Can you give an idea of the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Being the first ever legal counsel in Polaris, my colleagues were not used to having that role internally in the business. Establishing a new position has been both challenging and a lot of fun at the same time, and naturally my role has evolved during that process.

My focus has gradually spread across different areas such as fund structuring, M&A activities, regulatory matters, and general corporate law matters that makes sense to place in-house with someone who knows our processes, fund structures and portfolio companies.

Establishing new funds and the transactional work within those funds is something that makes up a significant part of the legal role in a private equity firm – it is thankfully also incredibly rewarding from a learning perspective and makes for an exciting and diverse workday.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most?

There is no getting around the excitement surrounding AI at the moment. Legal tech in general is experiencing a major uplift, and legal tech providers naturally seem to have an increased focus on the capabilities of AI. The potential is almost inconceivable, but I think the human element is often left out of the debate – more specifically people learning to trust and implement it in practice for the day-to-day legal work.

Legal tech is a very welcome addition to the industry, especially for in-house legal counsels, because it potentially minimises routine tasks that you would often delegate to administrative support functions – a resource which is more common in law firms than in-house legal departments. Technological progress will therefore free up time for more complex and value-adding work, which ultimately benefits everyone.

If you had to give advice to an aspiring in-house lawyer or general counsel, what would it be and why?

I would urge any lawyer with a business-oriented mindset who is considering a career as in-house legal counsel to try it. It provides an excellent opportunity to get much closer to a business than you normally would as an external lawyer, which in turn enables you to provide tailor-made advice and solutions for the business.

In-house positions can vary extensively from very specialised positions in large legal departments – which can almost resemble entire in-house law firms – to more generalist roles in smaller teams or as individuals. If you find yourself pursuing a position in a small team or as the only legal counsel, such as myself, I strongly suggest that you have a genuine interest and passion for the actual business or specific industry, as your role will be deeply integrated with the business and colleagues with diverse backgrounds.

To succeed in that type of position, it is critical to spend some time and effort to understand the commercial aspects of the company and how a legal resource can support those. In my experience that makes the job a lot more fun.