Zoee Bradley, a pharma GC and compliance officer, provides some good advice for building your GC presence. Among her strategies are some old chestnuts, such as being your authentic self and investing in your development. But a few others are less shopworn and potentially impactful, including a smart take on the GC as “safe refuge.” “Confidentiality and privilege are the cornerstones of any lawyer’s practice, but an impactful GC does more than maintaining confidentiality and privilege,” she writes. “They act as a safe refuge for all within the company, especially their leadership team.” At the same time, it takes care and work to establish such a safe space. “By setting clear boundaries and expectations, and strictly maintaining confidence, you will position yourself as a trusted GC,” she writes. “They will know not only to call on you when the crisis happens, but when they see a crisis form.” Check out the latest edition of ACC Docket here.
Continue Reading 5 Strategies to Build Value and Influence as a GC

This piece from FT confronts head-on the well-worn notion that law departments slow down business progress. Thomas Laubert, group general counsel of Daimler, the German carmaker, says the depiction of legal departments as bottlenecks holding back the rest of the business is an outdated cliché. “In-house counsel is the one that is [pushing] and has to push digital innovation,” he told FT. While it is still common for business heads to complain that a project or contract has been “stuck in legal,” many general counsel believe this notion of in-house teams always blocking progress is unfair.
Continue Reading Stuck in Legal? No Way

Ken Crutchfield, vice president and general manager of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S., talks about the shifting role of the legal department, the importance of tailoring your conversations to your audience, and how general counsel can use metrics and key performance indicators to help a company meet its business goals.
Continue Reading Redefining In-House Counsel As a Driver of Value