LeftFoot - Fresh Conversations on the Business of Law

Mark Smolik, Vice President General Counsel & Secretary, Chief Compliance Officer, DHL Supply Chain Americas, leads his company’s legal, commercial contracts management, compliance, and economic development teams. He’s a proponent of establishing strong operational disciplines and working closely with the business in support of their shared interests. He’s been in his current role for 8 years following successive in-house roles at three name organizations since 1990.

Corporate Lawyers: take a business approach to the practice of law; your demeanor should be that of a business person.

Build Internal Equity: offer a supportive approach to the business.

Provide Meaningful Value: your perceived value to the business is key.

Be prepared: take the time to learn about the organization, the industry, the legal department, and the people on the legal team.

Tie the services you offer to the needs of the client: show that what you have to offer is relevant.

Ask for the business: reach out proactively and provide relevant information.

Competitive Advantage: clearly state what you have that is a competitive advantage and why we should work with you.

Advice: ask for the business; make a strong impression, don’t assume panels are locked down. Things change. They are always looking for additional talent.

While Leaving the Hubris at Home David Yawman is the SVP & Deputy General Counsel of PepsiCo, and General Counsel North American Beverages and Quaker Foods NA. He has 18 years of in-house public company operating division and global markets experience.   He works extensively with his organizations C-Suite executives and the audit committee of the company’s board…

Anjli Garg, is the Director, Associate General Counsel, Citibank, NA. She works with her organizations largest global institutional clients providing counsel on global B2B cash and card payment businesses. She practices in a variety of legal disciplines including privacy and data security, internet/e-commerce, IP, bank regulatory, securities and bankruptcy.

Anjli Garg Bio

Keys to Practicing In-house: Flexibility; adaptability; listening and hearing the goals of the organization, and being strategic when advising the business.

Outside Counsel Selection: Is based on legal expertise, cost, and whether the lawyer has a business mindset and can employ a diplomatic approach.

Law is a Service Industry: Counsel needs to be responsive, employ a practical approach, be concise, and engaged. Strong people skills and emotional intelligence are key.

Value: Lawyers should prepare and communicate their value concisely, highlighting differentiators that address the client’s need.

Last Word: Understand the value you bring to the table. Know yourself and how you can assist clients.

This episode is sponsored by Axiom Law.

Mackenzie Phillips is an Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Counsel at JLL. Prior to assuming this role formally, she was in the same role as a member of the Axiom Legal team. She also advised Orbitz Worldwide on governance and security matters while at Axiom. With additional experience at both Winston & Strawn and Mayer Brown as a Corporate Associate - and as an intern to the Deputy Counsel to the President during the Clinton administration, she’s able to draw from a variety of legal environments as we discuss legal business development and client retention in today’s market.

Relationships, Relationships, Relationships: Be deliberate about spending time with the people you’ll be working with the most.

Mackenzie’s 4 Cs:

Connection: bring your authentic self to work;

Communication: have clarity of message and understand your audience;

Command: show credible expertise and the confidence to express it;

Composure: resiliency around the task at hand and demonstrating judgment.

Input needs to be swift and timely: 80% is often good enough when making a decision to move forward or not.

Plug and Play: by getting to know a firm’s specific specialty they know, whom to call when that specific issue comes up.

Give us options: when it comes to legal tech and outsourcing provide 2 or 3 different levels of service and pricing.

Axiom Law: innovative and disruptive.

Ricardo Anzaldua served as EVP and General Counsel to MetLife until June 30th of this year. He is currently serving as special counsel to MetLife’s CEO. Prior to joining MetLife he was an SVP and Associate General Counsel at The Hartford Financial Services Group, following a partnership at Cleary Gottlieb.

Ricardo Anzaldua Bio

Episode Highlights

Law Firm Business Development: The days when an in-house lawyer chooses an outside lawyer and pays what the lawyer is asking are gone.

Legal Tech and Legal Services Outsourcing: Clients will no longer pay for repetitive and formulaic work being done by counsel at any level – where legal tech and legal services outsourcing should be employed.

Legal operations and procurement: Will be part of the structure within ALL in-house legal departments before the end of the decade.

Hiring outside counsel: We’re hiring outside counsel for a specific expertise and creativity, diversity of thought and perspective.

Most career illuminating experience: The transition to in-house counsel.

Gaining an understanding of business and the drivers of business, the need for efficiency, flexibility, and adaptability within the legal department.

Diversity: Requires retention and elevation of diverse candidates.

Future legal leaders: Need to be selected and developed using a process.

Last word: Lawyers are advocates for justice in society it’s important to ensure the integrity of the profession.

Professor, Scott Westfahl, is the Director of Harvard Law School Executive Education. He leads his organization in their mission to support and develop lawyers across the arc of their careers as they advance to new levels of leadership and responsibility. He teaches law firm leaders, partners, associates and general counsel - collaborating with his colleagues and other school faculty. Prior to his current position, he was the Director of Professional Development at Goodwin Proctor.

