{"id":36,"date":"2016-11-12T08:43:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-12T08:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.thesrgroup.com\/taylorroot\/?p=36"},"modified":"2022-06-21T16:58:54","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T16:58:54","slug":"new-breed-general-counsel-need-to-understand-entrepreneurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/srgroup.highrise.digital\/nl\/market-insight\/industry-leaders\/new-breed-general-counsel-need-to-understand-entrepreneurs\/","title":{"rendered":"‘New breed\u2019 General Counsel need to understand \u2018entrepreneurs\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Lawyers working with entrepreneurs – particularly those in \u2018disruptive\u2019 businesses – need to be able to understand their bosses\u2019 motivations, understand what it means to be entrepreneurial and balance commercial risk with fast business progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the key message from a roundtable of General Counsels with some of the UK\u2019s most high-profile \u2018challenger\u2019 technology and tech-related service companies, hosted by global legal recruitment specialists Taylor Root, at London\u2019s Ham Yard Hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event \u2013 \u2018Disruptive technologies\u2019 (within legal and society) \u2013 a new breed of General Counsel? was facilitated by Jeffrey Eneberi, pioneering General Counsel and Commercial Projects Director of FTSE250 firm Just Eat Plc and alumnus of The Lawyer magazine\u2019s \u2018Hot 100\u2019 annual survey of the profession\u2019s best and brightest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eneberi, a former geneticist, MBA graduate and mentor to start-up technology businesses, challenged the roundtable \u2013 operating under \u2018Chatham House\u2019 confidentiality rules \u2013 to define the role of the General Counsel in disruptive businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoes the standard way of being a General Counsel enable us to succeed?\u201d he asked. \u201cOur basic role might not have changed, but we all need to be able to put ourselves in the mind of the entrepreneur and think about how our businesses might be disrupted.\u201d \u201cDisruption is the arbitrage between normal state and new state,\u201d he added. \u201cWe might all think our businesses have a moat around them, but they don\u2019t. Staying still will not keep us successful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The panel responded vigorously to the challenge, engaging in a couple of breakout exercises to shape the discussion. Entrepreneurs are visionary developers of businesses, the panel felt; creative, courageous and willing to take risks \u2013and with the ability to fail \u2013 not just in the pursuit of profit but to try to change established thinking, to disrupt markets. Eneberi encouraged General Counsels to read their company\u2019s balance sheets so that they can \u201cspeak the language of their commercial colleagues and understand strategic directions\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disruption is something that is going to be uncomfortable for some businesses, including disruptors themselves who are far from immune, but it is important that they are able to operate \u201cfree from the past and free from convention,\u201d as one General Counsel memorably put it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

General Counsels needed to get under the skin of that thinking, but it is important not to get too close, according to one General Counsel. \u201cYou can take understanding entrepreneurs too far,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I gave my boss entrepreneurial advice, it would be the worst thing. The entrepreneur \u2018gene\u2019 is rare and exceptional. Some of us lawyers may have it too, but it needs balancing with a wise head.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

General Counsel were too often seen by the C-suite as a block to innovation, the panel felt. But the new breed of General Counsel need not only to lead the legal function and act as a trusted adviser but provide truly commercial counsel \u2013 \u201cgeneral counsel in every sense of the word\u201d \u2013 as well as creative direction and energy to help the company achieve its business goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While many businesses \u2013 and consequently General Counsels\u2013 see the in-house lawyer\u2019s role as primarily one of cost-control, the panel felt that disruptive businesses, where innovative work practices are hard-wired into the corporate DNA, provided more opportunity for the new breed of General Counsel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one in my business has asked me to reduce costs,\u201d said one General Counsel at a disruptive company. \u201cI\u2019ve been asked instead to maximise the profit potential of the risks my organisation is facing. There will always \u2013 always \u2013 be cost in business, but we shouldn\u2019t be afraid of that cost, just know that we can handle it in the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI need to increase my team\u2019s ability to evaluate and manage risk,\u201d said the General Counsel at a major tech provider, \u201cbut it\u2019s very important for us to retain the legal perspective and our ability to challenge, and yes, to \u2018speak truth to power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople in the business want to make money,\u201d said another. \u201cSo let\u2019s help them get to where they want to get to within the framework of law and regulation but not just be policemen. We might have shares too!\u201d General Counsel were also in a different position to lawyers from private practice. \u201cMost of us have come from private practice, and that stays with us, and I\u2019d always rather have someone on my team who has trained and qualified in private practice,\u201d said one attendee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut most private practice lawyers don\u2019t challenge. Their mantra is \u2018don\u2019t get sued\u2019. They don\u2019t innovate. The focus is on bums-on-seats, chargeable hours, big deals, big cases, whereas the really good General Counsels, the leftfield ones, can generate debate within the C-suite, and that debate is what generates disruption.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recruitment of the right kind of lawyer is a key part of the equation for disruptive and challenger businesses, according to Eneberi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf they spend a few evenings mentoring aspiring business people, hire them! If they spend all their time watching tv series boxsets, you might want to ask if they\u2019ve quite the right mindset for a disruptor (unless of course, they are researching a venture tipped be the new Netflix),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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