BRAINS, TALENT AND YOUTH. Always have been and always will be a winning combination. And this group of 40 in-house corporate counsel, 40 years of age and under, has it all. Much like Yo-Yo Ma or Vanessa-Mae, they combine classical or historic interpretation with a contemporary approach. They defy stereotypes, rewriting in a fundamental sense their role and career descriptions and adapting to an increasingly slippery and complex corporate and regulatory slope.
They travel to film festivals in Cannes and petrochemical projects in the Middle East. They interact with a wide range of successful individuals ranging from CEOs to rock stars and movie idols to futuristic car designers. They work on billion dollar oil sands developments, design new financial products and quarterback the acquisition and disposition of assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars across multiple industry sectors. Importantly, they appear to possess an unassuming, almost naive sense of self that is free of conceit and arrogance, but brimming with enthusiasm for what they do.
This redefinition has not gone unnoticed. “The whole package has changed,” confirms Jim Riley, a senior corporate partner in the Toronto office of Ogilvy Renault LLP. Riley works closely with a number of the corporate counsel profiled in this article. “These people are not lawyers in the pure sense anymore. They are a unique hybrid that is part lawyer, part business leader and, in some cases, part entrepreneur.”
Riley points to Scott Bates at Royal Group Technologies as a good example of how the “whole package has changed.” Bates grew up in mid-town Toronto attending John Ross Robertson Public School before being streamed into the University of Toronto School, which only selects the most gifted students. As Bates recalls, his parents, an account broker and a teacher (there is a high incidence of teacher parents in this group), “fostered in me a strong desire to achieve.” They emphasized, as apparently did the parents of practically all members of our group of 40, several core values. These were the importance of education, a strong work ethic and doing your best to achieve.
Bates earned a joint LLB/MBA degree—also common among this group—prior to articling at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. He then worked at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG) to sharpen his skill set in corporate and securities law. “He is more than simply smart,” observes Riley. “Scott has this unique ability to discern and differentiate between what should be done in an ideal world and what can be done in the real world. He has also developed a valuable skill set for trouble shooting and acting as an intermediary between outside counsel, such as myself, and the business executives in his organization. Further, he is one of the first individuals of his age group to build a truly effective general counsel group in his company.”
The significant corporate governance gains of Royal Group Technologies, as recently cited in The Globe and Mail (this year's score up to 83 as compared to 62 last year), is but one indication of the influence Bates has had.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. A “whole new package” indeed. On the surface they are a group of professionals who appear to have little in common. However, as one digs deeper a striking commonality of attributes surfaces, which unites them as extraordinary achievers. Our group of 40 legal/business professionals are world-class talent. Highlights include:
1. Their raw intelligence or IQ is in the 98th percentile of the general population (anywhere in the world). We are talking serious intelligence.
2. They are more conscientious, honest and ethical than 88 per cent of all other people. If their organizations are looking for trustworthiness and transparency, what they see is what they get with this group.
3. Their verbal fluency, a key skill for leadership, influencing and negotiating, is better than 82 per cent of others.
4. Their working memory, which enables them
to hold thoughts and simultaneously attend to
different tasks, is at the 80th percentile of the population.
5. They learn more quickly and can discern what is and is not relevant in a changing environment better than three quarters of other people (74th percentile).
6. Their adaptability, according to confidential assessments completed and their interaction with lawyers in private practice who were interviewed for purposes of this article, is one of the important attributes that set them apart.
7. Their creative potential, while high average (66th percentile), is their most significant challenge in terms of professional and personal growth. There is considerable diversity among group members respecting this skill or attribute. Some are original and unconventional thinkers. Others are traditional and more conservative thinkers. One may speculate that this divergence in creativity reflects, in part, the “gatekeeper” role of corporate counsel in terms of risk management and, in part, the different corporate cultures, entrepreneurial versus conservative, into which they self-select.
8. One of their significant career challenges will be maintaining momentum over time to avoid complacency and plateauing. They have a high need for a constant stream of fresh challenges and variety in their work and personal lives. They are ambitious and want/need to keep their skill sets at the cutting edge. Several members of this group have already spun off into purely or largely business roles.
THE ASSESSMENT PROCESS. Understanding human talent and behaviour requires both hard and soft approaches. Our goal (i.e., that of the writer and Dr. Jordan Peterson, a psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto) was to identify interesting commonalities that help others understand, recognize and perhaps predict the kind of talent that our group of 40 possess. Basically, why some individuals excel and others do not.
