Team size: eight

Focus on: The work and life of Nearmap Legal

The pandemic, in particular the WFH situation has required the role of in-house counsel to be even more accessible given the constraints of no longer being a visible or contactable resource within the office environment. Ensuring that the team are being provided with the right level of information to do their jobs has led to a change in the way the team communicates with each other and more reliance on information sharing during virtual catchups and internal messaging systems. The function of the GC overseeing a regional team and regional business and maintain the appropriate c-suite relationships has been even more difficult with the pandemic.

The team has experienced the most significant legal challenges since I first started as the first in-house lawyer at Nearmap. The function has had to support a record volume of commercial transactions, ranging from small to large enterprise deals. The volume and speed at which deals were coming through to the legal team pushed the team to review, negotiate and close contracts in a short timeframe. At times, deals were being closed within 24 hours of receiving mark-ups from customers. The volume has been reflected in the business achieving milestone achievement in annual contract value (ACV), and the North American business exceeding the ANZ ACV for the first time since it entered the North American market in 2014.

Outside of commercial transaction, the team was heavily involved in supporting the wider business in operational work, being involved in a number of key initiatives, and overseeing governance within the business. Some examples included supporting the release of various new products, one notable one was AI derived datasets created through our aerial database which has never been sold at commercial scale before, meeting Modern Slavery compliance requirements within two months of starting the project and responding to over 2,700 legal requests for help.

The most significant work that I personally have had to deal with was managing a US patent litigation which was something that I have not been exposed to in my career. Whilst I oversee the IP portfolio for the global business, it has never involved in litigious aspects. From the time of being served, I have had to quickly absorb, understand the US litigation landscape, and make decisions relating to the litigation in a noticeably short time, with the most challenging aspect being the management of two firms. Managing the firms and making sure they provide you with the appropriate level of information to enable me to advise and inform the board and c-suites was key to keeping on top of the litigation in the early days. Most importantly have stakeholder confidence in my ability to handle and manage the litigation to minimise potential impacts to the operations of the business, current and longer term.