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In what ways do you see the in-house legal role evolving in your region over the next few years?

Norske Shell is present in four locations; Kristiansund, Aukra, Oslo and its headquarters in the Stavanger area in Norway. My impression is that both the private and public sector seem to have a growing appetite to expand their organisations with in-house legal support. We can see this for example in smaller municipalities. I believe that is true also for the private sector where a combination of more local and international regulations, in combination with higher expectations on compliance and risk management, justifies such development. I also believe that in-house lawyers are very well placed to better understand the business and risks, and there may be a cost benefit with reduced need for external counsel and better management of external counsel. With respect to management of external counsel, I expect to see more use of alternative fee arrangements like fixed price, salary caps and incentive schemes, and perhaps also more integration between external and internal lawyers.

The Shell Legal function has offshored legal work to Shell Business Operations centres in Kuala Lumpur and Krakow which have been successful in delivering high quality work in an efficient manner. I do not believe we will see much of that in our region due to a high level of standard industry agreements and mandatory application of Norwegian law in our contracts which require lawyers to be locally qualified. I do expect to see that our region will be quite adaptive to implementation of digitalisation efforts.

What would you say are the unique qualities required to be successful as an in-house lawyer in your industry?

Key is a robust legal competence such that you are seen as a trusted and valuable business partner. To me, that implies that the lawyer needs to really understand the strategies of a modern energy company, being able to adapt to the changing expectations and demands from the society we serve and operate in. It also means that the lawyer needs to be able to collaborate in teams with other disciplines and be able to communicate efficiently and to the point. It really helps to be curious, for example by digging into how the explorers are able to spot potential oil, what risks that are associated with drilling a well. The lawyer should look out for risks but at the same time identify other avenues and opportunities to achieve business goals in a compliant and ethical way. Also, the lawyer should establish and maintain a relevant network with peers in other oil companies, in the law firms, at universities and in the public service. I believe that lawyers should be open-minded to take on-board tasks outside the core legal work such as support to emergency response, stakeholder management and HR. It is also very important to maintain the integrity that is expected from lawyers, for example in terms of focus on confidentiality and avoiding conflicts of interest. To maintain legal privilege and be trusted with concerns about potential non-compliance, the in-house lawyer should maintain awareness around these standards and never compromise.

Learning tasks outside the main job is important not only for the lawyer, but also for its employer. Personally I have learned a lot through each of the companies I’ve worked at, in fact Norske Shell is the fourth energy company I have worked for since I left private practice. I am so grateful for opportunities I have had to do other things like some political work, board appointments, and charity work. I believe this variety has indeed helped me to do a better job as in-house lawyer, and therefore hopefully also benefitted my employers over the years.

Do you have any effective techniques for getting the most out of external counsel, in terms of how to instruct them?

The Shell Group has been through quite a journey over the last years, with very positive results both in terms of improved quality and reduced costs. For litigations of some size we have a Global Litigation Team which supports on strategy, considerations around alternative dispute resolutions, selection of law firms if we do not use the short list of panel firms. This team will also assist on negotiating and scoping alternative fee arrangements with fixed price, salary caps often combined with incentive mechanisms. Examples of focus areas have been to agree upfront the lawyers that will support us, that we will not pay for teams of lawyers unless explicitly agreed and that overhead costs as secretaries and copies are included in the agreed price. We also focus on defining the scope of the services, partly since this helps clarifying what the in-house legal team can provide when that is more efficient. We apply the same methodology when we instruct external counsel for other matters and have established frame agreements with significant discounts, which provides for integrated collaboration where we get access to seminars, their library and call-desk support. Through an overall “one team” approach we achieve more value both for the law firm and Shell. I believe it is probably helpful to think about external counsel a little bit like I think about lawyers in my team; I want them to be happy and believe that also leads to the best outcome. So, in most cases I am not looking for immediate delivery 24/7 as I normally don’t need that, but if I should need it I am of course looking for the law firm who is willing and able to do so.