About

With 36 highly capable lawyers based in locations across Australia, the legal department at Optus – one of the country’s largest telecommunications operators – is proud of its ‘strong cultural diversity and an equal gender balance across all levels’ says senior lawyer Shanti Berggren. Dispensing legal advice surrounding the supply of ICT services to Optus’ customers across different market segments, the team has helped secure ‘major contracts’ with high profile Australasian companies ANZ Bank, QBE Insurance, Energy Australia, Commonwealth Games Corporation and Flight Centre whilst simultaneously ‘upskilling’ in developing areas of the law to support Optus’ roll-out of new cloud and cyber security solutions. Further boosting its credentials as a team at the forefront of innovation, the team has recently utilised technology to ‘empower staff to self-serve their legal needs’. More specifically, the team has used technology to improve legal compliance and approval processes with ‘the introduction of software to manage review of marketing content; a custom-built website to manage privacy and security law reviews of projects and the roll-out of a tool for drafting competition terms and conditions’, all of which has ‘improved productivity, consistency and record keeping’ according to general counsel Jenny Rees. Commercially minded and proficient lawyers to the truest extent, the team secured a crucial new revenue stream for the business through helping establish 24/7 live sports channel Optus Sport 1, where the team worked on ‘securing Australian broadcast rights for the English Premier League, contracting all back-end technology vendors, providing branding and marketing advice and developing customer terms’. Such diligence on the legal team’s part has paid dividends, Optus Sport 1 has influenced a pattern of record growth of mobile customer subscriptions and Optus’ highest Market Net Promoter Score (a measurement of how likely a customer is to buy again) to date. Optus’ legal team is also noted for its leading role in ‘educating the business to make sound legal and business decisions’, doing so via the provision of several tools including an intranet portal, a legal hotline and online training and seminars on legal requirements and risks. The team utilises its abilities not only for its own business stakeholders but in the wider community too, supporting vulnerable youth in the “Interview2Impress” program, leading conversations about women and the law as well as presenting at the Strategic Space Law Program in Montreal. Particularly noted for being ‘experts in their field’ are Optus Legal’s General Counsel Jenny Rees – listed in 2016’s GC Powerlist: Australia and New Zealand – whilst Marcus Bourget, Donna Lawler, Jason Georgallis and Peter Preller are also singled out for individual praise.