How do you get approval for that certain tool that'll help scale your work? We've got you covered in this episode of Inspiring Legal.

Meet Natalie, the O-shaped lawyer and General Counsel of UK-based Zilch. O-shaped what? O-shaped lawyer. Meaning Natalie is not only the GC providing legal advice - she's also a modern leader with a human-centric focus on her work and co-workers. Join us today as Stine and Natalie dive into the world of modern in-house legal.

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal.

Full episode transcript:

[00:00 - 00:18] Welcome back to another episode of Inspiring Legal.  My name is Stine and I'm your host,  and today I'm joined by Natalie.  Welcome, Natalie.  Thanks for having me.  Pleasure. So you're gonna hear more from Natalie in a second. 
[00:18 - 00:33] Natalie is all about putting the human into law.  And what that means?  Well, that's what we'll be talking about today.  But before we do that, Natalie, can you maybe just tell the listeners 
[00:33 - 00:50] a little bit about you, your background,  and why this area is on your radar,  your passion, and something that you are working a lot on?  Sure. So I'm a general counsel in-house. 
[00:50 - 01:06] I trade as a lawyer in the city at Taylor Wessing,  but moved very quickly into an in-house career.  So it's quite unusual at the time to do that.  That was back in 2009.  So quite a lot, it wasn't really the usual way for people to enter the profession. 
[01:06 - 01:24] So I think I've always been quite conscious of the fact  that perhaps I don't have the traditional training  that a lot of lawyers do,  that operate in the commercial and corporate world.  And equally, I think there's a way  of providing legal services in-house  that's quite different to being in private practice, which isn't always about just the technical skills 
[01:24 - 01:41] and deigning legal advice on others,  but more how you win people over  and how you get people to care about legal  and to care about including you in their decision-making  to make better decisions for the overall business. So I think having that unique opportunity 
[01:41 - 01:57] so early on in my career to enter the corporate world  as a junior lawyer allowed me to play a little bit more  with those ideas of, well, why me?  Why does somebody want to come to me?  Why does somebody want to come to me rather than legal as a concept? 
[01:57 - 02:13] And so therefore, I think those human skills  have always been a really important part of my career.  And I think we do see a bit of a lack of them  in the profession sometimes, a lack of empathy.  And I think that's taking its toll on the profession. If we don't do more about it as legal leaders, 
[02:13 - 02:31] then we're going to lose talent  and we're not going to have really great people joining us  and lifting the talent pool and the profession further.  That's something that I'm really passionate about  and would love to talk about a little bit more today. And that's what we're going to be talking about. 
[02:31 - 02:49] So putting legal and humans together,  well, that's something we've always been doing.  So when you talk about making it more approachable, relatable, making it more you, 
[02:49 - 03:06] can you tell us a little bit about why that started  to be such a center point for you in your career?  I think it goes back to, as I said,  moving in-house quite early on and being afraid that I didn't have the necessary skill set 
[03:06 - 03:23] to add value to my organization.  So I think you're trained in private practice  to feel as though you aren't allowed to rise in the ranks  unless you've done a certain amount of practice  or hours or experience. And so I was quite self-conscious about that 
[03:23 - 03:38] when I started in-house in terms of,  well, I've only had two years of experience.  So therefore, what do I know?  Why would somebody listen to me?  Do I have the credentials?  And then I quickly realized that actually it was more about getting people on side 
[03:38 - 03:54] and you don't always know the answer,  but it doesn't mean you can't find it out.  But it's about having those touch points,  those conversations, those openings  and almost acting as a sales person for the function  to get out there, have those confident conversations and not always be reacting 
[03:54 - 04:09] to what the business is asking of you,  but being proactive in terms of going,  well, hey, I noticed this happened the other day.  I'd love to see if I can help.  And so I think that's what really started me thinking  slightly differently  from the more traditional private practice approach to law, which was much more about, 
[04:09 - 04:26] hey, I'm gonna give some technical legal advice  and I'm going to advise you  and maybe you'll make a decision on the back of it  to collaboratively working with my colleagues  to make their lives easier,  but also inadvertently making my life easier  because if we understood each other better and we had good processes or we had playbooks 
[04:26 - 04:43] or we had just smarter ways of working  in those open dialogues,  then you can almost predict what your colleagues are thinking  and they can almost predict  what you're likely to advise them.  So it just seemed like a smarter way of doing things. But as I said, back then it was a bit more unusual 
[04:43 - 04:59] because generally people would be super senior  and having done quite a long tenure  or a number of different years in private practice  moving in to an in-house environment.  So I think it was just that blend of, as I said before, trying to show that there was value in me being there as me. 
[04:59 - 05:16] And we could talk about that a little bit more  as to what that means.  And just making sure that I felt like  it was a fair relationship to be in.  So I was getting something out of that  for my learning and development and exposure to different stakeholders and learning. 
[05:16 - 05:31] But equally, I was able to add value.  And what you realise is that actually a lot of law,  there's quite a lot of common sense to it  as well as the understanding of what the law says.  So it's all very well knowing the law, but if you can't articulate that 
[05:31 - 05:47] in a way that somebody is going to understand  or it resonates with them,  or you can't influence them to do the right thing,  then what's the point in knowing the law?  It's just something that's in your head.  You alluded to it. So what does it mean? 
[05:49 - 06:06] So what for you today as the general counsel,  so how do you work with making law more human,  putting human into the law,  and guiding your employees and coaching them on being more approachable, 
[06:06 - 06:23] of giving better advice,  understanding the business better?  So how have you incorporated it into your daily work?  I think it's about being available,  but also we use the word approachable  and not trying to mystify law. I think a lot of lawyers don't realise 
[06:23 - 06:40] that we're already put on pedestals  for the type of background and training that we've had.  So people have a certain expectation  as to what we are and what we bring to the table.  So we don't need to be insecure about it  and try and prove that people should listen to us. I think that comes across as very defensive 
[06:40 - 06:56] and also quite haughty and it alienates people ...

Why aren't lawyers encouraged to pursue entrepreneurship? The typical founder of a startup does not have a legal background.
Today, we ask: well, why not? 

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal.

