Hello, readers of Inside Track!

Last week, I spoke to Laura Franco, the new general counsel at CBS Corp. She has worked at Viacom since 1995 and moved to CBS when the companies split in 2006. Lately, CBS has seen criticism over its handling of sexual harassment scandals from its former CEO and network stars. Franco told me one of her priorities as the legal leader is to help the legal department move forward.

Her dedication to putting the recent scandals behind her made me wonder from a recruiting perspective, how important is the perceived culture of a legal department to applicants?

Mike Evers, the founder and president of in-house recruiting firm Evers Legal Search, said the culture is very important to in-house applicants.

“It extends not just to the law department but to the company as a whole,” Evers said.

He explained that, typically, the new hires in the legal department after a scandal is exposed are seen as the white knights. Evers said he has seen applicants who choose to stay away from a scandal-ridden company because of the work that goes along with it.

“It's a very specific type of person who can do that. Not everyone can come in an engineer change. In fact, most people can't,” Evers said.

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What's Happening

Difficulty Climbing The Ladder

Earlier this year, 170 general counsels signed a letter demanding that law firms be more inclusive. Despite the fact the legal departments tend to be more inclusive than law firms, there still appears to be a difficulty for people of color making their way to the general counsel position. Law.com reporter Caroline Spiezio found that in 2018, fewer than 20 percent of general counsel at Fortune 500 companieswere people of color and only about one-third of those general counsel were women. Below are some takeaways from her report.

➡ Lawyers who spoke to Caroline said the reason there is a lack of diversity at the top of the legal department is because of unconscious bias and fewer mentorship opportunities. The recruitment for general counsel also mostly comes from big law firms where the leadership consists of mostly white men.

➡ Despite the lack of diversity at the top of law firms, Jennifer Salinas, the president of the Hispanic National Bar Association, said attorneys of color who move in-house before they've made partner or senior associate at the firm may find themselves limited in their opportunities at the legal department. “While it's good that in-house legal departments are more diverse, perhaps we should be encouraging diverse attorneys to get that experience and senior leadership skills before they go in-house,” Salinas said.

➡Lack of in-house mobility programs. Once attorneys of color do get a coveted in-house job, the ladder to the top isn't easy to climb. A survey from the Corporate Counsel Women of Color found that many women of color feel like they're excluded from challenging work. “The way that companies can combat that issue is, you have to be very deliberate in having formalized programs to identify high talent and get them the exposure and visibility,” said Linda Lu, the co-chairwoman of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association's In-House Counsel Network.

Chaos In Starting Up Legal Departments At Startups

The difficulty in working in-house is the chaos and the challenges seem to be never-ending. However, when it comes to startup companies, the challenges and chaos become more prevalent, according to a report by Law.com reporter Rhys Dipshan.

Rhys attended the Columbia Legal Tech Fair 2019 where in-house attorneys discussed the difficulties in working in-house for startup companies.

“When you're at a firm, you can bounce things off other lawyers and figure things out,” Sarah Feingold, the GC at Vroom.com said. “When you're at a startup, you have nothing. You don't even have LexisNexis or WestLaw—you have Google, guys.”

Another difficulty is the high turnover of the C-suite.

“You can have a boss one day and another the next day… you have to be willing to go with the flow,” Feingold said during the panel discussion.

Despite the challenges of working at a startup, Wayne Chang, the senior director and deputy GC at Zocdoc, said he didn't have fun working until he went in-house at a startup.

What I've Been Reading

The Houston Chronicle reported on Friday that EnLink's in-house attorneys are among the leading lawyers in the oil industry. Who are these lawyers? Alaina Brooks, the chief legal and chief administrative officer, and Kendall Talbott, deputy general counsel. In the past 18 months, they led EnLink through a $13 billion restructuring effort and $3 billion divestiture. The pair also took charge in a $400 million securities offering and helped attain an $850 million term loan. Despite working well together, they are bitter rivals when it comes to March Madness. Where Brooks will be cheering on Duke, Talbott will be rooting for the school's archrival, North Carolina.

What happens when artificial intelligence begins taking over legal jobs? According to D Magazine, a recent survey indicated that 4 out of 10 executives were concerned about the legal regulatory risks associated with AI. The overall consensus is that AI will not be taking legal jobs since it will always have limitations. It will enhance the jobs of lawyers and allow them to focus on more complex work.

Don't Miss

Wednesday, April 10 – The Global Leaders In Law will be hosting a Changing Corporate Culture event at Scotts in London. The organization will also host a Be the Change event on Thursday, April 25 at Dangleterre in Copenhagen. 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-Wednesday, April 15-17 - The Association of Corporate Counsel Foundation will be hosting a Good Lawyers to Great Lawyers event in Orlando, Florida at The Ritz Carlton. Speakers will include Dorothy Capers, executive vice president and GC of National Express; Wendy Webb Williams, chief legal officer of SaraLee; and Jason Brown, general counsel of GE Appliances.

Thursday-Saturday, April 25-27 - The High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara Law will be hosting the Fourth Annual In-house Counsel Institute. The program is for in-house counsel to learn to better serve the needs of their internal clients. Speakers will include Dorian Daley, general counsel at Oracle; Jeremiah Chan, director and assistant general counsel of patents at Facebook; and Aradhana Raj, director and senior counsel of global policy at PayPal. For more information email [email protected].

On The Move

✦ Ticketmaster ✦  Karen Klein left her job as the top lawyer of HotelTonight and has been made the general counsel of the ticket selling company. It is unclear if her departure from HotelTonight had anything to do with Airbnb buying the company.

✦ Dunkin Brands Group Inc. ✦  David Mann has been named the senior vice president and chief legal officer of the coffee and doughnut franchising company. He replaces Rich Emmett, who will be retiring from his role as chief legal and human resources officer.

✦ LendingTree Inc. ✦  Laura Yens became the general counsel of the online loan marketplace in February. She replaces Kate Pierce, who retired from the company in August. Pierce had worked at the company since 2010.