New England Biz Law Update
Citing a desire for more business-side involvement, the opportunity to work closely in a team-oriented environment, and a more balanced lifestyle, associates are stepping out of the partnership track of the law firm world and into what they perceive to be the more attractive career path of an in-house counsel.
These young lawyers are not looking for a nine-to-five job. They are highly motivated, goal-oriented professionals looking for a different venue in which to rise to the top.
While in-house practice presents many of the same challenging legal issues found in the law firm world, the structure and orientation of a corporation and its legal department differ vastly from that of the typical law firm. In a large law firm, there are many partnership spots and many opportunities to advance.
The legal departments of most companies are relatively flat organizations, often with a young dynamic lawyer already comfortably settled into the general counsel spot. As in law firms, delivery of quality legal services is of crucial importance in an in-house setting. But while providing those services is the reason law firms exist, in a corporation, legal services are only incidental to the success of the entity. Lawyers are overhead and their own personal success is unrelated to the overall goals of the company.
Coming to terms with these realities of in-house life causes some in-house attorneys to question their ability to progress professionally and develop their legal skills. They become frustrated by their perception that their current legal department offers little opportunity for advancement.
How to address these concerns is one of the most challenging aspects of managing an in-house legal department.
Three of the area’s top general counsel, Barry Nagler, Jeff Snider and David Pace, shared their views on how to develop and motivate their in-house staff and how they have tried to create opportunities for their lawyers to advance professionally.
Also, Ken Settel, a Boston-area psychiatrist and management consultant, comments on these issues and gives some advice on in-house legal department management.
The Hasbro Game Plan
Barry Nagler became general counsel of Hasbro Corporation in 2000. His 21-person legal department services the 6000-employee worldwide organization with annual revenues in excess of $3 billion.
In Nagler’s view, “a successful in-house career requires the opportunity for continuous learning and development. A successful general counsel needs to develop a plan to allow people to grow intellectually and professionally.”
Nagler believes that one way to achieve this goal is through departmental structure. He changed the structure of his department so that each operating business unit had a “go-to” lawyer in the department.
He felt that achieving this congruity between client groups and the legal department was important both from a business standpoint and for the professional satisfaction of his staff. The business units needed to feel that “someone in legal had a continuity of relationship with their business and was dedicated to their business success,” he said. From a professional satisfaction standpoint for his in-house counsel, “the ability to develop that depth of knowledge and be dedicated to their client’s success is the best part of being in-house counsel.”
To develop his lawyers, each has a “professional development plan. This in some measure is dictated by the needs of the company, but also by the desires of each attorney,” he indicated. For example, Nagler has tried giving litigators more transactional and business responsibilities where possible.
Nagler also believes that lawyers can expand professionally by developing skills that are not necessarily legal and that they would not typically learn as a lawyer. Taking on more management responsibility is an excellent way for lawyers to develop in Nagler’s view.
Nagler also tries to provide good opportunities for work/family balance in his department. A number of the attorneys work part-time schedules and he tries to create a family friendly work environment.
“It’s a great way to keep people satisfied with their job and for them to get a benefit that they could not get elsewhere,” he observed.
The Best And The Brightest
When Jeff Snider joined Lycos, he was the company’s first general counsel and its only attorney. As the company grew and he needed to build a legal department, he gave tremendous thought to how to create an environment where people feel challenged and are moving forward.
Snider likes to hire attorneys, who, like himself, want to be a general counsel.
“I typically hired peers or those very close to that,” Snider said. “I like working with people who are very bright, motivated and ambitious. I want to hire someone who can succeed me or to whom I can give the training and background that they need to become general counsel of another company.”
Since Lycos was growing like gangbusters at the time Snider was at the helm, he felt he had the ideal situation in which to develop a dream team legal department. The work kept expanding and changing, which allowed lawyers in his department to increase their substantive legal responsibilities and to advance in rank and compensation.
Snider prefers a hierarchical structure within a legal department since it “allows for movement up so others from below can move as well and grow and advance. At Lycos, we created different titles and created clear standards and objectives — benchmarks — the lawyers would need to meet to advance.”
He also feels that it is important to make every lawyer in the department an expert in some substantive legal area. At Lycos he tried to create a situation for each lawyer to “own” some specific area. That person becomes the “expert” for all deals, issues and meetings around that particular area. It allowed each lawyer to be showcased before the CEO and other high level executives and gives more junior people the opportunity to interact and interface with senior executives.
In Snider’s view, getting and giving feedback are also crucial to developing and motivating an in-house legal staff. Twice a year his 13 lawyers and two paralegals would have an informal off-site retreat.