Full episode transcript:

[00:00 - 00:18] Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal. Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs. 
[00:18 - 00:37] If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it.  For more inspiration, go to openli.com slash community. Welcome back. 
[00:37 - 00:59] This is Inspiring Legal, a podcast where we're trying to inspire or get inspired. My name is Stine and I'm the podcast host and today we will be talking about entrepreneurship 
[00:59 - 01:17] and legal.  Do those two go hand in hand?  Well, in many ways it doesn't, but in my opinion, it should.  So what do I mean? Let's take my own journey as an example. 
[01:17 - 01:36] When I graduated law school, I was kind of in the classic career path of going to a law  firm and that's what I did. I was there for six years and what I was coached on, what I was trained to do, and what was 
[01:36 - 01:53] the only career path that was talked about was the classical one, be a partner. We are putting you on a talent track for partnership and that was what I did because, well, that 
[01:53 - 02:11] is what you at least expect to do and what you have to aspire for. But in all honesty, in-house is also a possibility, but there are more possibilities. 
[02:11 - 02:33] So when you go in-house, you are then most likely kind of trained to think, well, head  of legal, director of legal, GCs, those are my next steps. But when you graduate law school, you have a legal degree and you have a skillset that 
[02:33 - 02:49] is so much stronger and has so much more potential than just that.  And it's not because I don't think it's amazing to become partner at a law firm.  It definitely is. And it's hard work. 
[02:49 - 03:08] And so is it to become a general counsel.  And it's not easy to transfer into in-house legal teams.  That requires new skillsets. But what's common for all of us with those types of backgrounds from law school is that 
[03:08 - 03:23] we have been trained to communicate.  We've been trained on understanding the letter of the law and interpreting that in ways many haven't. 
[03:23 - 03:44] We're trained to be analytical, to be skeptical, but also to always find the underlying solutions. To work together on finding solutions for problems that aren't sometimes almost impossible 
[03:44 - 04:00] to solve and we do it anyway.  We're strong in building relationships, stakeholder management. It might not be that budgets or something we use a lot of time on, but when you have 
[04:00 - 04:17] analytical minds working and we're also used to working, right? We're used to crazy hours and being at the top of our game always and always striving 
[04:17 - 04:38] after getting a better understanding of why things are as they are.  Well, when you have that skillset, when you have that mindset, it means that you have so much more to choose from if you want to. 
[04:38 - 04:55] Legal professionals, and I've been speaking to some amazing, inspiring people.  Some decide to go the commercial way because lawyers are commercially driven people as  well. So they're excellent contract negotiators. 
[04:55 - 05:22] They're excellent salespeople.  They're good at stakeholder management, at communicating complicated stuff and making it understandable, writing in ways that are engaging, inspiring in regards to subjects 
[05:22 - 05:41] that are sometimes really boring.  So what I'm trying to say here is that why is it that we aren't trained? Why is it that we aren't grasping the amount of opportunities that lay in front of us? 
[05:41 - 06:01] I know some are, and now I'm totally generalizing, and I don't mean to because I've been hearing  some amazing stories from people. But what I'm trying to say here is that I hope that lawyers understand the potential 
[06:01 - 06:18] that they have, that in-house legal people know that they don't necessarily only have  to be within the legal team. They can decide to go into communication. 
[06:18 - 06:34] They can decide to go into politics.  They can decide to go into sales.  You name it, become the CEO.  Why not? Or become a founder. 
[06:34 - 06:50] You can do that as well.  I've done it.  I love it.  Is that the easiest path to choose?  Just in all honesty, that's maybe another episode of what it actually meant and the bumps that you face. 
[06:50 - 07:08] Been there, done that, doing it continuously, but enjoying it as well. But what I want and hope is that you just know that you are sitting on a pile of gold 
[07:08 - 07:36] when it comes to resources and skills, and you can do whatever you want to because you have so many talents, so it's just about choosing which one you want to showcase to the world. 
[07:36 - 08:15] I hope that I gave you a little bit of inspiration into as big of an opportunity to lay ahead  and lie ahead for all of us. So thank you for listening and have a great day. 
[08:21 - 08:24] Bye.  Bye.  Bye. 

"Get out there and meet the people", Martin Lønstrup, the VP and Head of Group Compliance at Sandvik, says. In this episode of Inspiring Legal, Stine & Martin discuss the importance of the people that make up the business, its operations, and its level of compliance.

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal.

Full episode transcript:

[00:00 - 00:16] Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal. Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs. 
[00:16 - 00:36] If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it.  For more inspiration, go to openli.com slash community. Welcome to another Inspiring Legal episode. 
[00:36 - 00:54] So my name is Stine. I'm your host.  And today I'm joined by Martin. I'll let him introduce himself in a second. But what we're going to be talking today about is something about compliance and not being afraid of failure. 
[00:54 - 01:14] Well, how do those two things connect?  Well, that is what we'll be talking to Martin about today.  Welcome, Martin.  Thanks. Thanks for having me, Stine.  So Martin, for the listeners out there that don't know you, could you maybe just give them a little flavor as to who you are and your background? 
[01:14 - 01:34] Absolutely. I can do that.  Well, first and foremost, I'm a father. I have three kids and a wife.  And I love to ride on my bikes. So I think that's important for me to start with, because that's probably who I really am. 
[01:34 - 01:58] But professionally, of course, I'm today head of compliance for a large global Swedish engineering company called Sandvik. And I have a legal background and have worked now, what, more than 15 years or so in, I guess, mainly large corporates. 
[01:58 - 02:15] Before Sandvik, it was Falk. So everyone knows Falk in Denmark, at least. Emergency healthcare company. And before that, around eight years in Maersk, another Danish conglomerate with presence all over the world, 
[02:15 - 02:31] the container shipping logistics business there. So, and I've, you know, background-wise, I've gone from working with actually negotiating contracts and being a lawyer and legal work in-house. 
[02:31 - 02:50] To slowly transitioning, as many do, into compliance.  And working now, I have now worked with compliance for roughly 10 years. So, Morten, I know you from LinkedIn. I've seen a lot of your posts. 
[02:50 - 03:09] You're very good at sharing, not only sharing your bike rides, but also sharing wins, struggles, challenges. So in that regard, you've always been very open about giving to others. 
[03:09 - 03:33] So when you and I started talking, we started talking about compliance and building out a compliance framework for companies, big companies, for example. And at that point, I remember you saying, well, if you want to build really good compliance programs, you have to be open to failure. 
[03:33 - 03:55] And for me, that was, I agree, but failure and compliance and being open to failure are two things that normally don't go hand in hand. So I think the people out there would love to hear some of your stories, some of your learnings. 
[03:55 - 04:14] So could you maybe give a little insight into why you believe that failure and compliance is, well, a good thing? Yeah, I can absolutely do that. And it should not sound as if I just go halfway into my things. 
[04:14 - 04:41] Of course, with a legal background, we have our methods. So I think everyone who works within this field are definitely capable of doing so. I think for me, the failure part is, it resonates quite clearly to me because I think it's important that you build a comfort in your team and your teams with your employees, with your talents, that you don't have this no failure culture. 
[04:41 - 05:11] I think that it can literally lock people down a little bit. And I have actually, if I have to take one example from my very early young days working in Maersk, actually in an area where we were outside of, we were in the legal space, we were not in compliance, but I had to pitch something for the management, a project. 
[05:11 - 05:32] I did that, it completely failed. I pitched in the wrong way. I probably used the wrong arguments, even though I felt I was overly prepared. And at that time, it resulted in me actually not being given a chance to then do it again until like a year later. 
[05:32 - 06:07] And then it was actually then a success and we could do the project. But that made me kind of feel like, okay, you really don't get a lot of chances at that point in time. And then as I've moved up in my career, I've seen it over and over again that at least sometimes there's this, I guess, general respect or fear that if you don't do it right the first time, then you shouldn't do it. 
[06:07 - 06:48] And I think that that's unfortunate because I think that it doesn't really energize anyone or gives any motivation to anyone if you go in and you just get hit for them to come back and sit at your desk and then sit and grumble over like, why did it go wrong? I think that that's quite important to me. And I've seen it also in my later positions. Many of these situations, I have many failures, at least where I go in and maybe I've discussed a project or a pitch with my team, with everyone, and then I go in and then it should have been 40% different. 
[06:48 - 07:30] But you learn from that, you become stronger from that. And I think it's important to talk about it. Because if I don't talk about it, and if I don't grab my employees, if they face this type of dilemma in my compliance function today, they're left on their own to deal with that. And I don't think that that's fair. I think that it's also part of my leadership task to try and open this up a little bit and talk about it as something that is okay. And I kind of hate the word failure. 
[07:30 - 08:03] I prefer to talk about learnings, because you kind of get something out of it, you learn something, you reflect on it. And then you come out actually stronger in the end. So that's kind of how I try to see it. And I don't know, we've recently done a tech development that I've also told you a little bit about it before, where we did one development, we were very, very positive, we developed it in a system in eight weeks. 
[08:03 - 08:42] We did use a technology that was not maybe fully suited for the purpose, but that was for some strategic business reasons. And the day before, we had to scrap it because it could not live up to the data privacy requirements. And data privacy is within my function, so I couldn't really approve it, because then my function would not be following what we are supposed to follow. And immediately after, the first immediate reaction was, because it was taking a chance in the first place, it was like, you have failed. 
[08:42 - 09:01] So we have failed in this, you know, and actually, I had to really walk around in all the corridors and talk about, no, no, this is not failure. This is a learning. We have now learned that this tool, or this technology we chose for strategic reasons, were not suited for what we wanted to do. 
[09:01 - 09:20] So we have now learned, we should have taken the other technology that we knew of, but we didn't choose that because it may be a tiny bit more expensive for many reasons. We should have taken that one. Now we will take that one and do it over again, and then we'll be successful. It's a learning piece to that. 
[09:20 - 09:57] And I think we're all learning, right? Like, that's a part of growing up. It's about developing yourself personally, but also professionally. And what you often remember are the failures you made along the way, where you're definitely remembering, I'm not going to ...

