Power Bloc: Canada's Top 25 General Counsel

It’s a damn slippery slope. Developing a clear profile on Canada’s top general counsel is somewhat like nailing jelly to a wall. “General” is the operative word here. The titles alone can drive one to distraction. There are chief legal officers (CLOs), general counsel, executive vice-presidents, vice-presidents; followed by secondary appellations such as corporate secretaries and governance officers; and the list goes on. Mapping out the various corporate functions reporting to them and why, is to classic organizational theory what Oliver Stone is to history.

Yes, there are the usual suspects such as the legal department itself, corporate secretary (for some, but not all), governance, compliance and even strategy. But there are new twists everywhere, such as Hunter Harrison’s (president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Montreal-based CN) recent announcement that Sean Finn will be assuming responsibility for CN’s public and government affairs in addition to his current duties as CLO and corporate secretary. “This change will enhance CN’s regulatory expertise both in the U.S. and Canada,” advises Harrison. Georgia Sievwright, vice-president law and government affairs, of Mississauga-based Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co., has at one time or another been responsible for public relations, media, philanthropy, employee communications and corporate image.

There is a reason why the slope is so damn slippery. Quite simply, the changing role of general counsel today is a direct result of the global, technological, knowledge-based revolution that has rocked the organizations of which they are part. It is the stuff of Alvin Toffler (The Third Wave), John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene (Megatrends 2000), Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad (Competing for the Future) and Peter F. Drucker (Post-Capitalist Society).

At the time, many thought the claims that organizational structures and occupational roles would be “rocked to their foundations” was sensationalism designed to push sales. In retrospect, it is surprising how accurate much of this literature would prove to be.

What no one picked up, however, was the extent to which law or, more accurately, legal/business judgment skills would become integral to commercial success in a rapidly consolidating, converging and highly regulated global market. Nor, particularly post-Enron, the elevated role of general counsel as corporate risk gatekeeper.

The end result is clear. Top general counsel are an integral part of the decision-making power bloc within major corporations. How they view Canada’s major law firms is a matter of considerable importance to these firms. As Dale Scott, senior vice-president and general counsel, Manulife Financial Corporation, succinctly puts it: “It is no secret that the major law firms live off the work from corporations like ours.” One can only speculate as to the fees in the recent $7.3 billion acquisition of Toronto-based Canada Life by Winnipeg-based Great-West Life. Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP acted for white knight Great-West, McCarthy Tétrault LLP for Canada Life, and Torys LLP for the spurned Manulife.

It comes as no surprise that understanding who these 25 general counsel are, what makes them tick and what their priorities are, is of considerable interest to major law firms. Which brings us to the second point. To understand this group of general counsel one has to discard previously held views regarding what kind of lawyers fill these corporate posts, why, and what value they bring. Third, one has to avoid generalizations. It is neither helpful or accurate, for example, to take the position that they are smarter than or superior to previous generations of in-house counsel. To do so would be to miss the central point: the goalposts have been moved, for everyone.

“The pool of in-house talent has always been very high quality. I’m not sure if we (our generation) are stronger or simply different,” says Christopher Montague, executive vice-president, general counsel and secretary, TD Bank Financial Group. One suspects that Montague, out of respect, is pulling his punches.
Historically, general counsel were undoubtedly well-suited for their then responsibilities.

But the fact is that current top in-house counsel are both stronger and different than their predecessors. Generally, lawyers have become more sophisticated and, in many ways, smarter. Senior counsel such as Thomas Heintzman, Q.C., of McCarthys or Alan Lenczner, Q.C., of Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin, and a host of others who regularly mentor and work with young lawyers comment on this as a fact of life. This moving of the goalposts is not confined to the legal profession. Everywhere you look at the top end of the market, in Peter Godsoe’s words: “The bar has been raised immensely.”

So, Who Are These People?

What do we know about this select group of 25 general counsel? For one thing, after 20 sets of confidential assessments, using two of the best psychological profiling tools, i.e., EQ-i (Emotional Intelligence) and 16PF (Personality Factors), more than 40 hours of face-to-face meetings, and wading through CVs, press statements and other documentation, we know that they exhibit distinct and sometimes quite different types and configurations of talent. Second, their role continues to evolve in lock-step with market-driven organizational change within their respective corporations. There is no template. Instead, there are different horses for different courses.