Our group agreed to complete two confidential assessments. The first was a standard adult intelligence (IQ) test (Wonderlic). The second was a new assessment called ExamCorp, which is used to measure cognitive abilities of higher functioning individuals. As explained by Dr. Peterson, who is the co-developer of this second assessment, “ExamCorp is designed for people who do work where their brain power, judgment and creativity matter. Essentially, our brain is organized hierarchically. The lowest level of the hierarchy controls reflective muscle movements.
The highest controls abstract integration of information from the outside world (perceptual data) with our inner experience (prior knowledge, motivation, etc.). The prefrontal cortex is at the very pinnacle of the brain's control hierarchy and it is this pinnacle of power that ExamCorp measures.”
In addition to the IQ and ExamCorp assessments, the latter being particularly rigorous, requiring an hour and a half to complete, our group provided copies of their curriculum vitae and underwent in-depth biographical interviews.
Through the assessments and the in-depth interviews, a distinct profile respecting our group of 40 emerges. They are both fascinating and challenging because they are so diverse. Their stories of what brought them into law in the first place and then what led them in-house vary immensely. Yet, commonalities surface. For example, as a group of high-achieving lawyers they are strikingly more extroverted than any of their high-achieving counterparts in private practice.
(See “Canada's Top 25 Corporate Litigators,” “Top 40 Under 40,” “Canada's Top 30 Corporate Dealmakers,” “Carpe Diem! Canada's Top 25 Women Lawyers,” and “Top 40: 40 and Under 40,” authored by this writer in the July/August, September, November/December 2002, September 2003 and November/December 2004 issues of Lexpert.)
This extroverted/introverted distinction is significant. While close to 80 per cent of high-achieving lawyers in private practice are introverted, our group of 40 scores in the 77th percentile of the normal population with respect to extroversion. One important insight this distinction may provide is a partial explanation as to why a number of our group have moved into legal/business roles in their organizations. Extroverts are energized by the external world of
people, places and things. They crave breadth over depth, interaction, variety and stimulation. They receive more of this in-house than they would in private practice. It is significant that a good number of our group pursued business degrees before, during or after law school.
HOW THEY ENTERED LAW and how they went in-house reflects, in many cases, the significant extroverted/introverted distinction between this group of in-house high-achievers versus the high-achievers in private practice in the Lexpert cover stories cited above.
Laurie May (Maple Pictures) was completing a year of school in Israel when she abruptly switched course from pursuing a career in psychology to deciding she wanted a career in the film industry. Not many would set out to break into film by going to law school, but May did. Her father Norman May, Q.C., a partner at Fogler, Rubinoff LLP in Toronto, suggested that the best way to enter at the high end of the industry was by having a strong tool kit such as law.
May listened. She also listened when her father advised that to be credible she needed to gain several years experience at a leading law firm. She spent her first three years articling and working as an associate at Osler. Fast forward to today. May went in-house and then participated in a management buyout. She is now co-president and co-owner of Maple Pictures, the second largest film distribution company in Canada. She interacts daily with the dynamic personalities who make up the film industry. Her world is one of new projects and constant change. She thrives on it.
John Young (OMERS Capital Partners) grew up in a small village outside of Glasgow, Scotland. Young had his first real taste of achievement when, as a young soccer star, he was picked to play for the University of Glasgow team to compete in the British Championship matches. His team took second place. He and his family immigrated to Canada after being sent by British Energy Group plc to sell off assets, including the Bruce Nuclear Plant. OMERS was on the Bruce transaction. They liked what they saw and made Young an offer. He is now in-house with OMERS Capital, a private equity venture. He is constantly quarterbacking new acquisitions and divestitures. He interacts with a wide range of senior people throughout the US and Canada. He loves what he does.
Learn more about Canadian family sponsorship and the eligibilities required for both the sponsor and the sponsored family member or relative here.
Not surprisingly many of the lawyers in this group, such as Andrea Daly at Onex or Joseph Freedman at Brookfield Asset Management Inc., went in-house when their clients or
in-house counsel on the other side of the deal saw their potential up close.
