and change management roles at Barclays, even Gaskins was initially daunted by the scope of this request.
Pioneering not preservation
Have you ever done a Google search for quotes on lawyers? They. Are. Horrible. This quip is fairly typical:
‘It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.’
Myths and millennials – separating buzzword from bunk
As the role of the general counsel in today’s modern corporation continues to evolve, the roles and responsibilities they are expected to fulfil has expanded exponentially. Chief among that growing mandate has been an expectation that the GC is not only an expert in their trained profession, but an effective manager and business partner.
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GC Powerlist: Ireland Teams
The recent launch of the GC Powerlist: Ireland Teams, hosted in association with McCann FitzGerald in Dublin, was attended by a host of companies operating across the country including Ulster Bank, Facebook, EY, An Post and Ryanair.
Sailing the wind of change: leading the in-house legal function into a world of acceleration
Until 2003, when the Geneva-based sailing syndicate established by Ernesto Bertarelli won the America’s Cup, landlocked Switzerland and the Swiss had not been considered part of the leading seafaring nations. The very fact that the sail-boat Alinghi has won the Auld Mug twice is a great example of how things can change, and that new players from non-traditional backgrounds can enter and re-define any given playing field.
‘I am Sparta!’ ‘No, we are Sparta!’
Working at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) wouldn’t suit every lawyer. If you yearn for walls spotted by Damien Hirst, encrusted with crackly oils of senior partners from days of yore or plastered with impassioned corporate values, you’d be disappointed. Desks groaning with gonks, or festooned with file boxes or framed pictures of you losing your lunch on the Corkscrew? Colour, of any kind? Ha, you wish. The overall effect is a little, er, Spartan.