Welcome one, welcome all to Inside Track, your favorite newsletter on all things related to in-house counsel. This week we look at the challenges of hiring for very specific positions and the importance of finding ways to deal with work-related anxieties. We all know you have a stressful job, so I'm curious to know how you deal with stress?

Let me know by sending me an email at [email protected] or you can connect with me on Twitter @DanclarkALM.

 

What's Happening-

Matt Fawcett, NetApp general counsel

 

In-House Mental Health

We often hear about the stresses of mental health in Big Law, but seldom hear about the stresses that in-house attorneys go through. My colleague, Caroline Spiezio, spoke to NetApp general counsel Matt Fawcett last week about the importance of having a better work environment for lawyers. Here are some takeaways from that conversation.

➡ Similar stresses to Big Law. Fawcett said that like big law firms, in-house legal departments are teams of lawyers who have “demanding clients.” What I thought was interesting is that he said he felt a lot of in-house attorneys miss being a part of a big law firm. Despite companies bringing in legal departments on more business decisions, being the only attorneys in a company can feel isolating.

➡ Creating a healthy work environment. Fawcett explained that a healthy legal department is one where everyone on the team feels like they can have some kind of professional achievement or have some kind of personal growth. That doesn't mean everyone gets a gold star for every small thing they do, but it is important to acknowledge hard work.

➡ Coming from the top. As the general counsel, Fawcett said the lawyers on his team look to him to make sure he is “walking the talk.” He also mentioned that as the GC, it's important that his direct staff share his same values since they are the ones that other attorneys deal with most directly.

 

 

No One Puts Lawyer in a Corner

Last week, I set out to write a story about which industry do lawyers not want to work in. I learned pretty quickly that it isn't the industry that keeps lawyers away from an in-house job; it is the responsibilities of the job.

Lawyers who go in-house want to make sure they're contributing to more than legal. They want to help shape business decisions and be able to move around and grow. This is why in-house legal jobs that are bogged down with regulatory details tend to be the hardest to fill, according to three legal recruiters I spoke to.

“I would say that it's not so much a particular industry, but the niche regulatory positions are difficult,” BarkerGilmore managing partner John Gilmore told me. “If someone is an expert in a niche like insurance regulation, it does pigeonhole them to that industry. If they do become an expert in that particular niche, there is a big demand for that whether it's a general counsel or a senior-level individual contributor.”

I'm curious what you would rather do; become the top dog in a niche regulatory role, or be able to move around and become a part of a company's business decisions. Send me an email at [email protected] to let me know!

 

Building In Europe

In-house speciality groups are taking over. The Association of Corporate Counsel has a new office in Brussels as a part of the group's efforts to recruit more in-house attorneys for its European chapter.

The office is headed by Giuseppe Marletta who told Law.com reporter Phillip Bantz that he hopes to increase the ACC Europe's membership by 10 percent by the end of 2019.

ACC President Veta Richardson said the office is “an important signal to our members that we are serving an international community of in-house counsel, whose needs and interests cross borders and languages.”

What's ahead? To promote the new office and become more attractive to European in-house lawyers, the ACC will be launching a new website soon that gives the organization a more global feel.

 

Don't Miss-

Sunday-Wednesday, February 24-26 -Today's General Counsel will be hosting The Exchange Legal Operations Forum in Beverly Hills, California. Topics will include artificial intelligence in legal operations, the evolution of legal staffing and legal process outsourcing, and aligning your resources and tasks to optimize value. Speakers will include Frances Pomposo, the director of legal operations at Workday, and Ashlee Best, legal operations manager at Asana.

The Global Leaders in Law will be hosting a Changing Corporate Culture event on March 5 in Dusseldorf, Germany at Bridenbacher Hof. GLL will also be hosting a What Keeps You Up At Night event on March 14 at La Rive in Amsterdam. GLL is an invitation-only membership group offering general counsel a global platform for in-person collaboration to exchange ideas and receive advice and guidance from peers. For more information, contact Meena Heath at [email protected].

Monday – Thursday, March 4-7 - The Association of Corporate Counsel is hosting an In-House Counsel Certification Program in Dubai. The program aims to help in-house counsel become proficient in skills such as translating legal knowledge into business solutions, building emotional intelligence and deploying value-based policies.

Wednesday-Friday, March 6-8 - The 2019 White Collar Crime National Institutewill be held in New Orleans, featuring discussions on corporate governance, securities enforcement and foreign legal developments. Speakers include Uber Deputy GC Tammy Albarran; Ingersoll Rand GC Maria Green; and Charles Cain, head of the SEC's FCPA Unit.

 

On The Move-

✦ Tesla ✦  Jonathan Chang was named the new general counsel of the electric car company Wednesday morning after Dwayne Butswinkas announced he would be returning to private practice after working as the top lawyer for the company for only two months.

✦ Georgia Institute of Technology ✦  Ling-Ling Nie has been named the general counsel of the Atlanta-based college. She will also work as the school's ethics officer. She will report directly to G.P. Peterson, the president of the school. She has most recently served as the chief compliance officer and the assistant general counsel at Panasonic Corp.

✦ Vanderbilt University ✦ Ruby Shellaway, who began working as the school's interim general counsel in July, has been named the permanent legal leader of the school. She became the interim general counsel last year after Audrey Anderson left the school to take some time to figure out what her next professional move would be.

✦ Qurate Retail Group ✦ Eve DelSoldo was made the general counsel of commerce operations to the company which owns the television channels HSN and QVC. Most recently, she oversaw the brands' global information and intellectual property functions.

Thanks for reading Inside Track. See you next week! 

Send story ideas and feedback to [email protected]. I enjoy hearing from you and your comments help shape this newsletter.