¬¬“Andrea Daly is not one of the best in-house counsel in Canada,” corrects Onex CEO Gerald Schwartz in response to this writer's question. “She is the best!” What makes Andrea Daly so great? According to Schwartz, Daly thrives in the fast paced corporate world of Onex, which, by definition, involves simultaneous interaction with multiple parties on multiple transactions. Schwartz praises her ability to quickly separate what is important from what is not, an attribute to which he attaches great importance.
George McClean (General Motors of Canada Ltd.), the youngest of four children in a modest middle-class family, excelled at school from the outset. He knew he wanted to be a lawyer by the age of 12, but was also keenly interested in business. After completing a joint MBA/LLB at Osgoode Hall Law School, he joined Osler to article. As a part of his articling rotation he had the opportunity to work with General Motors. He was hooked. Offered a full-time position, he jumped ship.
During the course of his interview, McClean spoke enthusiastically and in great detail about the projects and products of GM. He responded to the question about future career options by saying he hoped to become more actively involved in the leadership and business of GM. It was not, therefore, surprising when a couple of days before this article was filed he called up from the CMA (Certified Management Association) executive program he was finishing to say he had accepted a new position as the Director of Fleet and Commercial Sales with 36 people reporting to him and responsibility for 25 per cent of all GM vehicles sold in Canada. He felt that the legal skills and mindset he was taking with him would provide a valuable tool in his new position.
Not all of the lawyers in our group plan to cross over into business. Norie Campbell (TD Bank Financial Group) is yet another example of how one applies legal skill sets. Campbell is in a two-year developmental role as vice-president and executive assistant to CEO Ed Clark. The role is designed to provide her with a broadening experience and a range of career options. Such special assistant positions are usually reserved for the best and brightest potential in organizations as part of early succession grooming.
In Campbell's case the opportunity has both broadened her perspective and clarified to her that her real career objectives remain to be positioned at the high end of the legal/business interface. She is passionate about being at the front end of large, strategic transactions and having the luxury of serving one client exceptionally well. “When you work on the inside, you see everything up close and share price becomes very real,” she explains.
FUTURE SUCCESS. On the basis of the collective ExamCorp assessment scores, the overall prefrontal cortex ability of this group is at 86.6 percentile of a normal distribution curve. We're not only talking really smart, we're talking future success. As explained by Dr. Peterson, “Cognitive competence is the best predictor of success in positions which entail complex work. An assessment measure such as ExamCorp can increase the predictability or probability of success from about a 50/50 guess in traditional recruitment and assessment methods to about an 80/20 probability. In short, the scores of this group are excellent. They predict continued success in the future.”
The ExamCorp scores, combined with the Wonderlic IQ scores, reveal our group's four highest abilities as:
• Raw intelligence or IQ – 98th percentile
• Conscientiousness – 88th percentile (including honesty and integrity)
• Verbal fluency – 83rd percentile
• Working memory – 80th percentile
Their two lowest abilities are agreeableness at the 61st percentile and originality at 65.7th percentile. A high average score in agreeableness makes complete sense considering their role as in-house counsel requires both independence and agreeableness. They have an ideal balance between the level of agreeableness required for good teamwork and the independence required to break from group pressure when their intelligence or experience points them in a different direction.
High average scores in originality, on the other hand, present this group with their greatest professional and personal challenge. In fairness, their exceptional levels of conscientiousness likely restrain some of their “out of the box” inclinations and, as pointed out by many, risk management is one of their most important responsibilities. Nevertheless, it remains a concern.
This is an interesting “wiring” configuration. Normally, creativity is higher with more extroverted people and lower with the more introverted. However, with respect to all high-achieving lawyers in private practice surveyed to date (see previous Lexpert cover stories cited), the reverse appears to be the case. Most of the high-achieving lawyers in private practice are introverted (almost 80th percentile), but they score very highly on creativity. Our group of 40 is different.
The highest-achieving lawyers in private practice distinguish themselves by breaking from the mold. Notably, they are not only considerably more introverted but they are more likely than average lawyers to have higher tolerance for risk and to be more creative (this is their mark of distinction).
As explained by Dr. Peterson, “While this group are in the 77th percentile of extroversion, their creativity, while very good, is not as high as one would think it would be, especially considering how high their raw intelligence is. Essentially, many are more conservative thinkers.”
It is not that our group of 40 is not creative. At the 66th percentile they are actually more creative than almost two thirds of others. What we are talking about is a developmental opportunity to increase the likelihood of success rather than a developmental need. As Peterson notes, “The insight for a number of these lawyers is that they can reach even higher levels of effectiveness by reading more outside their areas of business/legal expertise, by
widening their circle of friends, associates, mentors, etc., and generally broadening their interests.”