How do you build that business-savvy legal team? In this episode, Stine teams up with Shanti Ariker, General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer at Zendesk, to learn just how she did that and the impact it had on the team and the company.

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal.

Full episode transcript with timestamps:

[00:00 - 00:09] Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal. 
[00:10 - 00:16] Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs. 
[00:16 - 00:19] If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it. 
[00:19 - 00:31] For more inspiration, go to openli.com slash community. 
[00:31 - 00:35] Welcome to another episode of Inspiring Legal. 
[00:35 - 00:39] My name is Stine and today I'm joined by Shanti. 
[00:39 - 00:46] You will hear much more about her in a second, but I can tell you she has a very impressive resume, 
[00:46 - 00:49] working for some of the biggest tech companies. 
[00:49 - 00:51] Shanti, welcome. 
[00:51 - 00:56] Thank you so much for having me today. It's great to be here. 
[00:56 - 01:03] I just wanted to welcome everybody to the podcast and I'm excited to be here. 
[01:03 - 01:07] We are super excited to have you on. 
[01:07 - 01:12] What we're going to be talking about today is making legal a part of the business. 
[01:12 - 01:21] How do you get legal to be that business partner that not only helps protect the business, but adds value too as well? 
[01:21 - 01:26] That's something that I know that you've been very passionate about, Shanti, during your career. 
[01:26 - 01:35] But before we jump into it, I would love for the listeners to get a little bit of flavor into your background 
[01:35 - 01:43] and who you are so they get to know you as well. 

[02:14 - 02:26] I am currently the general counsel of Zendesk, which is a large CRM software company that mainly focuses on customer support and customer success. 
[02:26 - 02:34] But previously I've worked at other large companies, as you mentioned, including Twilio, Autodesk, and Salesforce. 
[02:34 - 02:46] So in my time, I've done a lot to grow large tech companies and to really work side by side and hand in hand with the business folks. 
[02:46 - 02:52] So it's not just tech companies. 
[02:52 - 02:55] These are some of the biggest in the world. 
[02:55 - 03:03] If you know about SaaS businesses and you know about tech, you definitely know about Salesforce and Twilio and Zendesk. 
[03:03 - 03:08] So how did you get into the tech as general counsel? 
[03:08 - 03:10] How did that start? 
[03:10 - 03:17] So really, it started quite a long time ago with my interest in science and technology. 
[03:17 - 03:23] My father was a physicist and always interested me in that sort of thing, even though I was an English major. 
[03:23 - 03:34] So while I never went into the technology field myself or became a technologist, I was always really inspired to understand about it and wanted to, 
[03:34 - 03:42] and having grown up actually in Silicon Valley, I wanted to be near that and be part of it in whatever way I could. 
[03:42 - 03:51] So when I became a lawyer, I thought, what better way to honor kind of my father's legacy than to continue in the tech field myself. 
[03:51 - 04:03] So when I did start out, though, I was at a big law firm on Wall Street and then moved to the Bay Area and was working in the litigation group of a Bay Area law firm. 
[04:03 - 04:07] And I really did want to move in-house and work in tech. 
[04:07 - 04:14] And in order to do that, I got a little bit lucky and was asked to go in-house by one of my clients. 
[04:14 - 04:21] So I did that, but I eventually started to work more on technology agreements and work on commercial agreements. 
[04:21 - 04:32] And so that, you know, really got me much closer into the business because litigation, you know, you learn like maybe one facet related to a case, but not as much about the whole business. 
[04:32 - 04:49] And so as I started to work more on technology transactions, I learned about what the concerns of the business were, what the needs were, and, you know, over time have delved more and deeply into business areas. 
[04:49 - 05:02] So you mentioned it, getting closer to the business, and I think this is something that lawyers are becoming better at doing. 
[05:02 - 05:12] But what would you say have been kind of like the development over the last, let's say, 10 years, in your opinion, has it changed? 
[05:12 - 05:15] Have lawyers changed as much as the business? 
[05:15 - 05:18] And how have you seen this develop? 
[05:18 - 05:29] Yeah, I think, you know, over my career, there's been a big shift between inside and outside counsel, right? 
[05:29 - 05:36] So there were much smaller legal departments in-house when I started to practice law. 
[05:36 - 05:44] There might even be no general counsel or just a general counsel and no staff, maybe one person at most. 
[05:44 - 05:56] But now, you know, some of these companies that I've worked at have hundreds of lawyers or even thousands of lawyers on some of the larger FANG companies like Google, Facebook, et cetera. 
[05:56 - 06:03] And so they're almost like whole legal firms in and of themselves. 
[06:03 - 06:16] So, you know, the practice of law in-house has really changed quite a bit because you have to specialize, you're much more focused on creating value for the business and really understanding the business. 
[06:16 - 06:24] And so, you know, the companies where I've worked, we've had, you know, larger legal teams, but not enormous. 
[06:24 - 06:30] And I think where you can really add value and where I've been able to add value is to really understand the business. 
[06:30 - 06:32] And what do I mean by that? 
[06:32 - 06:34] And it's not just about my little area. 
[06:34 - 06:40] You know, when I was hired at Salesforce, I was mainly working on the master subscription agreement. 
[06:40 - 06:45] And certainly I know my way around an indemnity clause and limitation of liability. 
[06:45 - 06:55] And then but you have to understand a little bit about the use cases of the customer, what they're looking to put into the system as by way of data, 
[06:55 - 07:02] the privacy areas of regulation and where that could trip you up and depending on which country you're in. 
[07:02 - 07:10] But the more the longer that I'm in a company, the more I'm interested in, you know, what is exactly what is their product do? 
[07:10 - 07:19] And where are the things where are the where are the problems and the issues that are facing customers when they're trying to use the product? 
[07:19 - 07:30] And how can you as a lawyer bring those to the business and make them understand where they're where there are these friction points that you can help solve? 
[07:30 - 07:34] Often they don't they don't earn in those conversations, in those negotiations. 
[07:34 - 07:47] So they don't necessarily know, you know, sometimes they'll be in a good example is a very acquisitive company may have acquired a bunch of different products and not put them on the same platform. 
[07:47 - 08:01] And so when you're negotiating an agreement, suddenly you've got six different security standards or the data is residing in different places or it's being processed in different ways. 
[08:01 - 08:05] And so you don't want to have the same security addendum apply. 
[08:05 - 08:09] And the customer doesn't care because they just want one set of term...

