About

Almost two decades ago – after a successful career in private practice at Mallesons and other leading firms, and in academia – Carmel Mulhern moved in-house to Telstra as the general counsel of finance and administration. In 2007 she became the company secretary and in 2012, became the group general counsel, which she remains, also taking on the role of group executive corporate affairs in 2017. She currently leads a team of approximately 400 people in Australia (based in offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra and Perth) and internationally (with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, New York and London). As group general counsel, she is responsible for providing legal advice to the Telstra board, CEO and senior management on all aspects of Telstra’s complex business.

In addition, she provides advice to the board on directors’ duties and corporate governance. As group executive for corporate affairs, she leads on regulatory affairs, government relations, communications (external and internal) and sustainability. Mulhern identified that a career highlight has been to be able to move from the traditional lawyer role to a partner and trusted advisor to the company. The role of in-house counsel has evolved from being the black letter lawyer or the person with the black hat or the blocker or the support function and it is now one of enabler, applying all the skills that learnt at law school to help deliver an outcome. She elaborates further: ‘My team is required to see what is coming over the hill at the company [and it] has a valuable role in being able to contribute to decision-making and risk taking. I encourage my team to not just be the lawyer at the table but to bring what is described as a “unique voice”.

The role is really focused on being the trusted advisor and business partner – really having that judgment’. Another highlight is the dedicated Legal Innovation Forum (LIF) her team established, originally in partnership with Herbert Smith Freehills. In 2016 when the LIF started, the team focused on four streams of work: automating confidentiality agreements, eliminating unproductive internal meetings, simplifying internal legal reporting and reducing unnecessary legal approvals. More than 40,000 hours per year of low value, non-strategic work has been cut from the team’s workload. This ensures the team can spend time on strategic work, better work-life balance and further invest in innovation projects. In addition to these innovative initiatives, Mulhern has been focused on championing diversity in her team and also in the broader profession.

Telstra is a signatory to the Equitable Briefing Initiative, which is designed to make sure that more women barristers are given the full range of opportunities in commercial litigation. Part of this has been asking panel firms to include at least one female barrister when they make a recommendation on who Telstra should work with. Mulhern has also asked panel firms to provide data on the number of male and female barristers retained and the amounts paid to them, further tying in to Telstra’s aspiration that approximately 30% of its work goes to female barristers and that female barristers receive 30% of the fees that it pays.