As with any group of top talent, these in-house counsel are a fascinating study. They are mostly unpretentious and, without exception, hard working professionals who, by virtue of a unique combination of intelligence, talent and motivation, accomplish some remarkable results. Following is a summary of our most significant findings.

Significant Findings

1. A Tour de Force. They have been given significant amounts of both legitimate (position) power and connection power. Whether or not their official title designates them as the CLO, most report directly to the CEO and have the function of corporate secretary (and access to the board). They command significant budgets and are increasingly defining the rules of engagement for outside law firms.

2. Role is Enterprise-Defined and Driven. Depending upon the nature of their industry, certain functions (e.g., strategy, investor relations) may or may not report into them. Depending on their organizational culture (and history) they may or may not have such functions as corporate secretary. The quality and depth of their relationship with the CEO, will determine if they are a key player on the top team (which includes CFO, CIO, HR and three to six other key leadership voices.

3. Legal/Business Judgment. This is the competency that sets them apart and which has become a seamless, boundaryless blend of legal expertise, business acumen and strategic insight that comes from a host of defining/shaping experiences.

4. Unique Talent Profiles. Each presents their own distinctive configuration of strengths that affords them their own brand of success. For example, some have outstanding problem-solving skills combined with high levels of assertiveness and independence. Others are more collaborative relationship builders who influence others through charisma and trust. Nonetheless several patterns common among high achievers emerge. Generally they are motivated to achieve, independent, and self-starting problem-solvers with tough skins against stress.

5. Ultimate. For many top-ranked practitioners who had reached, or were close to reaching, the apex of their careers in private practice (Deborah Alexander at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Toronto, David McAusland at Byers Casgrain (now Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP) in Montreal), general counsel positions, in large part limited to Canadian-based multinationals, represent the ultimate career move. The opportunity to utilize their legal/business skills in a meaningful fashion, i.e., contributing decision-maker as opposed to advisor, is extremely attractive bordering, for some, on seductive, i.e., enjoyment of risk. Remuneration can now rival and exceed, in some instances by a considerable margin, compensation packages with major law firms.

6. Middle Management Mush. The relationship with outside law firms is changing, fundamentally. This group of in-house counsel are sophisticated and shrewd professionals who measure their own departments and their outside counsel against the standards that characterized their careers in private practice. Great value is assigned to judgment and analytical skills. Little value is assigned to commodity-like tasks, except for processing such work in the most cost-efficient manner possible. Considerable disdain is expressed respecting “middle management mush” in outside law firms.

7. Partnering and the New Value Proposition. The area with greatest opportunity for change (and more work) for outside firms is in the area of their value proposition. Most of those interviewed feel that law firms need to improve their “out of the box” thinking with respect to service and fees. (They perceive U.S. firms to be ahead of Canadian firms in this regard.) Selective partnering is a growing trend. Most firms engage in request for proposals (RFPs) to select preferred suppliers for both commodity and enterprise-wide (e.g., M&A) type work. All expressed a preference for outside firms who understand their business and its processes and who are willing to act on value-incentive types of billings.

8. Project Managers. In what most constitute a disquieting development for some law firms, a number of our in-house counsel want information age style project teams from their external counsel, which exclude “middle management” partners and associates.


Background
As with previous groups of high performing lawyers examined in past Lexpert issues (see “Canada’s Top 25 Corporate Litigators,” July/August 2002, “The Top 40 Under 40,” September 2002, and “Canada’s Top 30 Corporate Dealmakers,” November/December 2002), not many of our general counsel grew up with “silver spoons” in their mouths. While approximately 25 per cent of their fathers were professionals (e.g., Jacqueline Moss’s (CIBC) father was a lawyer, John Baker’s (Air Canada) a chartered accountant turned mining executive), these are exceptions to the rule.

The socio-economic background of this group repeats the strong meritocratic pattern noted in the other groups of high-performing lawyers profiled. Again, first generation lawyers from generally modest working-, lower middle- and middle-class families, working fathers and housekeeping mothers. There is no pattern whatsoever of birth order or number of siblings. Dale Scott at Manulife was the youngest of four children. Jacqueline Sheppard, executive vice-president, legal and corporate and corporate secretary, Talisman Energy Inc., the middle of six.