Working in-house means understanding and taking business needs into account. So far so good, but how do you get there? How do you get the understanding needed to be offered a seat at the decision table? How can you use that understanding to help your company even more? Press play to find out.  

Join us next week when we'll be talking with Zendesk's GC, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Privacy Officer Shanti Ariker. Shanti will further enlighten us about how Legal can support the entire business.   

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal.

Full episode transcript: 

[00:00 - 00:09] Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal. 
[00:10 - 00:16] Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs. 
[00:16 - 00:19] If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it. 
[00:19 - 00:30] For more inspiration, go to Openli.com slash community. 
[00:32 - 00:34] Inspiring Legal is back. 
[00:34 - 00:40] It's 2023 and my name is Stine and I'm a part of Openli. 
[00:40 - 00:45] You might have heard me before and if you haven't, well, welcome to Inspiring Legal. 
[00:45 - 00:52] This is a podcast for in-house legal, for the people that are working as general counsels, 
[00:52 - 00:58] head of legal, privacy counsels, and supporting the business. 
[00:59 - 01:06] This year we have some amazing lineups of speakers, people with extreme experience 
[01:06 - 01:09] and they've been working within legal for I don't know how many years. 
[01:09 - 01:18] So today, this episode is about what we're going to be focusing on for the next couple of episodes 
[01:18 - 01:20] with these amazing speakers. 
[01:21 - 01:27] How you become a business savvy in-house lawyer. 
[01:28 - 01:33] I think we all know that working in-house means you need to understand the business. 
[01:34 - 01:37] Otherwise, it's super difficult to support. 
[01:37 - 01:40] It's difficult to give good legal advice. 
[01:41 - 01:45] What's even more difficult is to make a difference. 
[01:45 - 01:47] And we all want to make a difference, right? 
[01:47 - 01:48] That's why we went into law. 
[01:49 - 01:58] This is why we're working with either contracts, privacy, or marketing as an example. 
[01:58 - 02:04] Supporting the business with complex matters and trying to decipher it in a way where they get it. 
[02:04 - 02:12] So still, I think we can do better. 
[02:12 - 02:14] Or at least I know I can do better. 
[02:14 - 02:17] It's all about getting on top of your business. 
[02:18 - 02:24] So we will be talking with Zendesk's general counsel and she's a force. 
[02:25 - 02:31] She knows something about supporting a business and being that business savvy lawyer. 
[02:31 - 02:33] She has a very impressive resume. 
[02:33 - 02:40] She's been working for not only Zendesk, but some of the fastest growing tech companies out there. 
[02:41 - 02:44] And having a seat around the table. 
[02:45 - 02:48] And to get that, you need to understand your business. 
[02:49 - 02:50] So how do you do that? 
[02:50 - 02:53] Well, take a look at what I did myself. 
[02:53 - 02:58] And also take maybe a few references for some of the speakers that we've had. 
[02:58 - 03:05] I started my first job out of the law firm working at a tech company. 
[03:06 - 03:12] I have to say it was quite the experience and a bit of a rollercoaster. 
[03:12 - 03:17] Because when you're sitting at the law firms, you know your clients. 
[03:18 - 03:19] They're the same as you. 
[03:20 - 03:23] They are lawyers or maybe they're like CEOs or CFOs. 
[03:23 - 03:28] But as a main role, you're talking to the same persona. 
[03:29 - 03:34] And when you then go out to the business, all of a sudden you're not talking to lawyers. 
[03:35 - 03:38] Well, you might get legal advice sometime from like your external law firm. 
[03:39 - 03:42] But you are supporting marketing. 
[03:43 - 03:48] You're talking about fast moving people that just want to get things done. 
[03:48 - 03:52] Or the developers that just want a yes, no answer. 
[03:53 - 03:55] And ideally, yes, preferably, if doable. 
[03:56 - 04:03] So what you need to think about and what I did was how do I communicate? 
[04:04 - 04:05] So that was the first one. 
[04:06 - 04:10] So becoming that business savvy lawyer, it's about how you communicate. 
[04:11 - 04:12] How you speak to people. 
[04:12 - 04:21] And show that you're honestly super interested in what they do. 
[04:22 - 04:28] So the perfect example, or maybe not perfect, but just like explaining where I came from. 
[04:29 - 04:34] So I came in at this tech company and on day two, the VP of engineering came over. 
[04:35 - 04:37] And we're in around 2013. 
[04:38 - 04:40] And he came over and he said, hey, Steena. 
[04:40 - 04:43] We're thinking about using APIs. 
[04:44 - 04:47] I just want to make sure from a privacy standpoint, but also contractually, 
[04:48 - 04:50] is there anything that we should be aware of? 
[04:51 - 04:57] And we're considering building it into the product to make it even more easy for our customers to integrate. 
[04:58 - 05:02] And I was sitting there and just thinking, APIs? 
[05:03 - 05:05] What the hell? What's that? 
[05:06 - 05:08] And I had no idea, right? 
[05:08 - 05:12] And you don't want to really seem as if you have no clue what he's talking about. 
[05:13 - 05:18] But I kind of really, really fast just came to the conclusion, I just have to ask. 
[05:19 - 05:22] And I just said, okay, what's an API? 
[05:23 - 05:26] And then he started telling me what an API was. 
[05:27 - 05:28] And I still really didn't get it. 
[05:29 - 05:33] So we went to a whiteboard and he started drawing how the data floated. 
[05:33 - 05:37] And all of a sudden said, oh, so it's kind of like a traffic light. 
[05:38 - 05:39] Like you're on a freeway. 
[05:40 - 05:43] And he's looking at me and I'm thinking, what is she talking about? 
[05:44 - 05:48] So the way I kind of like tried to get it was like, okay, so APIs, 
[05:49 - 05:55] they're kind of like a freeway where you can go in your car and you can go really fast back and forward to your destinations. 
[05:56 - 05:57] And then there are traffic lights. 
[05:58 - 06:00] So if it's a public API, it's normally just green. 
[06:00 - 06:02] And I can take my little car and I can drive. 
[06:03 - 06:10] And if it's private, well, sometimes there's a red light and I have to show my credentials before the light will go green. 
[06:11 - 06:15] And it was kind of like, yeah, okay, we can work with that. 
[06:16 - 06:17] And okay. 
[06:18 - 06:22] But just the fact that I really, I think, tried to get it persuaded him. 
[06:23 - 06:27] So a few days later, yeah, the story isn't done yet. 
[06:27 - 06:31] He came over again and he started talking about iframes. 
[06:32 - 06:36] And by the way, I've been doing privacy and tech for I don't know how many years. 
[06:37 - 06:41] So I do know something about tech, but when you're talking about the VP of engineering, 
[06:42 - 06:45] apparently there's a bit of a way for you to learn at that point. 
[06:46 - 06:53] So he came over, he started talking about iframes and we're talking about widgets and performance on websites and stuff. 
[06:53 - 06:57] And I started, okay, so ...