A final point before leaving the subject of intelligence. “The fact that they scored so highly in two separate measures of higher reasoning, IQ and ExamCorp, actually adds a synergistic effect to both sets of scores,” advises Peterson. “And the higher one's overall intelligence is, the more it fractionates. This means you find more ways to be smarter and fewer ways to get dumber. The bottom line is that the intelligence pool of this group is pretty close to as good as it gets.”
PERSONALITY TRAITS ARE generally poorly understood and often confused with other things such as motivation or values. Individual personality is made up of deeply rooted (or wired) patterns of behaviour, thinking (cognitive) style and emotional responses. They are what characterize each of us as unique.
“One of the reasons that personality has not been well understood is that the language and labels have not been standardized,” explains Dr. Peterson. “However, modern psychological theory now generally recognizes a five dimensional personality model where each dimension describes a unique aspect of an individual's personality and temperament. All such measures, regardless of their names, assess some aspect of these basic five dimensions and each dimension is intelligibly related to general or specific aspects of job performance.”
The model is comprised of the following dimensions:
• Extraverted social ability (ExamCorp OUTGOING): positive emotion, energy, dominance and social orientation;
• Agreeable amiability (ExamCorp AGREEABLE): warmth, empathy, compassion and tender-mindedness;
• Emotional stability (ExamCorp CALM): freedom from excessive anxiety, anger and emotional pain;
• Conscientious achievement (ExamCorp CONSCIENTIOUS): achievement orientation, ambition, conscientiousness, integrity and trustworthiness; and
• Intellectual and cultural interest (ExamCorp ORIGINAL): creativity, open-mindedness and breadth of interest.
In four of these dimensions there is considerable congruence in the ExamCorp scores of our group of 40. With respect to intellectual and cultural interest, there is considerable variance. Here is what we found:
1. First, the most characteristic personality trait of this group is their conscientiousness, which is at the 88th percentile of a normal population. This is a key indicator for professional success. Essentially, this means that our group are well placed in positions of trust.
2. They are an extroverted and outgoing group with ExamCorp scores at the 77th percentile. As discussed earlier, this means they are more likely to thrive in a vibrant setting characterized by change, stimulation and people. In this respect they are ideal candidates for large, dynamic organizations. This factor may explain why they were first attracted to business organizations. They may have subconsciously self-selected on this basis.
3. As a group they exhibit strong emotional stability. They are the 75th percentile. This group did not complete an assessment of their Emotional Intelligence (EQ) but other high-achievers are characterized by high EQ scores in stress tolerance. This may be a common success factor for all high-achieving lawyers.
4. They have average levels of agreeableness, which indicates they have enough to be effective in team setting but not so much that they will not break from the pack when their intelligence or experience points them in a different direction.
5. Originality or creative thinking varies considerably among group members. Some are highly original thinkers. Others are traditional and conservative. Some are in between. High and low scores had an averaging out effect with an overall group score of 66 per cent.
ASSESSMENTS SUCH AS the Wonderlic and ExamCorp are useful for measuring individual potential. However, the extent to which people achieve their potential is strongly influenced by other factors. Most of us know at least one person who had all of the right potential but fell short of expectations. Why do some people excel while others do not?
Our research of leading lawyers points again and again to a key factor that determines what people will do with their potential. This is the influence of their parents. What is important is that in interview after interview these high-achievers describe their parents as hard working, caring and supportive people who sacrificed for their children and wanted them to have the kinds of opportunities that they did not. Their parents emphasized three key values: education, hard work (i.e., doing one's best) and achievement.
The incidence of parents who were teachers, interestingly, is high. Patrick McGrade's (GlaxoSmithKline Inc.) mother was a teacher and so are three of his siblings. Stephania Luciuk's (Imperial Oil Ltd.) mother was a teacher. So was Riva Richard's (CanWest Global Communications Corp.), Annie Carpentier's (Alcan Inc.), Scott Bates' (Royal Group), Richard Crofts' (MI Developments Inc.), Isabelle Viger's (Saputo Inc.), Denise Cooper's (CHUM Limited) and many of the others.