The one common factor of greatest influence are their parents and the values they imparted to their children. The greatest gift that the parents gave to this select group were three strongly held and daily reinforced values: education, responsibility and hard work as the gateway to opportunity. Sheppard, who went on to win a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, grew up competing with her siblings in spelling matches in a home where learning and achievement were prized. Albrecht Bellstedt’s parents were “prescient” about the future of South Africa. They immigrated to Canada to provide their four children with a better future. “My parents were a huge influence upon us. They set the level of expectation very high. One of my first defining experiences came when I was nine years old, witnessing what my parents went through, I decided to go to law school because I wanted to ensure myself of a decent future.”

The commonality of backgrounds is striking. More often than not, modest circumstances when growing up. Apparently without exception, strong supportive parents with high expectations. “I am the product of a high-achievement family,” says Martine Turcotte, CLO, BCE Inc. (Bell Canada Enterprises). “My father was always signing us up for new adventures in learning. He registered the whole family for Spanish lessons once, and another time for trancendental meditation.”
These similar backgrounds come as no surprise to researchers and other professionals who study talent. Increasingly, such backgrounds are becoming a common fulcrum that provide an essential component for future success: motivation.

Judgment
Most of us think of the leading indicators of success as being high grades, track records of accomplishments, etc. A less obvious, yet equally significant signpost, is mentoring. Mentorship simply makes the talent wheel spin. As noted in an earlier article (“The Top 40 Under 40”), one of the most significant findings in Richard Florida’s recent bestseller, The Rise of the Creative Class, is that top talent like to hang out with and learn from other top talent. Find a star performer and generally you won’t have to look too far to find mentors they feel intellectually and emotionally indebted to or, depending on their age/stage, protegés who they themselves are mentoring.

Not surprisingly, our group of in-house counsel repeatedly spoke of key people who provided defining/shaping experiences that promoted their growth and development. Alexander tells an instructive story about Purdy Crawford, Q.C., and her early days at Oslers where she had been assigned to work with Crawford. As many mentors do, Crawford had a habit of taking his young lawyers, particularly those showing promise, along to client meetings. After each of these meetings Crawford would turn to Alexander and ask, “so what do you think?” “I would be searching my brain for the legal principle,” says Alexander, “and thinking ‘Oh God, I haven’t studied this area yet.’ I remember telling him once that I hadn’t taken the necessary course. Purdy’s reply, which was a lesson I will never forget, was ‘I’m not interested in your legal analysis, I want to know if you have judgment.’”

Rob Collins was a strong influence in Moss’s early development at Blakes. W.A. (Alf) Peneycad, vice-president, general counsel and corporate secretary, Petro-Canada, recalls his former senior partners in private practice at Richmond Payton Peneycad as being hugely instrumental in his growth and development. Sean Finn, at CN, names Michael Sabia and Paul Tellier as more current mentors. “Paul Tellier has taught me the importance of making things look simple. He is the master of simplification.” For David Allgood, Deborah Alexander and Dale Scott, all alumni of Oslers, this firm provided a rich pool of mentors including Purdy Crawford, Brian Levitt, Bertha Wilson and Peter Dey.

Many of those interviewed for this article are themselves active mentors, which is again not surprising. Individuals who have experienced the generosity and value of mentoring usually want to make their own contribution when they see emerging talent. “I derive a great sense of satisfaction from managing and developing our lawyers,” says Nicholas DeRoma, CLO, Nortel Networks Corporation. “I consider it one of my most important responsibilities.”
“I instinctively spend more time with young lawyers who show promise that I feel I can help develop,” says Jackie Moss.

Quality mentors are invaluable to up-and-coming lawyers in a number of ways. They open up networks of clients, key contacts and other mentors. Most often mentors see the hidden potential (positive blind spots) in their protégés. They instinctively find opportunities to provide defining moments and shaping experiences. They act as sounding boards, support systems and are frequently important promoters of those they take under their wing. But, most importantly, as illustrated in the exchange between Alexander and Crawford, they impart judgment.
Legal Long-shots
Deborah Alexander gives new meaning to the expression “hit the road running”. Within her first six weeks at Scotiabank, she played a key role in the bank’s sale of its subsidiary Quilmes SA in Argentina, during that country’s current, massive financial crisis. Her most memorable achievement with respect to the transaction was not the numbers, but the fact that rather than wind down the Argentine subsidiary, they (Scotiabank) managed to negotiate a deal with two buyers to maintain most of the operations and hire the majority of the employees who otherwise would have been unemployed with very bleak prospects.

