About

Team size: 35 in the HQ team

Major legal advisers: Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Debevoise & Plimpton, DWF, Macfarlanes, RPC, Shepherd and Wedderburn

This year will see a period of change and adjustment within legal at Pernod Ricard and for GC Amanda Hamilton-Stanley, who took to the helm of the French wines and spirits company in September 2018.

From Paris, Hamilton-Stanley runs the 35-strong HQ legal team, split into four divisions: a small cyber security and GDPR team; an M&A and compliance team; a centralised intellectual property administration hub; and the brand security team.

Outside of the HQ, however, each company’s brands – which includes Absolut Vodka, Chivas Brothers, Jameson Irish Whiskey and Beefeater Gin – has its own legal team, varying in size. ‘We’ve historically been quite decentralised, with affiliates in around 70 countries, and have done things very separately with not a huge amount of co-ordination,’ says Hamilton-Stanley.

But no more. This year, Hamilton-Stanley is due to complete a major one-off matter: the company is integrating five separate affiliates and its HQ team into one larger office in Paris in April, which she says should encourage its lawyers to work more collaboratively.

One of the reasons for the move is the company’s strong sustainability focus, improving its packaging, water consumption and general waste. ‘In France, there are human rights laws about ethical behaviour in the supply chain. Compliance is a big thing and having companies behaving ethically is really important to consumers.’

Hamilton-Stanley previously served as GC for the Chivas Brothers whisky division, where she is noted for her introduction of in-house legal training contracts eight years ago. That included some under a Law Society scheme and some in Scotland, with the company appointing four trainees. Training and development remains a key aspect of her approach. ‘Getting people in my team to learn about the business to support how they give legal advice is something I’m really big on,’ she comments. ‘I’ve given everybody an objective to support the business so, for example, if one of my lawyers support sales it’s a good idea for them to go out with the sales team.’

This year, Hamilton-Stanley is also turning her focus to automating legal work and making contracts with third parties more graphic, with an emphasis on being written in plain English. ‘We’re in the process of setting up workshops to do this and at the end of the financial year in June we’re hoping to have these contracts in a particular area. I say to my lawyers to help make drafting [contracts] less challenging: “Remember that the contract belongs to the business, not to legal.”’