INSIGHT: GCs Must Transform Their Teams for a Decade of Disruption

We have entered a new decade that promises to be the most disruptive of our lifetimes. By many accounts, the 2020s will be the peak of social, economic, technological, and geopolitical disruption. Every general counsel should prioritize transforming the legal department in light of these forces and building a team equipped to handle this challenging future.

The 2020s will see more volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity than we have previously experienced. Change is more violent and faster than ever before. Job displacement from AI and machine learning will outpace the ability to re-skill labor forces.

A long period of globalization is being replaced by protectionist policies, creating ripple effects and contingency planning nightmares throughout the corporate world. All this puts tremendous strain on legal departments to forecast and mitigate new risks arising from unfamiliar places.

Corporations Under Attack

External disruption is hitting corporations like never before. The Business Roundtable is redefining the very purpose of a corporation and its intended constituents. Traditionally passive investment funds are actively using their voting policies to change company boards and governance. Shareholders of all stripes are using their influence to lower or eliminate barriers for proxy access or action by shareholder vote.

The techlash is real; the only thing people agree upon in Washington is that Silicon Valley needs to be reformed, a sentiment that has migrated to college campuses as well.

Companies are rebuilding complex supply networks due to China concerns … and now coronavirus. All this, not to mention controversial headcount taxes, GIG worker protection laws, and laws mandating board composition.

No doubt good intentions are behind many of these movements; however, without passing judgment on the benefits or detriments of any particular issue, it is clear to me that “traditional” notions of corporate governance are being rejected or replaced. There will be unintended consequences, putting further stress on the GC’s role.

What Should General Counsel Be Doing Now?

In light of all this, now is the time for GCs to retool and redesign their departments for the future. Current cost models, org models, budget and staff allocations, and risk management plans likely will need significant overhaul.

For us, it always starts with the team. We are clear that great experience and high aptitude alone will not create a winning team. Fit is critical. We are intentional about the qualities our team needs to exhibit, on top of technical excellence and terrific client interface, in order to both guide the business and guard the company for the future.

In short, they are:

1. Naturally curious. The recipes of future success will not be found in the cookbooks of the past. It is critical to have a team of “learn it alls” versus “know it alls.”
2. Simplifiers and speed creators. Speed is the currency of future success. Anything our team can do to eliminate friction in the system, even reducing a one-hour task to five minutes via RPA (robotic process automation) is going to yield significant downstream benefits.
3. Innovators and risk takers. Every sector, every industry, every company I know has digital transformation at the top of the priority list. The full benefits of these initiatives cannot be realized if legal teams are always throttling experimentation. Mistakes will need to be made (and tolerated) on the path to the future.
4. Silo busters and bridge builders. I have always believed that legal teams, because of their relative small size, concentration of intelligent people, and role inside the company, have a unique opportunity to see the entire organization, up, down, and across. Our roles give us access to all functions in all geographies and at all levels. With that unique opportunity also comes the responsibility to identify and remove the natural barriers and obstacles that clog up all companies and impede the kind of cross functional efforts that will be critical to future success.
5. Resilience and stamina. Navigating the next decade is going to be hard work! It will be mentally draining and physically taxing. Mistakes will be made. The successful teams of the future will need to push through hard challenges and bounce back from disappointments. Critical to this will also be the increasing need to celebrate success and investing time and money in teamwork itself.

With the right team in place, GCs can start the hard and important work of retooling for the future. Among other things, this means revisiting work performed by outside counsel and determining whether it can be more effectively performed by the internal team, or more efficiently performed by an ALSP.

It means asking whether work done by counsel can be done by staff or, better yet, automated. Many things that are “legal” do not require lawyers. And, within this VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) decade, GCs must make budgets as predictable and consistent as possible, driving for fixed fees and other relationships that smooth out the forecasting jitter most departments suffer.

Lastly, and not to be underestimated, most GCs will need to decide what work their departments are not going to perform. Ask 100 lawyers “how are you?” and 99 will respond “busy.” There will always be more work than bandwidth to do it. Navigating this decade of disruption will require focusing on what to do and what not to do.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. or its owners.

Author Information

Matthew K. Fawcett is senior vice president, general counsel, and secretary for NetApp. He is responsible for all legal affairs worldwide, including governance and securities law compliance, intellectual property matters, contracts, and mergers and acquisitions. Fawcett led the transformation of NetApp’s legal department into a globally-recognized, high-performance organization with a unique commitment to innovation and is a frequent speaker and author on the topics of innovation in the legal industry and leadership and management issues.