Dale Scott played a key role in Manulife’s $16 billion acquisition of Daihyaku Mutual Life Insurance Company in Japan. However, to his mind, his most memorable achievement was navigating Manulife through the well-known Indonesian joint venture turned nightmare during the summer of 2002. “It was an international incident,” says Scott, “involving U.S., Canadian and Indonesian governments and wide-spread corruption among law enforcement agencies and courts in Indonesia. At its height, I was managing 24 legal proceedings in Canada, the U.S., Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia.” The fact that Manulife prevailed and all litigation was terminated, in retrospect, appears nothing short of miraculous.

High on DeRoma’s list is the role he and his team played in Nortel’s completion of two concurrent public offerings in June 2002, for about US$1.475 billion. Like Alexander and Scott, it is not the dollar figure that DeRoma remembers as much as the tough odds. “It was a time of declining capital markets and uncertain credit conditions for Nortel,” says DeRoma, “and following a period of public downsizing, cost-cutting and overall transformation of our company due to the sudden downturn of our industry worldwide.”

Winning against the odds, and taking the higher ground by doing the right thing are the themes that run throughout the lists of accomplishments provided by this group of in-house counsel. Big ticket transactions, of course, are important. But when asked where they themselves excelled, it is the legal long-shot, often with a high road/low road aspect, that is recounted.

Such accomplishments speak directly to what motivates high achievers. Again and again we hear, “it’s not about the money.” What it is about is fully actualizing one’s potential, stretching oneself to the limit. It is what Abraham Maslow, the dean of motivational psychology, called self-actualization.

Transformational Leaders

Prior to my interview with Sean Finn, his assistant hands me a bright red and white foldout brochure that outlines the CN legal group’s value proposition to internal clients. It also clarifies for those outside CN what the areas of expertise (practice) are and who the contact lawyers are. Removable business cards fill the “who to contact” spaces as team leader roles are regularly rotated. The brochure is so professional and slick that it could easily be the result of a $250,000 McKinsey & Company organizational/quality improvement retainer. But it isn’t. Finn and his team put it together themselves.

Finn’s service or value proposition is a good visual representation (see page 80) of what he and most of his counterparts on this list of 25 general counsel see as their principal function: developing a strategy, service structure and talent recruitment plan to make the in-house law department the first point of contact and the legal supplier of choice for clients within their corporation. “We are structured like a small law firm,” says Jacqueline Moss at CIBC. John Baker at Air Canada considers one of his key accomplishments (in addition to his role in the merger, restructuring and integration with Canadian Airlines and continuing relationship management with the Competition Bureau) to be his work in “growing our legal group to 16 lawyers by attracting and retaining excellent talent from, inter alia, the top firms.”

Similarly, one of the accomplishments that David Allgood is most proud of is the effort and “significant progress” he and his group have made in shifting the focus of the RBC law department from a tactical/reactive mode to one more strategically aligned with the goals and needs of the bank’s business units. On paper these internal restructurings and realignments may seemingly pale in significance as against the deal sheet, i.e., Martine Turcotte at BCE, that many of these in-house departments generate. But they are, in fact, the ticket for admission. Professional excellence internally earns in-house teams the right to be key players in the big deals. “My first challenge at Alcan,” says David McAusland, “was to get our people to a common understanding of what excellence means to our role.”
Noel Tichy and Mary Anne Devanna’s 1986 groundbreaking book, The Transformational Leader, was described by its authors as “a book about corporate leadership, America’s scarcest resource.” Seventeen years later, leadership is still the scarcest resource for American and Canadian companies. Transformational leaders are the most valuable of all leaders. As Tichy and Devanna point out, “These people take responsibility for revitalizing an organization. They define the need for change, create new visions, mobilize commitment and ultimately transform an organization.” This is precisely the role that Finn at CN, Allgood at RBC, McAusland at Alcan, and many of the other general counsel profiled in this article, have undertaken.