“It is very important to have an open and proactive communication style,” Snider observed. “I have always taken an interest in the career and skill development of the lawyers in my department. I’ve said to everyone in the department that if they’ve done good work, been a good team player and then decided they need to move on, I’d help them to create a different or better opportunity within the company or, failing that, help them to find something outside.”
Snider has recently accepted a new position as general counsel to GEAC Computers, Inc. a $600 million enterprise software company. Developing a legal team in this larger, established company will certainly present a different challenge than Lycos, but being challenged, in Snider’s view, is the key to progressing in an in-house career.
Keeping Pace
David Pace became the general counsel at Reebok in December 1999, just as the company was about to embark on a significant company-wide downsizing. He was forced to reduce the size of the legal department, but seized an opportunity to enhance the professional development of his staff.
“The company was looking to reduce fixed costs and create more variable relationships with outside counsel,” he recalled. He used this as an opportunity “to give the lawyers a boost up. With a smaller department, each lawyer had a greater opportunity to operate on a strategic level, making their individual jobs more interesting. It also created more opportunities to develop more management skills, by delegating work to paralegals or by training business people to take over work that might have been performed by a larger and less busy legal department.”
Similarly, a more variable cost structure gave his attorneys more opportunities to manage relationships with outside firms and individual practitioners.
Pace believes that a key motivator in his department is the snowball effect of increased responsibility.
“By increasing the substantive areas of expertise of each lawyer, you also broaden their ability to create more business relationships,” he asserted. “The increased relationships and greater responsibility then create the opportunity to face issues that are more strategic. Once you work closely with clients on strategic matters, clients increase the number of strategic matters that they bring to legal.”
Pace noted that each company has its own operating style and that a successful legal department must adapt to the temperament of its company.
“Reebok is a very fast-moving and fluid organization,” Pace said. “It doesn’t react well to a very structured environment, so I developed a legal team that is variable and not hierarchical. The other day, I had a paralegal on the phone with a very senior executive overseas consulting on a very important business issue. In other companies, a higher level executive might not respect a more junior person’s views.”
To gauge the career satisfaction of his group, he meets individually with each lawyer to get a sense of their own desires and aspirations and once he knows where they want to go, he helps them to get there, even if it means trying to create opportunities outside of the department.
Assessing The Players
Ken Settel, a psychiatrist who works with organizations, lawyers and managers on leadership development, management coaching, and organizational strategy, believes that “these three general counsel have wrestled successfully in different ways with the challenges of integrating, developing and managing the morale and careers of the lawyers in their respective departments. They have each demonstrated their own creative capacity to adjust to a corporate environment and successfully manage people.”
Settel indicated that Nagler, through shifting organizational structures, has found ways of allowing lawyers to shift their role to master more complex and challenging tasks as their personal capacity to operate in the corporate/legal environment grows.
Nagler also engages his staff to align them with the mission and vision of the department and the company as a whole, Settel noted. This creates an identity with the mission of the larger organization and creates a sense of satisfaction in the success of the organization.
Snider focuses on mentoring individuals, Settel said, and helping them to develop expertise and skills that are transferable beyond the organization in which they work. Snider finds that sharing information and giving active developmental feedback enhances their satisfaction and personal development.
Creating greater hierarchical structure allows lawyers to move forward in their managerial responsibility, Settel noted. They can become an expert in a given area, enhancing their sense of confidence, job satisfaction and, ultimately, their self-esteem.
Pace focuses on fluidity and independence. He successfully creates environments that allow staff attorneys to grow in a way that most comfortably fits their individual personality, interests and style of operating, Settel said.
For general counsel, the challenge is typically to learn skills beyond those taught in law school, Settel said. For a general counsel to be an effective leader of his or her department, he or she must learn what it takes to manage in a corporate environment. It means developing a style compatible with your own personality, walking the talk and teaching management to and developing leadership among subordinates, who must be encouraged to plan, think, anticipate and guide others just as they see these behaviors in their leaders.
Subordinates respond well to a personal interest in their work and concern for the challenges of their job. People feel valued when they know their boss is in their corner, Settel advised.
Keeping people informed at all levels also means giving accurate, honest and timely feedback, Settel said.
Linda J. Kline, Esq. is managing director of New England Legal Search, the region’s most experienced permanent legal placement firm. Engaged by companies throughout the area, NELS has placed in-house attorneys at all levels, ranging from general counsel to junior level staff attorneys. More information about NELS in-house and law firm placement experience can be found at its website, www.newenglandlegalsearch.com.
