Adaptable and Resilient Law Departments Add Value
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Business Development
Adaptable and Resilient Law
Departments Add Value
By Richard G. Stock, M.A., FCIS, CMC, Partner with Catalyst Consulting
This is the twenty third in a series of articles about how corporate and government
law departments can improve their performance and add measurable value to their
organizations.
eMagazine • www.legalbusinessworld.com • 23
In October, I had the opportunity to interview no reduction in the assignment of the usual
six Chief Legal Officers about the current state matters to firms. Finally, there have been no
of their law departments and about the outlook metrics applied specifically to the law depart-
for the next six months. Approximately 70% of ment this year. Instead, health and safety for
non-government law departments in Canada members of the law department has been a
have 5 or fewer lawyers. So, I chose from this primary focus.
cross-section while tapping into six different
industries - pipelines, office and business sup- Shari Hosaki is Vice-President, General Coun-
plies, publishing, food, architectural/engineer- sel and Corporate Secretary with Toronto-
ing design, and a currency foreign exchange based Harper Collins-Harlequin Canada, a pub-
company. lishing house owned by NewsCorp. Her team of
lawyers and contract administrators supports
My usual categories of inquiry covered work- transactions for the editorial groups, oversees
flows and workloads, the relationship of the law copyrights and trademarks, and manages libel
department with business units, law depart- cases when they arise - Mary Trump’s book
ment resources, performance, and the relative with another publisher being a case in point.
use of external counsel.
Shari explained how the COVID-19 environ-
Rob Van Walleghem is Vice-President and ment greatly accelerated the use of technology
General Counsel with Calgary’s Trans Moun- in the law department, in dealing with both
tain, the company now twinning the pipeline business units and authors and entirely replac-
from Edmonton to the Pacific coast. Not with- ing paper and couriers. Legal will continue
out controversy, the project should be complet- working from home until the end of October.
ed by the end of 2022. The relationships be- Like the Trans Mountain team, the law de-
tween the law department and the business partment needs to be more disciplined about
units are strong. As a member of the company’s managing its work volumes and its practice
executive team, as well as its Corporate Secre- habits to better ensure everyone’s well-being.
tary, Rob has been going into the office since Reliance on external counsel continues to be
July. The remainder of the workforce has been selective and specialized.
at 30 % capacity (Phase 1) and is now moving to
Phase 2 – always subject to developments in Harper Collins-Harlequin’s publishing business
public health. is also changing because of the pandemic. Of
note, there are more audio books, e-books, and
Workflows are constant and the legal team has direct on-line sales. Privacy and data security
managed well. But Rob remarked that there is a have also made a call on the company’s legal
lack of distinction between the office and home resources.
when working remotely. It is a challenge to en-
sure that the amount of work done at home is Joel Levesque is McDonalds Canada’s Vice-
not excessive. While there has been no need to President and General Counsel. The legal team
refer overflow work to external counsel, there is is collegial and focuses on real estate,
24• eMagazine • www.legalbusinessworld.comfranchising, commercial contracts, advertis- created a host of employment law issues.
ing, relationships with suppliers, and the full Alice Abbott is Global General Counsel with
range of human resource issues affecting its Associated Foreign Exchange (AFEX), a
almost 10 000 employees in Canada. Joel ex- Toronto-based provider of global payment and
plained that being part of a global company risk management solutions for currency
allows McDonalds Canada to learn from its drafts, wire transfers and risk management
other markets during the pandemic and cus- tools – for its corporate clients. Fleetcor is list-
tomize its 2020 business plan for Canada. It ed on the S&P 500 and recently announced its
then seemed practical to move to a recovery acquisition of AFEX, a transaction that should
mode after three months. Business planning close in early 2021.
for 2021 is now well underway.
Alice has one member of her legal team based
Webex and other communication technologies in Sydney, Australia while the rest are in
have been used extensively. IT and digital Toronto. There has been no change in the reg-
technologies are playing a greater role. It is ular workflow or workloads for the law de-
expected that there will be more work for the partment but Alice’s personal focus has been
law department in the new business model, all on the closing the deal with Fleetcor. Manag-
the while respecting the principles of safety for ing expectations with business units has been
employees and clients. External counsel will especially demanding, with workdays regularly
see more work in certain categories, such as exceeding 12 hours. Part of this is explained by
leased sites. the need to support clients on five continents
and 24 time zones.
The IBI Group is a Toronto-based global ar-
chitectural, engineering, planning, design and As General Counsel of Staples Canada, Terrie-
technology firm focused on the cities of tomor- Lynne Devonish’s law department has been
row. Steven Kresak is General Counsel and active 7 days a week. With 10,000 employees
Corporate Secretary. There has been an in- across the country, activity since March has
crease in the legal work to support contract extended from how best to open up safely to
negotiations and it is anticipated that the new managing supply chains, special projects, and
level of work will continue for the foreseeable the development of new business.
future.
Terrie explained that access to remote tech-
Steve explained that the initiatives making up nologies was already in place across the com-
its 2020 business plan were paused from April pany, allowing the legal team to easily work
to July, when business as usual resumed. Re- from home.
lationships with business units around the
world have been very positive. The IBI Group It even made a secondment based in Edmon-
plans on being more selective in assigning ton for the Toronto-headquartered law de-
claims-related work to external counsel. Like partment entirely practical. There has not
many other companies, the pandemic has been much change in the amount and type of
eMagazine • www.legalbusinessworld.com • 25use of external counsel. About the Author
Richard G. Stock, M.A., FCIS, CMC is the senior
The six GCs and their legal teams have been partner with Catalyst Consulting. The firm has
resilient and adaptable with an increased fo- been advising corporate and government law
cus on getting business done in an unprece- departments across North America, Europe,
dented work environment. It is easier to ap- the Middle East and Australia since 1996. For
preciate the value of each law department, re- law department management advice that
gardless of its size and industry sector. works, Richard can be contacted at (416) 367-
4447 or at rstock@catalystlegal.com.
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