GC_Mlegal_Roundtable

WWW.GCMAGAZINE.COM | GC | 33
IN-HOUSE GOT TALENT?
People go in-house for a variety of reasons,
such as wanting to be more involved on the
business side, and a desire for greater control
over their schedule. The notion of in-house
lawyers clocking off at 5pm went out with
the dodo, but many in-housers report less
fetishisation of the jacket-on-the chair culture
than in private practice.
However, the gap is certainly not what it used
to be. In the Bay Area start-up community, the
culture in the early years – including for the GC
- is to sacrifice everything to ensure the venture
is successful. Nevertheless, what often sets the
in-house experience apart is control over one’s
schedule, as Josh Horowitz of Tilt explained: ‘I
realised that if I actually wanted to create it, I
BAY AREA GCS ON HIRING
Photographs: Sean Smith
AT THE END OF APRIL, GC, IN ASSOCIATION WITH RECRUITMENT
CONSULTANTS MLEGAL, GATHERED TOGETHER A RANGE OF BAY
AREA CORPORATE COUNSEL FOR DRINKS, DINNER AND DISCUSSION
ABOUT TALENT MANAGEMENT. BY CATHERINE McGREGOR
BAY AREA GC
DISCUSSION

34 | GC | WWW.GCMAGAZINE.COM
BAY AREA GC DISCUSSION
DINNER WITH GC
could; I make time for other things and I find it’s
really productive. You have to refresh yourself in
order to be productive again, otherwise you just
keep doing the same thing and it doesn’t work.’
WORKING DIFFERENTLY
For David Smolen at private equity firm
GI Partners, it’s a case of working differently:
‘I think that most of us have that concept
of baking it in and taking your free time
with your work time. Our roles don’t lend
themselves to taking a two-week, “don’t call
me” vacation. The key is to make yourself more
available – both inside and outside of the office
– and as a result have more flexibility with your
schedule than in a highly regimented structure.’
While the thought that in-house jobs are for
those who couldn’t or wouldn’t make it in
private practice lingers in some quarters, in the
Bay Area (including Silicon Valley) – and the tech
sector specifically – in-house is the hot ticket and
is often where the most talented lawyers end up.
This is partly due to the start-up ethos. Law firm
partners will generally make more money than
in-house lawyers. But for those lucky in-housers
who come on board in the early days of the next
Apple, Google or Facebook, stock options can
mean that the sky’s the limit. This has generated
interest in going in-house, particularly around the
five-to-seven-year-qualified mark.
But what qualities do in-house teams consider
when hiring? I asked our guests, both in the tech
sector and outside, how difficult it is to find the
right person for the job, and what they went
looking for.
CULTURAL FIT
Overwhelmingly, cultural fit was top of
everyone’s checklist for new hires. Eileen Evans,
deputy GC at Hewlett-Packard (HP), commented:
‘During the interview process, in addition to
ensuring that the candidate has the requisite
subject matter expertise, we place a great
deal of emphasis on determining whether the
candidate also has strong interpersonal and soft
skills.’ Jennifer Morrill, deputy GC at LinkedIn,
concurred and uses her business team to provide
another layer of judgement: ‘You have to see
if they have the cultural fit, and that’s when
you introduce them to a bunch of people in the
business and you get a lot of good feedback.’
There was a consensus that softer skills and
experience were most compelling: Linda
Drucker, associate general counsel at Charles
Schwab, argued that: ‘It’s more important what
candidates have done in their last job than which
law school they went to. I may have been hired
in part because I have Ivy League degrees, but in
today’s job market I don’t value those academic
credentials as much.’
So how does one measure these more
intangible qualities?
MEASURING INTANGIBLES
Google can certainly take its pick of personnel,
and no shortage of applicants want to be
‘Googley’. Catherine Lacavera, Google’s director
of IP and litigation, said that a lot of work is
done pre-interview by researching candidates’