Big Sandboxes

Why would someone clearly on the way up or at the pinnacle of their career want to trade it all in to lead a group of lawyers in a large bureaucratic organization? “It’s certainly not because of the soft hours,” was a consistent comment. Or, as Moss puts it, “you don’t have much smooch the pooch time.” “I’m as much a workaholic as ever,” says McAusland, who was recruited to Alcan from his position as managing partner at Byers Casgrain. “I work as much if not more than before.”

For most compensation is not a determinative factor. Stikeman Elliott LLP’s Ed Waitzer recalls discussing lawyer incomes with CIBC’s CEO John Hunkin when CIBC was going after Michael Capatides. “It took him a while to come to terms with what he’d have to pay for a top New York lawyer,” says Waitzer. But come to terms he did—there was no financial sacrifice in Capatides leaving his position as managing partner of U.S. legal powerhouse Mayer, Brown & Platt in New York (now Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw). Capatides, who divides his time between Toronto and New York, is now general gounsel and executive vice-president at CIBC. The explanation as to why someone like Capatides would make the move in-house lies elsewhere.

“I remember being at Shearman & Sterling as a securities lawyer doing a lot of work with Citicorp,” says Capatides. “I noticed that the in-house lawyers were having more fun than I was. They got to mix law with business. Most importantly, they made decisions.” If there was one point on which everyone interviewed for this article agreed, it is the point made by Capatides. The position of general counsel enabled these lawyers to take their legal/business skills and play in a much bigger, more interesting sandbox. In particular, they enjoyed moving from being advisors to decision-makers, from managing risk to owning risk, and from playing a role in a major transaction to living with the rewards and consequences of the transaction. In describing his role, Terry Badour, senior vice-president, general counsel and corporate secretary, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, captured the essence of what motivates these people. “I am a strategic quarterback and the gatekeeper of organizational risk.”

The motivational factor for our in-house counsel that solidly stands behind all of this is the desire to actualize their potential in ways that are meaningful to them, i.e., self-actualization. An integral part of this is their need for constant intellectual challenge that comes in new ways. Recognition remains an important factor as, in terms of emotional intelligence, most of these individuals not only score very high in self-regard, they also display strong egos that undoubtedly require regular validation.

Another interesting source of motivation that is unique in this group and their decision to make a significant career shift is “desire for change”. Many have personality factors that positively crave change to the extent that if enough change is not happening around them, they are likely to manufacture it themselves. This is significant in that, generally, members of the legal profession are averse to both risk and change.

EQ and Success

The accomplishments of these individuals reflect their EQ strengths. Georgia Sievwright’s work in the Hewlett-Packard/Compaq merger led to Canada being the first country to receive pre-merger approval, notwithstanding strong negative press/public opinion. She and her team forged relationships of trust and multiple partnerships with the Competition Bureau and key players on both sides of the border. One has only to review Seivwright’s personality configuration (she scores a 10 out of 10 on warmth) along with her unique EQ skills (highly assertive but empathetic, skilled at developing interpersonal relationships, etc.) to see her fingerprints all over this kind of outcome. Her personality configuration and EQ scores in large part predict her success.

Alf Peneycad’s “off-the-chart” scores in interpersonal relationships suggest that when he isn’t convincing locals in Nunavut that they really do need air conditioning, he would do a pretty good negotiating job paving the way for Petro-Canada’s recent European acquisitions. Dale Scott’s “exceptionally” high score in problem solving combined with a strong self-reliant personality might have more than a little to do with his success in extricating Manulife from an extremely difficult situation in Indonesia.

Why EQ is Important

Emotional Intelligence captures the non-cognitive, intuitive, more right-brain skills that individuals have. They are a significant component of overall intelligence not to be confused with IQ or general aptitude (measuring quantitative/numerical and verbal comprehension).

Both forms of intelligence are important, of course, and when combined can result in outstanding success (Purdy Crawford who tests very high in EQ, and has obvious raw intelligence, is a good example). However, both types of intelligence are not always found together. Many of us know individuals who have off-the-charts raw intelligence (for example, superb math skills), but have the interpersonal or emphatic skills (critical to establishing trust, resolving disputes, etc.) of a doorknob. We aren’t really surprised when, despite the fact that they aced the LSAT, many lawyers never advance much beyond becoming clever technicians. Intelligence, success and talent, of course, have many dimensions and the terms IQ and EQ are but convenient buckets that hold various types of skills.

