While there are several initiatives and forums where, the general counsel community speaks of serious knowledge dope on topical legal and regulatory aspects, Lex Witness goes a step aside and gets into a candid coffee table conversation. Have an interesting read through.
As a General counsel and Executive Vice President, I look after the legal function at SBI Card. Having worked at law firms Fox Mandal Little and Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan between 2002 and 2012, I gained litigation experience in banking, debt recovery laws and general corporate matters by advising on a wide range of legal issues. After this exposure, in 2012 I joined SBI Card, a payment solutions provider created as part of a joint venture between State Bank of India and GE Capital, as general counsel and vice president of legal to provide transactional support as well as manage retail litigation across the country. I have been commended for managing the company’s litigation workload, with the help of my team of 18, through strategic changes and technological support, significantly reducing the total inflow of claims and costs in compensatory awards as a result. The support that my legal team gives to the collection portfolio is also commendable through legal and alternate legal tools. The entire Advisory/Transactional Team which I have managed to create has been supporting all the needs of the Business as in house counsel. In fact, the support is not only specified to business-as-usual activities but would also include some major transactions which are there in the pipeline. As part of the senior management team and directly reporting to the CEO, I have worked tirelessly to overcome negative internal perceptions about the legal function and building its internal brand as a true business enabler.
It has been interesting journey so far from a team of 2 in-house lawyers in the legal function when I joined in 2012, I have managed to create this full-fledged legal team of 18 lawyers with clear demarcation of expertise like transaction/ Advisory support & Litigation support. Now even in the Advisory/ Transaction team the portfolio is further sub-divided in sub verticals like marketing, operation, employment, IT etc. to specific Legal FPR with the clear objective to build in expertise and to have a faster turn-around time for resolution. The evolution from a practicing counsel providing consultancy advise and litigation support to being an in-house counsel has been really challenging. In fact, initially it was difficult to tread the path of an in-house counsel as it had certain nuances and the approach itself was different. However, I did get a lot of support from seniors who were already in such role, my peers from the business and my management team to learn the role at a faster pace. We as lawyers are accustomed to communicate information in a complex form using legal jargons. The transition of such communication to be made effectively to all stakeholders in a non-legal language that is understood by the target audience has been a learning experience. Apart from learning the role, one daunting task was also to change the perception that the direct line team had towards the legal function. Given the fact that the primary role of the function is to act as guardian of the Company and safeguard itself from any type of legal or regulatory risk, there was a misconception that the legal function is not aligned to the Business. Breaking this perception and bringing about a change in mission of the legal function and making the direct line function understand that Legal is a true business enabler has been an uphill task. Now when we look back we realize that all the efforts that we have made and continue making are worth every penny when we sense a feeling of satisfaction in contributing to business.
The role of General Counsels have definitely evolved over a period of time. Gone are the days when the GC’s office used to be a facilitator between the Law Firms and the business functions. Now a days there is a great dependence upon the GC’s office/ In house Counsel in partnering with the business. The in-house Counsel’s role is not only restricted to identification of the legal/ regulatory risk but also identify alternatives/ opportunities/ mitigation plan to be built around such risk. As such we see that the even the legal departments in the Companies have significantly increased over a period of time. The business-as-usual activities for which the legal support is required is provided by the GC’s team. In fact, I ‘ve seen that in some of the organizations large transactions are also done independently by the GC’s office.
Some of the key challenges that the GC’s have to face are to strike a fine balance between what is required from the business as well as doing what is right from a legal perspective. Whilst it is common knowledge that fostering growth but cutting corners cannot be sustainable, however in this dynamic world speed to delivery in the most efficient and simple manner is a must for sustainable growth. Further the GC also has to anticipate potential obstacle and identify contingency plans to avoid them. With the in-house lawyers supporting the GC’s office growing day by day, the GC should also help his team modify their actions/approaches in response to new or different information / approaches. One key trait that the GC must have is the ability to makes decision after examining issues from multiple perspectives and factoring in broader implications both from a regulatory perspective as well as from a business perspective. The GC must also have a knack to leverage uncertainty to execute creative solutions.
I firmly believe that the law firms too should be more proactive towards their approach towards the clients. They should not be confined to the realms of providing consultancy advise only with respect to the legal aspects, but also bring in their experiences of large number of transactions being done by them to suggest business friendly solutions. Any risk in interpretational issues should come with a mitigation plan. This would also apply for litigation as well; they should be upright in suggesting conciliation meetings for resolutions prior to going in for full throttle litigation. This would help the GCs in not only managing their legal spends budget, but enhance the real value of the legal team in transactions as well as dispute resolutions. One good practice which is commendable are the regulatory updates which the law firms send to the GC’s office which not only equips the GC to have a fair insight of what are the changes in the law but also get the GC to be prepared on some of the regulatory changes which are there in the pipeline which might affect the business.
Given the fact that I started my career from practice, I may have a biased approach; however, my personal belief is that one should spend some time in doing first-hand experience as attorneys during the initial phase of one’s legal career. Depending upon the opportunity that one gets, in order to be a successful in-house counsel, it is imperative to gain experience in a wide range of matters. It is essential to have knowledge of both litigation as well as the transactional side of legal work. Above all it is very important to have a problem solving attitude as I believe that the In house counsel if there because the business is there. Though it is very easy to identify a problem, however a person gets recognized for identifying the solution for it
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