Team size:   Three lawyers and two paralegals 

Major legal advisers:   Vedder Price 

What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?   

 Byline is a bank held by a public holding company. As we continue to grow, we face different challenges. We operate in a highly regulated industry, where new regulations impact our operations on a constant basis. Our legal department is relatively small, and the main challenge has been to manage competing priorities. We need to protect the bank from legal risk, while understanding that the main goal is to create value for our customers and the communities we serve. 

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?  

Given the size of our legal team, we need to balance outside counsel legal expenses, and leverage the time and expertise of the internal team as much as possible. Last year I implemented a way to identify outside legal expenses divided by area of law, to allocate costs internally in an efficient way. 

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

A great quality is being resilient and keeping an open mind to understand the legal needs and how these change as we continue to grow. One must understand the business and legal risks related to the industry as well.