backgrounds and taking up references. In
common with other companies it’s not the
resume that is key, but neither is it about
‘the exact things you’ve done. It’s more, how
adaptable you are to new scenarios. You can deal
with the known, but how are you going to deal
with the totally unknown?’
Let’s face it: lawyers are generally at their best
when dealing with tangibles and precedents. But
how do companies like Google, working in areas
where the law may be playing catch-up with their
strategies, find the people to cope? For Lacavera,
it’s an extensive interviewing process about
lateral thinking: ‘We do these hypotheticals that
really have no answers so we can watch the
person think through that, and see how they are
on their feet. Sometimes they are legal scenarios;
sometimes they are some weird things that
happened to us that week. Other questions will
focus more on management style.’
In-house recruitment expert (and former Yahoo
legal alumnus) Brad Bruner at MLegal said
that this approach is becoming more and more
common, particularly in Silicon Valley. The value
of such hypothetical scenarios is two-fold, he
explained – to see if the person thinks in the
right way but also, more fundamentally, to
check they are not freaked out by working in an
unpredictable environment.
Karen Clopton has just finished working as
interim GC at The California Public Utilities
Commission (CPUC), where she still serves as
a chief administrative law judge. In common
with Google, the CPUC also uses hypotheticals:
‘It’s very important to present them with the

hypotheticals, and to make it fair for all the
applicants, we ask the same kinds of questions.’
However, she continued: ‘But I am interested in
how the attorneys, as well as the judges, manage
their time and how they manage small projects
and large projects, short-term deadlines and the
long-term horizon. Because there are run-of-the-
mill activities that lawyers do and then there’s
the glamorous and sexy energy project that
everybody wants to do. I need someone who
isn’t going to cherry pick. So, time management
and being able to show me that they have good
case-management skills are important in that
interview process.’
At LinkedIn, said Jennifer Morrill, those who
make it through the interview stage are brought
back for a staged negotiation session: ‘That will
let us know whether they are risk-averse (which
we don’t want), or if their drafting skills are
good, and how colloquial they are in speaking
about terms. It works extremely well.’
Examining cultural fit in regards to outside
advisers has been of crucial significance for Josh
Horowitz of Tilt; particularly those advisers’
understanding of how he and the company
work: ‘It’s more about the method they use to
deliver the services, and that they’re tailoring the
risk tolerance to what I care about. So, if I ask
them for some practical advice and they include
different legal things for stuff that doesn’t
matter, it just bothers me. Having outside
counsel that can ask the right questions so I

don’t have to translate what they’re doing – that
just makes my job easier.’
GI Partners’ David Smolen, like Horowitz, felt
that fit can often primarily be determined via
service delivery: ‘Is it concise? Is it actionable?
Does their work product show you that they
understand how we operate? In law school and
at law firms there is often an emphasis on writing
legal memos. In most instances we don’t have
time for a memo!’
Christianne Chen, managing director and
associate general counsel at Prologis, a global
industrial real estate investment trust, felt
that the fit between external counsel and the
business people is also crucially important:
‘There’s a complementary mix that can happen
where you can maximise the strengths and
minimise the weaknesses, resulting in upraising
the whole team.’
Linda Drucker at Charles Schwab added: ‘I hire
a lot of lawyers to represent us in arbitrations,
which are held in a small conference room.
It’s being together for an entire week and if
somebody doesn’t have that ability to connect,
and isn’t likeable, then they can be the best
lawyer in the world, but you’re not going to
win if your lawyer isn’t able to relate to the
arbitrators the way the other side does’. Jennifer
Morrill summed it up thus: ‘It is as important for
outside counsel to have EQ as it is IQ.’
Lauren Grause, senior manager of insurance
services at RPX Corporation, is in charge of the
company’s panel counsel program. She argued
that for outside advisers it’s also a case of horses
for courses: ‘I’m also trying to look from a more
global, big-picture level and see what we really
need as part of the team, what component can
ease the flow, and what skills these people are
able to bring to really make sure that the whole
team is unified. Sometimes that may be a cultural
fit, but other times it may be that we need a little
bit more of a technical aspect or we may need a
little more of something else.’
MIXING IT UP
Can too much cultural fit be a bad thing for
talent management? What is the role that
diversity can play?
Catherine Lacavera at Google commented
that when establishing her team, ‘one thing I
noticed was that my first hire was fantastic. My
second hire was also fantastic. My third hire was
fantastic too, and then it was brought to my
attention that I seemed to be hiring people of
the same personality type. We had to broaden
our view of what would make a good litigator.
As you get a bigger team, to have a holistic
diverse team, you need some variety. So, for us,
broadening the view of what’s a good litigator
also involved changing our view of “fit”.’
Law firm Baker & McKenzie’s GC, Peter
Engstrom, has embraced this notion of
complementary difference: ‘We’re in the process
of hiring someone who is going to work in
Belfast, Northern Ireland, and I actually wanted
someone different than I am. I was thinking,
what does this candidate bring to the table that
I don’t have? How will she complement me? I

