Claire Carless
UK General counsel and company secretary
Siemens
Claire Carless has only been at Siemens for a short time, joining the company in January 2012 and taking the role of GC for North West Europe as well as the UK role last summer. She has a sizeable legal team of 35 lawyers and a compliance team of six, spread across various parts of England. One of her first tasks was to review the legal panel.
Carless would prefer to work with a small number of law firms she can build relationships with and which understand her business. And she believes that most law firms could do a lot more to understand their clients. ‘They need to think about how to market themselves, what they are offering, and why we should instruct them rather than other firms,’ she says. The firms Siemens currently uses are listed below but Carless was due to announce a new panel at press time.
Law firms used: Addleshaw Goddard, Arthur Cox, Biggart Baillie, Hill Hofstetter, Manches, Pinsent Masons, Reed Smith, Shepherd and Wedderburn, Watson, Farley & Williams
2012-present: UK general counsel and company secretary, Siemens
2000-12: Head of commercial law, Vodafone