Sponsor message: The Law Society of Scotland

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Sponsor message: The Law Society of Scotland

The Law Society of Scotland is the professional body for over 12,000 Scottish solicitors. Our overarching objective is to lead legal excellence, serving the needs of our members and the public. We set and uphold standards to ensure the provision of excellent legal services and ensure the public can have confidence in Scotland’s solicitor profession.

Nearly 30% of our members work in-house making a critical contribution to the success of the companies and organisations that employ them. The Law Society of Scotland is proud to represent and support our members working in-house in Scotland and beyond. Continue reading “Sponsor message: The Law Society of Scotland”

Overview: Facing fear

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Overview: Facing fear

‘When you’ve got your mouth wrapped around the firehose, it becomes really hard to step back and design better ways of doing things,’ comments Checkout.com general counsel (GC) and chief operating officer Joshua Kaplan. ‘But there are times when you just have to force it to happen.’

A slightly mangled metaphor, but time-pressed GCs get the point. This encapsulates the approach an increasing – but still select – group of GCs are taking. The GC as a force for change is a widely discussed but rarely dissected topic: the legal industry waxes lyrical about its desire to do things differently in areas such as diversity and inclusion, mental health, billing and alternative ways of delivering legal services, but the progress of such initiatives are often difficult to track. Continue reading “Overview: Facing fear”

The BT interview – ideas from the bath

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The BT interview – ideas from the bath

Legal Business (LB): Eighteen months in the group general counsel role, what have been some of the key projects since you landed? The wider business has been through a lot of transformation, how is legal keeping up?

Sabine Chalmers (SC), group GC, BT: When I joined, Gavin Patterson was my boss. He’s since left the business and we’ve transitioned to Philip Jansen from Worldpay. During that time the focus has been on learning the company and industry, getting to know and work with a new CEO, new board, my team, and as a result of all that identifying as quickly as possible what the strategic priorities for the function are and how to best support the business. Early on I reorganised my leadership team to mirror the evolving structure of the business, to ensure we had GCs reporting to me that were lined up with each of the business and corporate units: we announced that in June 2018. Continue reading “The BT interview – ideas from the bath”

The imagination gap – Meet the GCs on the frontline of the climate change battle

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The imagination gap – Meet the GCs on the frontline of the climate change battle

Rising temperatures and sea levels, shrinking ice sheets and sea ice, extreme weather events. They’re all mainstays of today’s news cycles with a worrying – and growing – frequency.

‘The more you read about the shape of our planet, it’s inevitable you become concerned, it’s inevitable that you want to do something. The only way you can exist nowadays in an unengaged way, as a non-activist, is by shutting yourself off completely from all this information,’ says Jasper Teulings, general counsel of Greenpeace International. Continue reading “The imagination gap – Meet the GCs on the frontline of the climate change battle”

In-house: The client perspectives

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In-house: The client perspectives

Dan Webster, group general counsel at Harrods, discusses what it takes to advise one of the world’s most recognisable department stores

I studied law at the London School of Economics and went to law school in Chester. I got a training contract at what is now CMS. I qualified in litigation, stayed a couple of years at CMS and then moved to SNR Denton. I stayed there for a few years and then decided I wanted a change. To my surprise, an opportunity came up to be an in-house litigator at Harrods, where the then-owner was famously very litigious. Once at Harrods, I quickly realised I was meant to be an in-house lawyer and, over time, I’ve evolved into a commercial, corporate, employment, IP all-rounder. Continue reading “In-house: The client perspectives”