don’t want someone who looks like me, thinks
like me, who just regurgitates, nods and says yes.
That was part of my cultural litmus test.’
The CPUC’s Karen Clopton also chairs the
State Bar of California’s Council on Access
and Fairness, and is therefore well-versed in
diversity: ‘We encourage in-house counsel
to look at diverse candidates and to retain
diverse outside counsel. We know from our
experience with judicial candidates that there
are many very well-qualified and numerous
diverse candidates, and we are working to
educate the legal profession not to overlook
the diverse talent pool. We also seek to provide
ample leadership development opportunities,
and encourage legal employers to go beyond
the narrow constraints of a job description in
recruiting and retaining diverse talent.’
Hiring diverse inside and outside counsel was
certainly a goal for everyone in the room,
especially when bringing in the next generation
of leadership. Linda Drucker of Charles Schwab
stated that: ‘We also want to see diversity in
leadership style. We don’t want everyone to
think: “well, I have to be the stereotypical white
male from Mad Men in a business suit”. You have
to be yourself and you have to lead from an
authentic place of who you are. And that may
be very different for a woman, or an African
American, or a Latino, or a gay person.’
Diversity is not just about identity but also about
experience. Most of our guests felt that the more
legal teams can vary their hires’ experience, the
better the outcomes for everyone concerned. A
number spoke of the positive outcomes gained
from rotations into the business.

Eileen Evans felt that such an experience
had fundamentally helped her as an in-house
lawyer: ‘I rotated into a business role for nine
months, and it was quite transformative and a
tremendous learning opportunity. Previously,
I had always looked at issues through a legal
lens, but during that time period, I began to
learn to look at issues through a business lens as
well. I believe that the experience helped me to
broaden my understanding of issues and become
a better business lawyer.’
The prevailing view among those present was
that a siloed approach to legal did not produce
a good overall experience for the company, and
as Catherine Lacavera commented: ‘I do think
the flexibility that we’re talking about creates a
better culture of retention.’
VARIETY - THE SPICE OF LIFE
Lauren Grouse of RPX pointed out that variety is
inherent to the in-house role:
‘In a law firm there’s just the one linear path,
whereas an in-house environment provides
more opportunity to work with different targets,
or on different initiatives or programs within
the company that may need legal support.’
However, lack of linearity may also feel like a
lack of tangible progression for the ambitious
in-house lawyer, and addressing this has become
a priority for some legal teams. Hewlett-Packard
provides a particularly good example of this, as
Eileen Evans explained: ‘The core of our talent
management strategy is the notion of building
a sustainable talent pipeline through hiring

entry-level talent and developing career paths
from entry-level positions to senior leadership
roles. We start with bringing junior attorneys into
HP as 2L summer associates. Upon graduation,
they can join our litigation, intellectual property,
corporate securities, or mergers and acquisitions
groups. After a few years of hands-on experience
in these groups, the junior attorneys can choose
whether they want to deepen their skillset
in their chosen area of specialty, or move
into a commercial role supporting one of our
business units. Thanks to the career maps we’ve
developed, charting an attorney’s progression
from entry level to director or VP level, there
are a number of different available paths, each
of which will develop our attorneys and prepare
them to take on leadership roles.’
Trying to build structure within notoriously
flat in-house legal departments can have its
limitations though. Linda Drucker of Schwab
commented that: ‘We hire these young,
ambitious, very talented lawyers and they do the
job really well for two years. And then they say,
“oh, when am I getting a promotion?” And you
can’t just promote everyone who’s doing a good
job after a couple of years because you’d end up
with a top-heavy organisation full of SVPs and
nobody else. So we have to look for other ways
to help people develop their careers.’
Jennifer Morrill at LinkedIn went on to describe
how for many departments, balancing career
opportunity and portfolio enhancement with the
specialist needs of the team can be a challenge.