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal.

Full episode transcript: 

[00:00 - 00:09]: Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal.
[00:10 - 00:16]: Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs.
[00:16 - 00:19]: If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it.
[00:19 - 00:30]: For more inspiration, go to Openli.com slash community.
[00:31 - 00:38]: Welcome back to this episode of Inspiring Legal, where I have the pleasure of welcoming William.
[00:39 - 00:41]: William, we are delighted to have you.
[00:41 - 00:48]: For the listeners out there, who is William and what is your background?
[00:49 - 00:53]: Thanks, Stine. I really appreciate it. It's great to be on.
[00:54 - 01:01]: My background, in a nutshell, maybe can be told by my accent or lack of an accent.
[01:02 - 01:08]: But I'm originally from the US, but I've been in Denmark for 10 plus years now.
[01:08 - 01:19]: I've also lived in a number of places and have been quite mobile in my personal life and career, but have made a home now here in Denmark.
[01:20 - 01:29]: Fantastic. So for the listeners out there, William Wade has been working for Sitecore for 11 years.
[01:29 - 01:38]: Recently, you launched what is called Sitecore's Legal Hub 0.1. I will be asking you so many questions,
[01:39 - 01:43]: because I think this is something that people will really truly find inspiring,
[01:44 - 01:49]: because you've set the goal to becoming the most innovative legal department, as I understand it.
[01:50 - 01:56]: In the industry. We'll start being the most innovative legal department in the industry,
[01:56 - 01:59]: and then we'll see where we can go from there.
[02:00 - 02:07]: That is ambitious, but it also means that you've been thinking a lot about, I guess, how to innovate, how to work.
[02:08 - 02:16]: But maybe to take a step back for the ones that don't know Sitecore, what is the company, what industry,
[02:17 - 02:20]: and maybe also just how big is your legal team?
[02:20 - 02:30]: Sure. Well, the legal team is, we are 23 people in all, including all various types of legal professionals,
[02:31 - 02:37]: not just attorneys that make up our team. So we're 23 in all, spread out globally.
[02:38 - 02:43]: Take back to 10 years ago or so, when I started, I was the second.
[02:43 - 02:51]: So we've grown since then. I would say we haven't grown enough to support all the needs of the business,
[02:52 - 03:00]: but that's what most in-house teams would also say, especially in the tech world. It's tough to keep up.
[03:01 - 03:08]: In terms of Sitecore, yes, so Sitecore started out as an early CMS provider.
[03:08 - 03:12]: So that's content management systems, just a way to manage content on your website.
[03:13 - 03:21]: The simplest example was in the early days, even dating back to the early 2000s,
[03:22 - 03:29]: if you wanted to make an edit on a website for similar content, you might have to go on every individual page and make that edit.
[03:30 - 03:35]: So it's crazy how much things have advanced since then.
[03:35 - 03:42]: But Sitecore started out, founder-led company by Michael Seifert.
[03:43 - 03:53]: And it was really about how can we build websites and make the process of managing content easier.
[03:54 - 04:03]: And they were a big player on the scene and also got started in the Bay Area through family connections
[04:03 - 04:12]: and other early investors so that when they were starting in Denmark, they were also starting almost in parallel in the US.
[04:13 - 04:16]: And that shaped a lot of the early success of the company.
[04:17 - 04:22]: It didn't have to make that jump from Europe to the US, that we were established there.
[04:23 - 04:29]: And in fact, a lot of US customers would most likely identify Sitecore as a US company
[04:29 - 04:33]: and not necessarily even understand its origins.
[04:34 - 04:35]: That's a big part of the success.
[04:36 - 04:41]: In terms of the product, CMS, that's old hat now.
[04:42 - 04:51]: To describe our product suite and the industry we're in, you call it the digital experience world,
[04:51 - 04:58]: which can mean different things, but it is a lot about how you engage with the website,
[04:59 - 05:06]: how personalizing content, of course, with consent, GDPR consent, of course.
[05:07 - 05:10]: All of that is privacy by design built into it.
[05:11 - 05:17]: But it is about being able to send the right content to your customer,
[05:17 - 05:20]: whether you're a B2B or B2C customer.
[05:21 - 05:23]: Sitecore's customers can send the right content at the right time.
[05:24 - 05:27]: So what have been the challenges?
[05:28 - 05:32]: I know a lot of the listeners and a lot of people in the community are sitting right now
[05:33 - 05:36]: and really focusing on especially improving sales.
[05:37 - 05:42]: We have the community report that we built together with the community.
[05:42 - 05:47]: And that shows that more than any other department,
[05:48 - 05:53]: sales and commercial are requiring the most resources from in-house legal teams.
[05:54 - 06:02]: I think on average, 71% of all community members said that sales were the most demanding team to support.
[06:03 - 06:08]: And they were also just taking arms and legs, more or less, from the legal teams.
[06:08 - 06:15]: What have been the challenges to build the legal hub?
[06:16 - 06:21]: Well, it's definitely true with sales and Sitecore is no different.
[06:22 - 06:25]: And our field legal team is the largest.
[06:26 - 06:33]: When we think of those 23 legal professionals, a huge chunk is set within the field.
[06:33 - 06:42]: And a lot of the things that I do as well is focused on supporting our field legal team, which supports everything.
[06:43 - 06:44]: Field is the sales?
[06:45 - 06:46]: Field is the sales, yes.
[06:47 - 06:53]: So anything commercially driven and any revenue generating contract and related.
[06:54 - 06:58]: Of course, it all can be interrelated, but that's what I mean.
[06:58 - 07:02]: Sales is also just a good word to use.
[07:03 - 07:06]: So it's the same here that we use that.
[07:07 - 07:20]: And the challenges, in large part, I really feel is how can we present information in a way that will support the sales process.
[07:20 - 07:36]: And will be advantageous and a value add to our sales team, both to save resources of asking, having to answer, excuse me, the same question again and again.
[07:36 - 07:51]: How can we focus our resources, obviously, towards the customer so they will have less questions because we have been so transparent and have really tried to give them the full picture of what we're doing.
[07:52 - 08:01]: Which make the sales person's life easier, decrease deal cycles, the length of time it takes to close a deal by doing that.
[08:01 - 08:17]: But also give our own sales team that ammunition to take into those discussions when a customer, you know, legal departments from our customers, you know, they want to show their value as well.
[08:18 - 08:27]: You run into these situations where you can see that they may not have issue with your contract, but they are trying to show you the value to their organization.
[08:27 - 08:34]: And we're cognizant of that. But how can we still make that process easier?
[08:35 - 08:41]: And I think it goes back to engaging the customer and being transparent.
[08:42 - 08:48]: That's transparent, transparent, transparent is what we want to offer.
[08:48 - 08:56]: So explain our agreement set up, understand we'll have some disagreements, but explain why we have set up language the way we have.
[08:57 - 09:10]: And also, you know, a big conversation point that came up in the middle of this is that are w...

