Category: Features

GC: Obviously the Snowden story was a huge scoop for The Guardian. How did you first hear about it, and what were your initial thoughts?

Gill Phillips (GP): I was actually in Australia as we were in the process of opening our office there. I got a cryptic phone call from Alan Rusbridger [then unieditor-in-chief] one night saying, ‘I can’t really talk about this as using the phone might be unreliable. Could you put me in touch with a US national security lawyer?’ I began to think, ‘Ok, something is going on,’ but I gave him a few names.

Continue reading “The legal pathway to the story of the century”

A cyber attacker could be anyone. A disgruntled employee with access to data, a ‘hacktivist’ with a social or political axe to grind, an organised criminal seeking profit, or a nation state with a cyber army primed for sophisticated cyberespionage missions. They could be anywhere, silently gathering data before slipping out undetected, or hiding in a gap in the supply chain, waiting to shut down the organisation’s service. Terminology such as ‘phishing’, ‘social engineering’ and ‘advanced persistent threat’ has invaded the lexicon of the modern corporation.

Continue reading “Cybersecurity: keeping out of the breach”

Switzerland’s longstanding neutrality and geographical position in central Europe have given it the political stability and platform to become one of the world’s wealthiest (and most high-cost) countries. It has reaped the benefits of its rich combination of exports and inflow of skilled workers from neighbouring countries. Andreas Bohrer, group general counsel at biotech company Lonza, advises GCs considering a move to the country to understand its uniqueness: ‘Get to understand the people that are working here in the Swiss market and also the consumers. It’s important to understand that Switzerland, even though it is in the middle of Europe, has some aspects and features that are fundamentally different.’

Continue reading “GC Powerlist: Switzerland”

There are many talented assistant, associate and deputy general counsel. With limited general counsel or CLO roles, what is the secret to advancing to the top? While the answer is partly ‘it depends’ (we are lawyers, after all), there are common attributes of successful GCs. By deconstructing these qualities, we discern a framework that aspiring C-suite lawyers can leverage to position themselves more strategically to obtain the top role, and excel once there. Tomorrow’s general counsel are proactively preparing themselves for success today. Continue reading “Moving from counsel to general counsel”

Tom Sager began his career with DuPont as an attorney in the labour, benefits and corporate security group and spent more than a decade as chief litigation counsel, before being named senior vice president and general counsel in 2008. During his tenure, he oversaw significant litigation involving governmental investigations, product liability, environmental, toxic tort, labour and employment, securities, antitrust, and tax. Continue reading “The inside counsel redefined”

Within a generation, Ireland has experienced two extremes of economic fortune. ‘The Celtic Tiger’ (a term referring to unprecedented and uninterrupted growth from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s) sickened before 2008, when Ireland faced a deep economic crisis after the property bubble – which the growth was predicated on – burst and consumer spending collapsed.

Continue reading “GC Powerlist: Ireland”

Since the early ‘80s, Canadian author, think tank CEO and academic Don Tapscott has been exploring innovation, media, and the economic and social impact of technology. As far back as 1995, in his book The Digital Economy, Tapscott was isolating the themes that would define the ‘new economy’. He’s often described as a futurist and, from a position 20 years later, we can see the prescience of many of his predictions: a knowledge economy peopled by knowledge workers, digitisation, virtualisation, ‘internetworking’ and outsourcing, globalisation, and the expectation that workers be more entrepreneurial and innovative as automation replaces many roles. These are all aspects of today’s workplace that many in-house counsel will recognise.

Continue reading “Joining forces: Don Tapscott: and the case for collaboration”