Presented by Bill Mooz, May 14, 2018, at the Institute for the Future of Law Practice.

1. NAVIGATINGTHE
CORPORATE LEGAL
DEPARTMENT
BILL MOOZ
MAY 2018

2. RULES FOR SUCCESS
1. Understand your clients
2. Show up
3. Fit in

3. UNDERSTANDINGYOUR CLIENTS

4. WHAT IS A COMPANY?
• Tangible Assets
• Facilities, machines,
mines, etc.
• Intangible Assets
• IPR, relationships,
goodwill, etc.
• People
• Employees, shareholders,
directors, vendors,
lenders, customers, etc.
• Liabilities
• Leases, debt, trade
financing, etc.

5. UNDERSTANDINGYOUR STAKEHOLDERS
1. Shareholders
• Fiduciary duty runs to them
• Invested in company for dividends and/or capital gains
2. Business Clients
• Typically share in growth of company via stock and/or bonus
• Have compensation tied to individual goals via commissions, bonus, etc.
3. The GC
• Same as business clients but goals may differ

6. CORPORATE ROLES
1. Make Things
• R&D
• Engineering
• Manufacturing
• Services
2. SellThings
• Sales
• BD
• Marketing
3. Support 1 and 2
• Finance
• IT
• Legal
• HR

7. TYPICAL LAW DEPARTMENT
GC
Sales Product Corporate
Lit &
Employment
Compliance
Admin Operations

8. WHATYOUR CLIENTSWANT
1. The business to do well
2. To achieve their individual goals
3. To look good
4. No surprises

9. SHOWING UP

11. SHOWING UP IN SCHOOL
1. Go to class and participate actively
2. Do your homework
3. Take advantage of opportunities to get extra credit
4. Study for your exams

12. SHOWING UP AS A LEGAL PROFESSIONAL
1. Put in the effort
• Not everything is glamorous
• Do it for the team and not for the individual credit
2. Make every product a quality product
• Quick and dirty means focus on the 20% that provides 80% of the answer
• It doesn’t mean produce a sloppy product
3. Make the effort to learn your client’s business

13. FITTING IN

14. EMBRACE THE CULTURE
• Hours
• Dress
• Work Style

15. COMMUNICATIONS
• Medium
• Phone, email, chat, text, in-person,
slack, etc.
• Power Point, Excel,Word, etc.
• Frequency
• Avoiding surprises vs not thinking
for yourself
• When in doubt, over communicate
• Style
• Executive vs Legal
• Formal vs Informal
• Long vs Short

16. TECHNOLOGY
• Embrace the company’s tech choices, even if they aren’t what you would choose
• Communications
• Outlook/GMail
• Webex/GTM
• Yammer/Slack
• Finding data you need
• Sharepoint
• CLM
• Specialized tools for doing job
• More tech you learn, the more value you can deliver

17. QUESTIONS & DISCUSSION