Adversity within family circumstances is another factor of high incidence in this group. A number had a parent who died unexpectedly at an early age. The incidence of parents who were immigrants is even higher, with many overcoming all kinds of financial adversity and cultural or language
barriers. Emily Jelich (Royal Bank Financial Group) recalls why education was of unquestionable value in her family. “My grandmother had escaped Russia to reach Yugoslavia. My father was a prisoner of war in Germany. My mother was a deportee refugee. Education was regarded as something portable and valuable. The emphasis was always to do something good and useful with your life.”
Another common theme in the parenting of these high-achievers is the independence afforded to them. This was often born out of necessity, with busy working parents, the financial need to help and the responsibility of taking care of oneself and one's siblings. “My parents came from Oldham, England when I was 2,” recalls Sharon Haward-Laird (BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc.). “We lived in an apartment at Kennedy and Ellesmere. My dad worked as a foreman in a glass manufacturing company and my mother worked in retail stores. My dad never, never took sick days.” The influence and support of these parents is striking and lasting. Last year when Haward-Laird decided to lose weight, her mother, now 58, trained for and ran the Toronto marathon with her.
Almost all of the lawyers in our group did not have parents who were lawyers. Most came from hard-working middle or working class families. They are living examples of the power of meritocracy within the legal profession. Surprisingly, many think their modest beginnings to be unique. “I did not exactly come from blue blood,” explains Michel Lalande (BCE Inc./Bell Canada). “I grew up in Laval and attended some pretty rough schools. My father, a filmmaker, worked really hard. He was not home many nights.”
Such recollections give one pause. Tough times and modest beginnings also give rise to children with perspective and independence. Today one of the foremost concerns of young lawyers who are parents is work-life balance and time with their children. No one argues that this is not valuable. However, it is useful to remember that children are more resilient than we think and that the work-life balance experienced by the parents of the high-achievers in our group was heavily weighed in favour of work.
ADAPTABILITY IS a precondition for survival and success. “What do you consider to be the most important skill for survival and success in your role today?” was the question. The response from our group was immediate, simple and clear. Adaptability. This one word response was also pregnant with meaning. Here is a group who are highly sensitized to and aware of a sea of change taking place around them.
Jeffrey Garten, the most recent past Dean of the Yale School of Management, opens The Mind of The CEO (New York, 2001) with a reply by Leonard Riggio, Chairman and CEO of Barnes & Noble Inc., to a question about the nature of change within the business world. “Put it this way, everything is in play.” “In those words,” writes Garten, “Riggio captured the environment in which CEOs operate today—the possibilities, the vulnerabilities, the uncertainties.”
For our group of 40, adaptability is a precondition for survival and success. They must now fill very different roles, from trusted legal advisor to member of executive business teams responsible for strategy and growth. Their success in adapting to this changing environment is dependent on rewriting, in a fundamental sense, their role and career descriptions.
“A stereotype of in-house counsel no longer exists,” notes Michael Padfield (Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan). At 34, Padfield is another example of the “new package” to which Jim Riley refers. Padfield signed on for a position that was described as a generalist in corporate commercial with responsibility for a wide range of internal client groups. This includes plan administration, dealing with plan members and managing relationships with multiple constituencies. One of his roles is to support the Investment Division in investing plan funds. He often finds himself as the middleman between legal counsel in firms and investment management specialists. “I rarely get the same issue twice,” he says with a smile.
What is most striking about this “new package” of in-house counsel is that many no longer define themselves as lawyers. “I am only half a lawyer,” says Laurie May. “I am really a hybrid,” says George McClean. As a group they are far less title or even role focused. They are intent on applying whatever skills they have (including legal), along with their intelligence, to quickly learn and adapt to a large variety of challenging tasks.
They actually enjoy the unpredictable nature of the problems and projects thrown at them. They are energized by the variety of issues and players. What they want is getting involved at the beginning of a project, working through the life cycle and then seeing (and managing) the end result.
While there are numerous examples of how this redefinition of roles is transforming our group, George McClean is one of the most interesting. At the time of his first interview McClean spoke enthusiastically about his hybrid role at GM. “Today I get involved in major projects right at the beginning. For example, GM is putting XM satellite radios that are commercial free into all new vehicles. I have been involved in every stage of this new product release, from the CRTC regulatory requirements to all aspects of a new product launch.” As for where his career was progressing, he spoke about his interest in moving into a strategic leadership role. As noted earlier, just prior to the submission of this article, McClean called to advise that he had “crossed over” to an executive role at GM as director of fleet and commercial sales with 36 people reporting to him.