The EQ bucket, however, has in recent years shaped up to be a surprisingly accurate predictor of why some people are more successful than others. It holds 15 sets of skills that are pretty important to our group of 25 general counsel, given the complex and adversity-ridden environment they inhabit. They include: self-regard (confidence); emotional self-awareness (reading ourselves and others); assertiveness (initiative); independence, self-actualization (actualizing our potential); empathy, social responsibility (concern for others); interpersonal relationship skills, stress tolerance, impulse control (ability to delay gut reactions); reality testing, flexibility (to change); and problem solving, optimism and happiness.
With the assistance of Dr. Steven Stein of Toronto-based Multi-Health Systems, almost three hundred lawyers, including over one hundred top-performing lawyers for this and previous Lexpert articles, have completed EQ-i assessments. What has been repeatedly observed is that it is the two or three “spikes” or talents in one’s EQ, which interact with one’s personality and raw intelligence, that explain a success configuration. More specifically, here are some observations about the EQ of our 25 general counsel in this article:
1. Their individual assessments are far more telling of strengths and weaknesses. The group report (still well above average) tends to average out as one person’s strength is brought down by another’s weakness. There is considerable variance in both individual reports (highs and lows) as well as between individuals in the group. There are clearly a number of “superstars” among our “stars”.
2. As a group, there are several patterns of clear strength. Their highest scores, in order, are: assertiveness, independence and stress tolerance (tied for second place), and problem solving. What this means is that as a group they are “take charge” people who push to get things done, are highly independent (in thinking, decision-making, etc.), can withstand high levels of stress/tough situations and are highly confident and competent in working through complex issues.
3. As a group, they also have several areas of potential weakness. These are impulse control, social responsibility and interpersonal relationships. Within the group of 20 general counsel who completed the assessments, there are some individuals for whom these skills are strengths. Others have weakness in one or more of these areas.
It is important to note that all of the individuals who completed the assessments have highly successful professional lives. Corporate cultures can vary enormously from organization to organization and, in some companies, strong impulse control, social responsibility and interpersonal skills may not be as important as they are in others. Simply put, some companies have a more abrasive, combative culture. Whether this serves the long-term interests of the corporation, however, is highly problematic. Secondly, and perhaps more significant, a number of these individuals could/would likely “up” their leverage and success by strengthening their EQ in areas where they have gaps (e.g. interpersonal).

Exit The B Team

There is a quiet revolution taking place in legal services today, which parallels the not-so-quiet “death of middle management” revolution that shook corporate foundations in the early 1990s. As usual, those who figure out how to become part of the new game plan will survive and profit.

Three things became clear during the interviews with our leading in-house counsel: first, their firm decision to bring in-house strategic and high-end work; second, their concern regarding the most cost-effective handling of commodity-type work; and third, their growing disdain for relatively senior but unaccomplished partners, i.e., middle management at outside firms who do not properly delegate work to junior levels.

“The demand for corporate legal services has increased significantly in recent years,” says Dale Scott at Manulife. “Corporate consolidation and global growth, an increasingly litigious environment [i.e., class actions], and the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley are some of the key drivers.” All of this adds up to increased legal costs, at a time when all senior executives, including general counsel, are under intense pressure to control and cut costs. The responses have differed.
“CP once had 75 lawyers,” Marcella Szel notes. “When we located to Calgary in 1996 we decided to use the move as an opportunity to re-create how we do everything. Walls came down, privileges were ended, and we spent over eight months developing a strategy for the legal group. In the end, we decided to outsource two-thirds of our legal work and retain the strategic.” CP has a legal group in Canada and the U.S. today that totals 20 (13 lawyers and 7 support).

Manulife took a different route. Scott plays an active role in strategy, but he chooses to keep 80 per cent of the company’s legal work in-house serviced by approximately two hundred lawyers and staff in offices around the world. “We spend about 35 per cent of our legal budget externally on high-end specialized work such as large acquisitions and large litigation cases,” says Scott.

The legal services model at CIBC is based on strong institutional relationships with a small number of firms. “We have sophisticated, well paid in-house counsel at all levels that work in close partnership with a small number of top-tier law firms,” says Michael Capatides.

All of the general counsel interviewed for this article were adamant as to the need to keep strategic and high-end work in-house. Where they differ is whether or not it is more cost-effective for them to keep commodity-type work in-house.
“There are two baskets of legal services,” says McAusland at Alcan.