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

The key element to be a successful in house lawyer is to know the business you are working for. If you as a lawyer understand the business and keen to learn your advices gets better and you have a much better possibility to detect any legal risk in the actual project or transaction. The business does not want a lecture or “ifs and buts”, but a clear advice on how to conduct their business. Without a close cooperation between legal and the business the in-house lawyer does not add any value. Hence, it is both the responsibility of legal and the business to get legal involved at an early stage to be able to provide valuable advice.     

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

The most important part is to make sure that the external lawyer understand your needs, and what you want from them. This is achieved by having close external relations, but not any closer that they are doing their best also to get your next external purchase. By having a couple of close relations the external law firms will compete and get aware that you are a professional purchaser that now what to expect of quality services. We buy service for a reason, not because we do not know what to do. Either we want their expertise, or their capacity, that, not more – not less, is what we are willing to pay for.       

Have any new laws, regulations or judicial decisions greatly impacted your company’s business or your legal practice?

Definitely. There has been a “tsunami” of new regulations for the financial industry over the last few years. The greatest impact on the securities business has been MiFID II, a game changer in the market, and one of the reasons for our cooperation with Kepler Cheuvreux. Furthermore have MAR and the Prospectus Directive impact on the industry while PSD2 have impact on the bank side. AMLD VI has furthermore increased the focus on the very important anti money laundering work, and the struggle to fight international crime. On top, GDPR have caused quite a lot of work to adapt the new regulation into the daily activities.

FOCUS ON:

Never going out of style

Templates, automatisation, standardisation, AI and big data – will our work be taken over by machines and computers?

The answer to that question depends on what you do for a living. And you don`t have to look very far to see that the development in technology definitively are, and will, change a lot of peoples jobs and tasks at work. The development is also change the game for industries and companies that are not willing to change fast enough. The only stable factor is that there will be change. Scary and sad for some, a possibility for others. It’s not the first time in history we experience rapid changes. Even if it may hurt, the outcome has been new jobs, new industries and new possibilities. So what about us, the lawyers; will we be out of work? Will he in-house legal teams be minimised as the industries are changed? I genuinely doubt that will happen and I will try to explain why. Even if the technological revolution may be a game changer and even if we standardise products, templates and agreements that makes it possible to enter into agreements without a lawyer we will not be out of work.

First of all; new technology and the concern for customer protection are, and will, create new regulations and standards to be implemented in the different industries. It is enough to mention MiFID II and GDPR over the last years to exemplify the amount of new rules that needs qualified legal skills to explain and implement in the different firms. Furthermore, those new protective regulations in general comes with more possibilities for the regulators to impose sanctions, and far more heavy ones than before. As an external legal counsel you may assist your clients with detecting and interpret the rules, but you need an in house lawyer to implement the rules and to do the legal risk assessment on how this will affect your company and what to do to be compliant.

Secondly, at least firms in the financial industry handling and assisting large companies and institutions, have, and will continue to have, a large amount of “tailor made” solutions when customers are lending money, issuing equity, bonds or derivatives. They are in need for advisory. Hence, tailor made solutions are in need of a tailor, and on that tailor team you need a skilled lawyer to take care of the bank/firms legal position. As an external legal counsel may provide services in producing the agreement, the in house legal is needed to monitor, detect and minimize the legal risk for the bank, insure that internal regulations and standards are followed and contribute to a happy customer

Thirdly, the skilled internal lawyers are commonly well organised, structured, know how to express themselves and with a talent for support to the business. These skills makes the internal lawyer a well reputed discussion partner in several internal matters, not just the strict legal ones. The internal lawyer that know the business and the legal framework around is therefore an asset that may help the business to achieve good deals, keep the customer happy and avoid the traps.

However, the main condition to be relevant as an in house lawyer is that you know the business you work for. As the business change you have to be willing and have the ability to change with it. As for anyone else – in any marked – If you are not willing or capable to change, you will rapidly be out of the loop. To know the business you are supporting, you have to change with it, no matter how hurtful it may be. But if we are capable and willing to change I am confident that our advices and services always will be wanted and mostly appreciated by the ones we support. Because qualified legal advice will never go out of style.