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal.

Full episode transcript:

[00:00 - 00:09]: Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal.
[00:10 - 00:16]: Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs.
[00:16 - 00:19]: If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it.
[00:19 - 00:31]: For more inspiration, go to openli.com slash community.
[00:32 - 00:38]: Welcome to another special edition of the Inspiring Legal podcast.
[00:38 - 00:39]: It's Christmas time.
[00:39 - 00:43]: And so let's start by wishing each other.
[00:43 - 00:44]: Happy Christmas.
[00:44 - 00:49]: I hope you're all enjoying the season of hopefully snow.
[00:49 - 00:55]: If you are in the snowy locations, if not, well, I hope you're enjoying the sun.
[00:55 - 00:59]: Today I am joined by a very special guest.
[00:59 - 01:04]: He is the mind behind the podcast.
[01:04 - 01:14]: A big contribution and also content creator when it comes to the openli community.
[01:14 - 01:15]: Welcome Daniel.
[01:15 - 01:16]: Thanks, Dina.
[01:16 - 01:17]: Wow.
[01:17 - 01:18]: Thanks for the nice words.
[01:18 - 01:19]: Very happy to be here.
[01:19 - 01:25]: So for those who don't know Daniel, well, you actually know him, but you don't really know him.
[01:25 - 01:31]: He's kind of like the special secret Santa that we have here at openli.
[01:31 - 01:35]: Daniel is heading up content and communications at openli.
[01:35 - 01:37]: So he's the producer.
[01:37 - 01:38]: Yeah.
[01:38 - 01:42]: Usually I am sitting behind the microphone, but you won't hear me.
[01:42 - 01:49]: But so for this special edition Christmas episode, we decided to spice up things a bit.
[01:49 - 01:51]: And so I've joined Stine.
[01:51 - 01:52]: I'm very happy to.
[01:52 - 01:58]: And yeah, today we're talking about something very close to Stine's heart.
[01:58 - 02:01]: I know and to my heart also.
[02:01 - 02:09]: How are legal teams working in the year that we are just currently exiting?
[02:09 - 02:14]: And what will those trends say for the year that we are looking forward to?
[02:14 - 02:15]: Yeah.
[02:15 - 02:18]: So as you all know, it's the season of giving back.
[02:18 - 02:21]: It's from all of us to all of you.
[02:21 - 02:25]: So if we look back at 2023, oh, sorry, two.
[02:25 - 02:28]: Jesus, I'm already jumping ahead.
[02:28 - 02:35]: So if you look back at this year, what we did is that we launched the openli community.
[02:35 - 02:40]: And based on your feedback, we launched the podcast.
[02:40 - 02:44]: We asked the community how many of you wanted a podcast.
[02:44 - 02:50]: And it was over 90% that said, this is something we really would like.
[02:50 - 02:57]: You also told us a lot about what your struggles are, what you're working on, what you're focusing on.
[02:57 - 03:04]: And that's why we built the survey where we talked with more than I don't know how many.
[03:04 - 03:07]: We're almost 600 in the community now.
[03:07 - 03:18]: Everybody working in-house legal, everybody really focusing on scaling, improving the way that they're working and also sharing what their struggles are.
[03:18 - 03:24]: And that's why we built the in-house legal community report that we shared with you a few weeks back.
[03:24 - 03:33]: But those who haven't had time to read the report, for those that aren't a part of the community, but listening to the podcast,
[03:33 - 03:44]: Daniel and I talked about what could we best do to give you a little Christmas present, but also give you the best possible start for the year.
[03:44 - 03:51]: So Daniel, you are, of course, a big part of building that report, getting those insights.
[03:51 - 03:58]: So I thought it'd be nice if you just kind of decide what we should be talking about and what we should be sharing.
[03:58 - 04:08]: Yeah. So basically, we went over the report and we thought, OK, so what will bring the most value to our very much valued listeners?
[04:08 - 04:16]: And basically, we have decided to go over the report with you right now, right here.
[04:16 - 04:20]: Yeah. So from all of us to all of you.
[04:20 - 04:26]: So, yeah, hope you will enjoy this.
[04:26 - 04:33]: We're going to skim the report, obviously, and you can go and sign up for the community and read the report.
[04:33 - 04:41]: But yeah, we hope you will get a lot of very valuable information out of this. We surely have.
[04:41 - 04:46]: So should we just dive into it? Yeah. Yeah, let's do so. All right.
[04:46 - 04:49]: So the first thing, do you want to take the first one? Yeah.
[04:49 - 04:55]: Yeah. So the first thing we started talking about with the community was very much about showing value.
[04:55 - 05:06]: Like Daniel and I know from many of you out there that legal is sometimes not able to showcase how they're supporting the business.
[05:06 - 05:11]: Like everybody knows how much value and how much work, but how do you showcase it?
[05:11 - 05:14]: So what about KPIs? How do you measure value?
[05:14 - 05:19]: So we started talking with the community about how they are measuring it. Are they even measuring it?
[05:19 - 05:32]: And what we found out is that 45 percent of the legal teams are working with KPIs, meaning 55 percent aren't.
[05:32 - 05:36]: And what's really interesting for a lot of people out there are, OK, so what are you measuring?
[05:36 - 05:47]: How are you tracking it? And we've been having some really interesting conversations with some of the biggest general tech companies where you're talking to general counsels from Sendesk.
[05:47 - 05:54]: We're talking with FITMA and so forth. And every time we're asking them, so how are you measuring value?
[05:54 - 06:00]: And what they're saying is it's very much about understanding the work.
[06:00 - 06:04]: It's about understanding the data. But how do you get data?
[06:04 - 06:11]: That's where the tricky part comes in. So some are having what you would call kind of like a ticket system.
[06:11 - 06:17]: So they are asking everybody who wants to get in contact with legal to file a ticket.
[06:17 - 06:29]: So when they file a ticket, it's they're measuring who's sending it, what teams they're measuring, how fast we're responding, what type of contract are reviewing.
[06:29 - 06:43]: So all of a sudden, they're able to see what departments are taking the most of the legal time or what departments are sending the most amount of contracts for review.
[06:43 - 06:48]: Others are using NPS scores and surveys. And what is an NPS score, Stine?
[06:48 - 06:56]: So an NPS score is kind of like a satisfaction score where you're often asked to measure between one to ten.
[06:56 - 07:00]: And where you're counting the most positive, you're counting the most negative.
[07:00 - 07:05]: And then you have kind of like this, let's call it the dead zone, where it doesn't really add in.
[07:05 - 07:10]: It's not negative and it's not positive. So that's also how some are doing it.
[07:10 - 07:16]: But what we found out that most people are doing are surveying.
[07:16 - 07:21]: They're going out and talking and asking, what do you think? Are you getting value?
[07:21 - 07:26]: Is there anything we can do better? Is there anything we're doing excellent?
[07:26 - 07:33]: So on that regard, they're trying to really try to get a sense of where they can improve and how they can work better.
[07:33 - 07:40]: And then we have the ones that are very much just focused on the ACV, so the average contract value.
[07:40 - 07:46]: And that's another way that some are measuring the value that they're delivering to the company.
[07:46 - 07:53]: So how much of the revenue generated sales are being supported by legal.
[07:53 - 08:02]: But I imagin...