‘I think there are limitations to transferring
people. That work needs to get done and you
can’t always rotate people around if you’ve
got contracts that move fast and furiously.’
Christianne Chen of Prologis agreed: ‘If there’s
an opportunity for rotation and I end up moving
one person, I’m going to have seven people
who are very unhappy!’ In her experience,
team members’ desire for promotion can lead
to some home truths: ‘I think people want to
get promoted because it’s the next step. It’s
not necessarily that they’re best suited for
the job. A lot of lawyers are great technicians
and they’re great from a competency and
substantive standpoint, but they may be really
bad at managing people. It’s important to have
honest (and sometimes difficult) conversations
with your team about, “why do you want it? Is it
because of money, prestige or because you have
the necessary skills for the next level? What do
you think are your strengths and weaknesses?”’
But there might still be flexibility for other
opportunities. As Karen Clopton of the
CPUC pointed out, the public sector has a
long pedigree of internships and pro bono
programs rather than formalised rotation:
‘We call them “leadership development
opportunities” – whether it’s the volunteer
co-ordinator raising money and awareness
for the food bank, planning the year-end
holiday get together, serving as liaison with
the support staff, or otherwise contributing to
team-building activities, these opportunities
give lawyers (and judges) an out-of-the-box
experience. It also allows these attorneys to
get valuable management experience and to
interact with their colleagues, and not just
in their practice groups. Whether they are
advising the attorneys, or working on safety
and enforcement or governance issues, they
all come together as a team.’ Eileen Evans
noted that many of HP’s junior attorneys have

taken roles including ‘leading the nationwide
Pro Bono Committee or the social committee
at various sites. Through these activities, new
attorneys are able to hone their leadership
skills, give back to the community or their
colleagues, and forge connections with
colleagues in new and different ways.’
SCALING UP
Determining the skillsets needed at different
stages of an organisation’s life is key, particularly
for the start-up and early-stage community,
where companies may undergo radical shifts.
Josh Horowitz at Tilt has been preparing himself
for changes in his company and his role. He
recalls how he asked the founder of a large
public company, formerly a start-up, whether
GCs can scale with a company. The founder’s
answer was no. He had replaced his GCs every
two to four years because there were different
challenges at different scales, necessitating
someone with different skillsets.
While Horowitz fundamentally disagreed with
this, he told us: ‘Right now I’m thinking about the
next set of skills that are needed and how to get
them. We just did a 360 review throughout all of
management. It was awesome, because one of
the things that I learned from this was that the
company would like me to do more operational
things, more strategy for the business, which to
me is amazing.’
This has been key to Josh’s own development as
a GC: ‘What are the skills that I’d want to develop?
I think the kinds of things that I need to do are
not that different than what CEOs do. Well, there
will be some variance at the edges. But if I can
think like a CEO, that just makes me so much
better overall.’ Lauren Grause of RPX concurred,
commenting that ‘in-house lawyers need to
develop and be flexible, and to pull it off you have
to develop and manage a dynamic team, which is
somewhat of a weak place for legal professionals.’
As the evening concluded, all of our attendees
agreed that despite the challenges, talent
management is also one of the most rewarding
aspects – when it all comes together.
IN ATTENDANCE
Brad Bruner, MLegal
Christianne Chen, Prologis
Karen Clopton, California Public
Utilities Commission
Linda Drucker, Charles Schwab
Eileen Evans, Hewlett-Packard
Peter Engstrom, Baker & McKenzie
Lauren Grause, RPX Corporation
Josh Horowitz, Tilt
Catherine Lacavera, Google
Joe McCrae, MLegal
Bridget McCarthy, MLegal
Catherine McGregor, Editor-In-Chief, GC
Jennifer Morrill, LinkedIn
David Smolen, GI Partners
VENUE
The Wayfare Tavern, San Francisco

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