If adaptability is a precondition for survival and success, the second most critical skill set for this group is leadership. As famous management guru, Jack Welch, has now repeatedly said, “Leadership of companies is going to have to become much less CEO driven.” What Welch is referring to is that senior executive teams must have joint responsibility for the stewardship of their enterprise. This is already the case in virtually any company of significant size.
Increasingly, one of the key players on this team is the general counsel, now often referred to as the chief legal officer (CLO).
Some of our group of 40 have already assumed this role. Others, such as George McClean, have changed their career path to become business executives. Some in our group are at a mid-point on this continuum. Either way, these high-achieving professionals are assuming roles and responsibilities for leadership in their organization. This brings with it a whole new domain of knowledge and skill as they master the art of leadership. With 36 people reporting to him, George McClean will need to develop the skills of developing corporate vision or strategy, execution, motivation, selection of talent and delegation.
Execution is key. This is a skill that Andrea Daly, according to Gerald Schwartz, has in abundance. “What Andrea does is to take her deep knowledge and legal skills and apply them to a steady stream of business issues with speed and precise judgment,” says Schwartz. John Young at OMERS is well aware of the need to execute. “Our group gets involved in 50 to 60 deals a year and of these we consummate between 5 to 10 of the absolute best. We spend between $300–$600
million each year. Naturally, everyone wants us to look at their deals and it would be easy to spend all of our time doing that. But, at the end of the day, it is our job to close and execute on those that are the most attractive.”
LEADERSHIP AS AN ART. There is, however, a second and higher level set of leadership skills that these individuals will need to acquire. They begin with an awareness of themselves and others (i.e., the EQ skill of empathy) required in part to manage their ability to run (think, act) faster than most. Most speak too quickly with a flood of ideas signaling that they do not understand that they themselves think faster than most others. If they are to avoid intimidating those around them, who they rely on for support, they will need to take the time to understand those they lead. For example, that others may not have their level of motivation, energy or speed, but are still hard working followers.
Developing political and cultural acumen is another subtle leadership skill that becomes more sophisticated as one moves into more senior roles in large organizations. Learning how to work across groups and who the “real” players are to get things done becomes increasingly important.
Learning how to not only develop strategy but ensure it gets executed is the acid test (and downfall) for many senior leaders. Jeffrey Garten put it best in The Mind of the CEO when he wrote “In the end, a vision without the ability to execute is probably a hallucination.”
One of the most valuable senior leadership skills is learning how to tap into and mobilize the power of an organization's people. Senior leaders who “move” their people are able to achieve significantly more than others. These individuals are CEO potential, usually the kind of people who talk to people in the elevator, have personal websites that they invite staff to send question to, etc. Leadership Is an Art (New York, 2004) by Max Depree describes in detail many of the soft, intuitive skills of leadership and should be mandatory reading for our group of 40.
BRIDGING MULTIPLE constituences. Emily Jelich at Royal Bank does not mince words. “The biggest challenge I face today is balancing the demands placed by regulatory requirements and governance against the day-to-day need to run a business that is viable and profitable.” John Young at OMERS agrees with Jelich. “The biggest challenge in this role is staying on top of the governance issues. It is also a full-time job and then there is the twist of the demands of this role with the demands and skills required to carry out M&A transactions. You can't have both in the same person.”
Jelich and Young summarize what many of their counterparts struggle with today. In a post-Enron world, corporate governance and navigating the regulatory environment has practically taken on a life of its own. And in many instances there are no answers. Only uncertainty. As Jeffrey Garten points out, “because we are in transition between the Industrial Age and the Information Age, a large vacuum exists concerning the regulatory framework for the global economy. There is nothing equivalent to a central monetary and banking authority, no global Securities and Exchange commission, no global Food and Drug Administration, no common set of antitrust procedures. There is an absence of international arrangements for all the new problems that are arising.”
Nevertheless, decisions have to be made.
Another challenge for most of this group is managing their role as intermediary between their organization and the law firms and lawyers they retain. In many cases they are negotiating fees with lawyers who may have previously been their senior partners. As Riva Richard at CanWest notes, “Coming up with fee structures and chargebacks that will actually work and which are perceived as fair and equitable on both sides requires a lot of skill and sensitivity. This is particularly important given that long-term positive relationships with outside counsel are critical to the work we do.”