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal.

Full episode transcript:

[00:00 - 00:09]: Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal.
[00:10 - 00:16]: Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs.
[00:16 - 00:19]: If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it.
[00:19 - 00:30]: For more inspiration, go to openli.com slash community.
[00:32 - 00:36]: Welcome to another episode of Inspiring Legal.
[00:36 - 00:40]: My name is Stine and today I'm joined by Laura.
[00:40 - 00:41]: Welcome, Laura.
[00:42 - 00:44]: Hi, welcome. Thanks for having me.
[00:44 - 00:53]: So for the listeners out there, Laura is a big contributor to the openli community,
[00:53 - 00:59]: having written several articles on a topic that is very close to our heart,
[00:59 - 01:03]: about building the in-house legal team's brand.
[01:03 - 01:09]: But before we jump into that and hear more about the importance and why you should be thinking about it,
[01:09 - 01:11]: I think we should meet Laura.
[01:11 - 01:17]: Laura, can you maybe just tell people who you are and maybe a little bit about your background?
[01:18 - 01:22]: Sure. I always have a difficult time knowing where to start.
[01:22 - 01:26]: So usually I try to get some things, you know, right out at the start,
[01:26 - 01:32]: which is that I'm an American who is an expat living in Denmark, in Copenhagen,
[01:32 - 01:35]: to kind of situate myself.
[01:36 - 01:40]: I went to law school in California.
[01:40 - 01:47]: So I'm a California licensed attorney and I've had a varied career throughout different states and countries in Europe.
[01:47 - 01:50]: I've primarily been in-house my whole career.
[01:50 - 01:53]: So that sets me apart a little bit. It makes me a little different.
[01:54 - 01:56]: Today I would say that I work in tech.
[01:57 - 02:02]: But prior to that, I've also worked in sports and worked in media.
[02:02 - 02:10]: And I'm very passionate about pushing our industry, the legal industry, and particularly in-house teams forward
[02:10 - 02:20]: to become more efficient, really to be optimized and be able to work better within our current business environment.
[02:21 - 02:25]: So for those of you, when Laura is talking about those companies she's worked for,
[02:25 - 02:29]: it's big companies like Unity and Red Bull.
[02:29 - 02:36]: So she's being modest. She is a person who knows a lot when it comes to in-house legal.
[02:37 - 02:44]: So Laura, maybe just tell me a little bit about where did your passion come from
[02:44 - 02:48]: when it goes to the kind of in-house legal team brand?
[02:48 - 02:50]: Like, where did you get that?
[02:52 - 02:56]: I think it's probably from really just working with the business
[02:56 - 03:02]: and going in and having the business really just not excited to have a meeting with you,
[03:02 - 03:10]: not excited to take a phone call with you, or maybe even some points being scared to come talk to you.
[03:11 - 03:14]: I mean, we're there to help. We're a service organization.
[03:14 - 03:19]: We serve the business and enable the business to thrive.
[03:19 - 03:21]: So really we should be looked at as partners.
[03:21 - 03:27]: And so, you know, just this barrier that would come up because people, you know,
[03:27 - 03:33]: in some contexts have had negative experiences with legal or they think of television shows.
[03:34 - 03:39]: Right? People have come with all these preconceptions about what a lawyer is or what a lawyer does.
[03:40 - 03:46]: And I've found in most of my jobs, I've had to do education and relationship building
[03:46 - 03:50]: and bridge building and selling what I'm doing.
[03:50 - 03:54]: So then I can be more integrated into the business.
[03:54 - 03:59]: So it's really, I think, probably out of necessity to do my job better.
[03:59 - 04:05]: But then also just on a personal level, you know, you want your colleagues to want to have meetings with you
[04:05 - 04:08]: and not be upset or disappointed.
[04:08 - 04:11]: Like, oh, I got to get on a call with legal.
[04:12 - 04:16]: Yeah, those like, have you talked to legal? Do I have to?
[04:16 - 04:18]: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[04:18 - 04:22]: Okay, so when you're talking about legal brands and building that,
[04:22 - 04:30]: it's as much about getting maybe away from the perception that legal is a naysayer
[04:30 - 04:33]: or maybe somebody you couldn't talk to.
[04:33 - 04:35]: So is that correctly understood?
[04:35 - 04:39]: Yeah, kind of like, I would say like a dream crusher, right?
[04:39 - 04:43]: Especially working in technology, working with developers.
[04:43 - 04:49]: I think when people are, or even in the creative industries, when you're creating something,
[04:49 - 04:55]: you don't necessarily want to sort of bring your baby to legal to then have it be, you know,
[04:55 - 05:03]: crushed and smashed because, you know, of some regulations or just something that is going on.
[05:03 - 05:07]: So that's also part of why, you know, in brand building, it's about when to work with legal.
[05:07 - 05:13]: So come to legal before so we can work together to build whatever it is you're building.
[05:13 - 05:18]: So then you don't have those negative experiences of, you know, for example,
[05:18 - 05:22]: building a product that's collecting all sorts of personally identifiable information
[05:22 - 05:28]: and not building anything in that product to deal with regulations in the proper way.
[05:28 - 05:34]: So if we then take your, you've written a whole series on this subject.
[05:34 - 05:37]: So again, there is so much for us to cover.
[05:37 - 05:48]: But if you were to kind of like give the intro to how do you see like legal brands,
[05:48 - 05:57]: where are we today and how have we maybe been evolving, hopefully?
[05:57 - 06:02]: I think it probably just depends on one, the company and then the leadership of the legal team.
[06:02 - 06:07]: But I definitely see, especially actually as part of the LinkedIn community
[06:07 - 06:14]: and also different legal communities that are being built, like the OpenLink community,
[06:14 - 06:21]: people are interested in pushing our industry forward and also the perception of legal,
[06:21 - 06:23]: how we're doing things.
[06:23 - 06:30]: You can look at everything from pushing from using plain language to adopting technology
[06:30 - 06:40]: to talking about mental health of lawyers, where we're trying to push forward to humanize ourselves.
[06:40 - 06:48]: And then also, I think, bring ourselves up to speed with other teams that are using technology to optimize.
[06:48 - 06:51]: So I think it's all about accessibility and humanizing.
[06:51 - 06:54]: So I think there's definitely really great progress being made.
[06:54 - 07:00]: But, you know, other kind of, I guess, like the early tech adoption curve, right?
[07:00 - 07:03]: People are in different parts of their journey.
[07:03 - 07:08]: But don't you think maybe that the legal teams are evolving too in this day and age?
[07:08 - 07:15]: Like what we've seen from the community report that we did and that we're launching now,
[07:15 - 07:24]: we can see that a lot of the legal professionals out there have been struggling with building relationships,
[07:24 - 07:31]: getting that buy in and understanding of why legal is so important and when you can use legal.
[07:31 - 07:38]: So do you think there is maybe also a shift in the in-house legal teams in terms of mindsets?
[07:38 - 07:48]: I think so. I think they're recognizing that in order to do your job, you have to sort of have a seat at the table or change the perception of legal.
[07:48 - 07:54]: And also, I think legal teams ar...

