48

Focus on Germany

OCTOBER 2013

How in-house counsels can meet with the requirements of a changing business environment

This month Lawyer Monthly speaks to Melanie Poepping, MBA and Prof. Dr. Alexandra von Bismarck. Melanie is a registered lawyer and Director & Senior Counsel in a global financial institution, as well as a member of the Visiting Faculty at the GGS, Heilbronn and lecturer for Strategic Legal Management in the LL.M. in Legal Management and Business Law. Alexandra is a Professor of German and European Business Law, Intellectual Property, Information and Communications Law and Academic Director LL.M. in Legal Management at the GGS, Heilbronn. They discuss with us the role of in-house counsels in today’s business world.

Please tell me about your roles and the main challenges and legal issues faced by an In-House counsel.

In a changing global environment an in-house counsel nowadays faces changed tasks and requirements. Organizations demand from an in-house counsel to no longer solely focus on rendering legal opinions but to give hands-on business decisions. Hence, an in-house counsel must be a business partner who happens to have a legal education. To become such a business partner an in-house counsel needs to have a profound insight into the business activity of the company as well as a thorough understanding of internal processes and most importantly knowledge of the strategy and the goals of the organization.

In addition to the increased responsibilities and tasks an in-house counsel also

faces new and complex fields of expertise he has to master, such as building up compliance and risk-management systems,

increased

compliance issues, and a constantly growing amount

of corporate governance

requirements. An in-house counsel needs to manage an increasing workload with a decreasing budget and headcount where at the same time the quality of his legal advice depends on his ability to streamline his advice with the strategy of the organization in order to contribute to its success. Legal advice needs to be given- proactively, be business-orientated and easy

In the last years the following factors primarily influenced the work of in-house counsel: -

- -

increased litigation and alternative dispute resolution environment

faster implementation of an increasing number of new laws and regulations expansion of organization in size, new

products or entering new jurisdictions

- unchanged or minimized headcount/ budget

- lower to zero risk tolerance of management - globalization and changed technological infrastructure

to understand. The in-house counsel needs to be client-orientated. As nothing is more constant than change furthermore his ability to become a “change manager” is a crucial skill.