¬¬The role of intermediary goes well beyond negotiating work and fees. Across the board, in the interviews held with our group of 40, a common theme emerged which is the challenge of serving “many masters” or multiple constituencies. Scott Bates, for example, is one of a 13-member executive management group in Royal Group Technologies, an organization still formulating its vision strategy. “The trick is to capture all of the hidden opportunities and the synergies from these people,” he emphasizes. “To look for and find the positives.”
Many in the group see part of their role as the need to educate and inform their internal clients about what can and cannot be done. But it does not stop here. A key aspect of the “new package” is the ability to go forward. Joseph Freedman at Brookfield Asset Management Inc. puts it best, “You really need to be solutions-focused and have an ability to look beyond your ‘box' of the law. Instead of simply pointing out the impediments, you need to be able to generate some creative alternatives. The ability to do this across disciplines is one of the most important elements of this job.” This is where the real value-added component kicks in.
CAREER AND personal changes. Riva Richard is beaming. She is six and a half months pregnant. Patrick McGrade has four kids, is married to Lynn McGrade, a leading investment funds lawyer at BLG. and his gardens at home are going to hell.
Stephania Luciuk, a single mother with a young toddler, puts the work-life challenge issues in perspective: “Right now I am taking lead responsibility for what is estimated to be a $6 billion project—the development of the Syncrude Oil Sands in Fort McMurray, which is the second largest
oil sands in the world. I am learning a whole new set of interpersonal relationship skills in negotiating joint venture partnerships with Aboriginal band leaders, ensuring regulatory compliance and a hundred other things. But I am still a mother.
“The challenge is one of communicating openly and honestly with those who rely on you. For me it has meant letting the people here know that I want and need to meet my responsibilities as a parent, but I also have every intention of making an excellent contribution to our work. I think when you are clear about your needs and intentions, and others know you will genuinely do your best, they will do their best to support you. And this had been my experience here.”
Patrick McGrade expresses similar candor. “Hey, I was kid number five in an eight-kid Irish Catholic family. I know the drill. Lynn and I share the load, make our kids as independent as we can and focus on the important stuff. Homegarden maintenance is not always on the priority list.”
As to whether an in-house position affords greater work-life balance, the answers are as varied as the members of our group. Many say they are as busy or busier than they ever were in private practice. Others feel they put in the same number of hours, but have greater control over them. Several of the group feel that the overall commitment of time is simply better in-house. One suspects that the real answer to work-life balance has more to do with the way the individual chooses to address it.
CAREER MOMENTUM. This is a looming challenge for our group. Frequently, in-house counsel departments are small. One can plateau mid-career depending on the size and scope of the business. While this is certainly not an issue for many in our group (most are involved in large, exciting and fast moving projects), it does not take long for an outsider to spot career pitfalls down the road.
Many in this group are in roles where the next logical step would be to move into the role of general counsel, assuming greater leadership and strategic responsibility. However, this position is already filled by strong, skilled counsel who are not close to retirement.
Then there is the question of where senior general counsel go next. Their choices are to grow their role (which some have done), to take on more or other business responsibilities, to cross over to a mainstream business group, or to move to a larger or different organization with new, different challenges.
The issue is not that in-house counsel careers are plateauing traps. All of the alternatives listed above are viable and are being taken. The challenge is more one of being proactively aware and taking steps to manage one's career in-house. Career management is a very different process in law firms where young lawyers grow their portfolio of expertise, take on more and larger clients, and leverage off of the firm's platform of clients, work and other lawyers. Lawyers who move in-house need to think about managing their career differently.
Compensation is a thorny issue. Not surprisingly, most in our group were evasive on this matter. In response to direct questions they generally gave such non-answers as “I am not motivated by money” or “Right now I am doing as well/almost as well as I would in a firm.” Such answers may be generally true, for the present. However, as psychologists such as Frederick Hertzberg have shown, money may not motivate us, but when we discover that the guy across the street who does the same thing makes $100,000 more, we suddenly feel a sense of cognitive dissonance (in common English, deprived and pissed-off). It demotivates us.
Having spent 20 years of my career in three large financial institutions and knowing their compensation strategies on a working level (i.e., applying them), I could not resist putting this potential issue on the table with the following hypothesis. It begins by thinking 10 years out in one's career as an in-house counsel and considering this question. “Imagine you are having lunch with one of your closest friends and colleagues with whom you consider yourself to be fairly evenly matched in terms of skill, success, etc. What are the odds that you will discover that he/she is now making significantly more than you?”