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Full episode transcription:

[00:00 - 00:09]: Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal.
[00:10 - 00:16]: Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs.
[00:16 - 00:19]: If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it.
[00:19 - 00:31]: For more inspiration, go to openli.com slash community.
[00:32 - 00:36]: So this is a new episode of Inspiring Legal.
[00:37 - 00:43]: My name is Stine and today we're going to talk a little bit about privacy.
[00:43 - 00:56]: Often when you're sitting in-house, a part of your responsibilities are related to privacy, GDPR, CCPA, and the various privacy legislations that are out there today.
[00:57 - 01:00]: You might also have a privacy team.
[01:00 - 01:12]: But regardless of whether or not you're sitting in privacy, if you're sitting in legal, you need to figure out how you want to work with privacy.
[01:13 - 01:23]: What is your privacy vision, mission, goals, and how do you get that ingrained across the organization?
[01:23 - 01:41]: Well, I think the first thing we should talk about is getting management to stand by the support, the insights, and the power that is needed for you to succeed with working with privacy.
[01:42 - 01:47]: Because if you don't have management, it's going to be very difficult to get this implemented.
[01:47 - 02:02]: So what I would do first is I would start by figuring out just at my own desk, where are we in my understanding of our compliance level related to privacy?
[02:02 - 02:23]: Once I've gotten that, what I would do is I would at the next management meeting go and introduce them to just generally privacy, where we are as a company, and also what is needed for us to be at an acceptable level.
[02:23 - 02:34]: I'm not talking about going into details about whether or not you have your Article 30, if your DPA is up to date, your privacy policies. I'm talking just in general.
[02:34 - 02:57]: And then I would go to management and say, I think this is important for reasons A, B, and C, not focusing on the fines per se, but focusing on how we can leverage privacy as a revenue generator, just one example,
[02:57 - 03:07]: or as a way to build trust with our users, or if we can see that we're getting a lot of requests in the sales process, or from users.
[03:08 - 03:19]: So let's say that we're a B2C company. If we can see that a lot of users are starting to ask questions about how we're doing things related to privacy, well, that is always good to have on file.
[03:19 - 03:40]: Because as soon as you make it tangible, as soon as you make it visible to management, how this is impacting the company, not only because of high fines, but how you're operating as a global company, as an example, well, then it makes a difference.
[03:40 - 03:50]: So this is where I would start. Then I would ask for a mandate to go and take a further look into how we're working with privacy.
[03:51 - 03:59]: And what I would do then is simply start classifying GDPR and privacy into different buckets.
[03:59 - 04:17]: There is how we're doing in terms of sales, how many requests are we getting, how we're doing in terms of end users asking us questions, how we're doing in terms of internal, it might be your employees that have questions, and then how we're doing on the overall compliance level.
[04:17 - 04:33]: In my own personal view, I've not done any digging at this point in time. And I then have a good understanding of the impact that I'm able to maybe have with running and implementing a privacy program.
[04:33 - 04:57]: What I would do then is simply start mapping out how we're doing, what data are we getting, are we a data processor? Well, some of the things that I would start looking at first is how, let's call it, risky are the data processors that we're using to deliver the service to our company.
[04:57 - 05:04]: So let's imagine that my company, it's not, by the way, just emphasizing, it is not, but built on Google Analytics.
[05:05 - 05:16]: If it's built on Google Analytics, I know, not good, right? Because if you've seen all the many different types of decisions coming from the regulators, well, then you would know.
[05:17 - 05:20]: Google Analytics aren't doing super well.
[05:20 - 05:30]: So we do that mapping and seeing, okay, just on a general level, how we're progressing in that regard. And once I had that, well, I would start doing more mapping.
[05:30 - 05:55]: Then I would figure out overall what impact do I anticipate that working with privacy will have on my company? Because it might have an impact. In some scenarios, it probably will. Marketing might not be able to do the same type of lookups in Facebook that they were doing before, you know, lookalikes.
[05:55 - 06:15]: It might be that some of the processes for buying tools will drag out a little. I'm not talking necessarily about a lot, but before you start buying a tool, figure out whether or not your data processor is GDPR compliant and working with privacy and have the appropriate security measures.
[06:15 - 06:33]: Well, that's important. Because as soon as you open up, you start to share data, and then you're relying and hoping on their compliance level. So you might want to introduce your process when it comes to buying tools, which might have an impact on the product teams.
[06:33 - 06:50]: Because also the product teams, they like to buy tools, just like marketing. And if all of a sudden they just can't go out and buy the tools as they were normally doing, well, then you would need buy-in. So getting that overview before you start implementing it.
[06:50 - 07:19]: And then what I would do is I would go to each of the business owners, and I would have a conversation about it, telling them why it's important, showing them how many requests we're getting from customers, how many tools we're using in the organization, how much data we're sharing across, or maybe also how many of our prospects have questions about the subprocesses we're using.
[07:20 - 07:38]: And how it's impacting sales. So I would go to, for example, my CPO, which is the chief product officer, and I would say to him, well, this is how the world is. Many product officers are really dedicated to privacy. That's my experience.
[07:38 - 07:51]: So when you're talking about, we need to keep data safe, you need to make sure that we're working with the right companies, well, they typically buy-in. Especially if you're asking them also about how can we improve the process.
[07:51 - 08:07]: It's all about stakeholder management. But it's also about figuring out a balance. And then creating your vision and mission together with these decision makers.
[08:07 - 08:26]: Because if you can get the CPOs buy-in, well, a part of your maybe goals would be that we contract with tools, platforms, and services out there that have a certain standard when it comes to private security.
[08:26 - 08:44]: And if you get that buy-in, that's an easy goal. It's also easy to get incorporated into the business. And then you go to management and say, well, me and the CPO, we are here to talk a little bit about our vision and mission when it comes to privacy and working with vendors.
[08:44 - 08:57]: So we've agreed that we've set the bar to be, we want to work with contractors, platforms, services. That meets these basic criteria.
[08:58 - 09:12]: So we will be implementing this and that would really help increase our compliance, make sure that our product is safe, maybe minimizing the amount of potential data breaches because we're working with these more maybe secure companies.
[09:12 - 09:21]: And at the same time, by the way, my CCO, Chief Sales Officer, I can tell you that we can see that a lot of the customers have had questions about subprocessors.
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