As GC of Nokia during the complex carve-out and sale of its handsets division to Microsoft, Louise Pentland refined her leadership skills at the sharp end. An early exposure to a formal in-house training programme was, she says, vital preparation for a senior role. ‘I was lucky because I joined Nokia at a very early stage in my career and their internal training is all around being the best you can be, developing networks, and getting results without trampling on people.’
Since that time, says Pentland, a growing skills gap between in-house and private practice has made structured training even more necessary. ‘Companies are more flexible in their understanding of the role of corporate counsel and lawyers are more willing to step across boundaries. It’s a far better situation from a career development and employee retention point of view but it means in-house lawyers need leadership skills and GCs need to ensure staff have those skills.’
Although now responsible for a team of over 100 lawyers at PayPal, and a small team in corporate security, Pentland says the nature of the industry can make it difficult to build a hierarchy. ‘In the tech world it’s a little harder to build legal teams because you don’t get large volumes of repeat work, and even less complicated pieces like non-disclosure agreements will typically contain some very onerous IP clauses. Decisions get escalated to GC level all the time and you need to be hands-on and make sure you’re there to check things.’
‘You have to step across boundaries.’
This need for flexibility reinforces Pentland’s view that legal training is no longer sufficient preparation for in-house. ‘The high-potential people in my team are able to work in parts of the business that call on skills in which they’ve had no prior training. My head of IP at Nokia wasn’t even a lawyer, he was a McKinsey guy but no one could tell the difference. He knew as much about litigation, patent prosecutions and the nuances of patent families as anyone who had spent their entire career doing it. The sort of people who have that high learning aptitude are exactly what you’re looking for as GC.’
This, argues Pentland, means the way in which lawyers are trained needs to change. ‘People coming out of law schools are taught to be highly independent, focus on their own targets and be very competitive. Those characteristics are reinforced at a firm. Moving in-house is a massive transition and most fail to adapt because they just don’t have a lot of the skills you need to lead a function. Both schools and law firms have a big responsibility here. When I work with firms I look for those that are an extension of my culture and I can’t have that with a group of people I’d hate to have embedded in my team.’