The question is based upon the following scenario that I have witnessed in three separate in-house groups. The company, a marker leader, wishes to attract top legal talent and accordingly pays premium compensation to bring in a promising lawyer in mid-career. Organizational compensation structures are simply not geared to move at the same speed as a high potential professional whose career suddenly takes off. While it is not usually intentional, the lawyer's compensation slowly plateaus and eventually begins to lose ground (despite the best of intentions with bonuses and other incentives). This is particularly the case at levels below CEO and the executive committee.
In-house lawyers are interesting in that many are not primarily driven by money. They themselves lose track of where they are until the inevitable 10-year lunch takes place and they realize (usually with shock) how great the gap is. Unfortunately, by this time the lawyer has usually passed the point where it is feasible for him or her to return to private practice. They grumble to their friend in private practice, return to work somewhat demotivated and slowly begin to pull back on their discretional effort.
The range of answers to this scenario were fascinating. The following is an off-the-record response by a very senior CLO (not a member of our group) interviewed for this article.
“I think high-performing individuals always have leverage that average performers don't have. I concede that the scenario you describe is a common one and that individuals can get inadvertently left behind in the compensation ladder, but the better ones look after themselves and are not modest about reminding the company of that. In a hot market they are continually headhunted and reminded they have choices.
“It's the overall package of comp components that have to be considered. The $125K base salaries junior in-house counsel earn do not compare favourably with the counterpart in private practice who may earn $350K. But add the bonus, stock-linked comp, perks and pensions and the in-house lawyer may even be ahead, never mind equal. Base salaries at junior level are probably 40-60 per cent of total comp. At senior level they are probably closer to 15-25 per cent of the total. As the lawyers progress through their careers in-house, the apparent gap between in-house base and firm comp will grow, e.g., the $125K/$350K examples may grow to $300K/$900K, but the other components of in-house comp more than offset this apparent inequity.”
It is a well thought out response that is initially hard to take issue with, except perhaps with respect to two points. How “high-performing” does one have to be (and according to whom)? And how “hot” does the market have be?
A second off-the-record response from a member of our group differed significantly. “I could not agree with you more. I can make the best business case for the millions of dollars of revenue I have brought in (and/or save in terms of outside firm fees) and what a private firm lawyer would be rewarded for, but that large sum I hold in front of them (the company) is something that they have great difficulty getting their heads around…and if you think they have difficulty, the board members often have even more. I have already calculated that if I do not move on in about a year and a half, I will start to lose ground.”
¬¬¬¬The range of responses to the question of compensation suggests that it will surface as a real challenge. The fact that members of our group were both evasive and unwilling to go “on record” further suggests that there may be more to this issue. It should warrant open discussion, not because money is so important, but because it is a significant measurement for professional success and a motivational influence on the long-term quality in one's legal talent pool.
FINAL LASTING IMPRESSIONS. “What is it like to speak to 40 people who are smarter than 98th per cent of all other people?” a friend asked. “Humbling,” was my reply. Diminished ego aside, there are some striking overall impressions that this group of high-achievers leave, in terms of what was said in interviews and in terms of what was not said.
¬First, one is struck by how “normal” these people are. They are not arrogant or overly ego-driven. Second, the fact that I had to check and recheck titles because, most often, they were not mentioned in interviews unless I remembered to ask. One is struck by the conversations that were almost completely focused on ways they could contribute, what they could give to their organizations as opposed to what they thought they should get. There was a complete absence of any sense of entitlement, which is such a barrier to the potential success of so many others. This latter point is very important.
One is also struck by how well mannered, dressed and articulate they are, which brings home Jordan Peterson's point of how intelligence and talent fractionate. These people are the embodiment of the 80th percentile person. They have learned how to be at the 80th percentile in most aspects of their lives. It shows in how they dress, walk, talk, and a multitude of other aspects. Finally, they are engaged. They take the initiative to find topics of common interest with those they speak to. As Dr. Jordan Peterson concluded, and as noted earlier, “The bottom line is that the intelligence pool of this group is pretty close to as good as it gets.” And this is all part of the “new package.”
Irene E. Taylor is a leadership consultant with more than 25 years experience in coaching and advising senior and top talent in Canada and internationally. She writes for Lexpert and leads Praxis, a talent assessment, recruitment and coaching practice.