• Generations experience the same motivations

• It’s the context in which each generation operates that is different

• The millennial generation is the most transparent generation that ever existed

• The power of a collective voice with a vehicle to express it publicly/openly

• Mastery, meaning and purpose, and a laser focus on client service as consumers

• A creative idea - seconded associates and design thinking

• Invest in an individuals strengths vs. areas for improvement…for real.

This episode is sponsored by Axiom Law.

Today’s guests are not only leaders in the field of legal operations - but are on the forefront of transforming the legal ecosystem - through their leadership within CLOC – the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium.

The first of two guests on Episode 76 is the Chief of Staff and Senior Director of Legal Operations at NetApp and CEO of CLOC, Connie Brenton. Connie has a JD and MBA, starting off her career in operations and subsequently legal operations at Sun Microsystems, Oracle and now NetApp. She’s passionate about the need for transformation in the legal industry, through the use of technology and the application of tools, programs, and processes for greater efficiency.

Joining Connie is Mary O’Carroll, the Head of Legal Operations, Technology and Strategy at Google. Transitioning from a career in investment banking and consulting Mary experienced law firm life joining Orrick in 2003 as a Profitability Analysis Manager - an experience that 5 years later led to her role at Google.

• Within legal operations, change management is a daily activity.

• Having the data has allowed in house counsel to be run in-house legal like a business.

• Legal Tech vendors, make your solution easy to understand. Be clear as to how it will allow in-house legal to be better, faster and more efficient.

• Today members of the legal ecosystem are co-creating solutions – law firms and in-house legal departments are working with legal technology and legal outsourcing companies to deliver solutions that work and are more effective.

• By adding technology and right sizing in-house legal departments the mundane work has been redirected allowing more creative work to take place.

• The thread of CLOC is the inherent challenge of change management. Law firm operations professionals share that challenge.

• We’re experiencing a tipping point within the legal ecosystem. It’s critical that legal tech firms and legal outsourcing organizations understand the business of the in-house legal client.

• Law schools are a critical component of the legal eco system. More and more law school graduates are heading straight into business - they need the skill set to ‘get the job and keep a job’ when they graduate.

• In 2027 the information accessible to the ecosystem as a result of strong data collection is likely to allow a price check on legal matters at the push of a button.

COO of Goodwin, Michael Caplan manages his firm’s business, financial and administrative operations - focusing on growth strategy and execution. He’s worked with over 30 different General Counsel during his career - many while running a legal operations consulting business.

Today’s law firm environment is more competitive and relies on preferred panels making differentiation throughout the entire business development process more important.

Firms and lawyers benefit when they talk about the business of law AND the practice of law.

Professional staff today has more opportunities to drive revenue and manage risk for the firm.

Making investments in clients is not about discounts – invest in the risk.

Offer capped fees tied to milestones with both discounts and success fees.

Have an ongoing dialogue on project management and scope with your clients.

Law is a service business. Law firms need to be working WITH their clients on matters, the law, and the business of law.

Demand for Big Law is 0%; the demand for litigation is -%, taking business from other firms requires differentiation.

The bottom line on business development: find ways to invest in clients and differentiate your firm.

This episode is sponsored by E-STET.

The Head of Legal operations at The Gap, Mike Haven is on the cutting edge of legal department management, creating, implementing and developing some of the industries most innovative policies, procedures, and tools. He came to his role from NetApp where he managed legal operations and litigation across the enterprise. Prior to joining NetApp, he was a partner at K&L Gates.

Today the legal eco system is a fundamental part of an effective legal department strategy.

Looking for flexibility and creativity in fee arrangements that help them manage their budget.

They are very open to potential partners presenting metrics to help the in-house department be creative and pivot.

When making sourcing decisions it’s the outlier qualities that make a difference.

Proactive, productivity improvement suggestions from law firms would be very welcome including sharing client specific relationship metrics.

Looking for creative value based fee arrangements that define value in a way that translates.

Change is occurring in an enormous industry that needs to change and improve.

This episode is sponsored by CLOC the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium.

Geoff Frost is the Director of Client Development at Bondurant Mixson & Elmore. He’s responsible for directing his firms business and professional development activities including structuring and pricing alternative fee arrangements and managing the firm’s corporate recoveries program.

Instead of teaching lawyers to sell – educate business developers on representing the firm.

Sales people unencumbered by the billable hour. Can confidently and competently represent the firm in the market.

Today business development is one of many other professionals in the legal ecosystem.

AFAs are not intended for a single instance and aren’t about one side making out much better than the other. Firms will do well on some - and not so well on others.

Clients should want a fee arrangement where the best lawyers are compensated above their hourly rate. Create an environment that rewards success and efficiency.

Legal business development can help relieve some of the pressure to bring work into the firm.

Bottom Line: Let lawyers practice law and business people practice business.

This episode is sponsored by E-STET.