Senior manager and general counsel | Honda Canada
Anthony Ruffolo
Senior manager and general counsel | Honda Canada
Editor’s note: This interview was conducted prior to March 2020.
How do you feel in-house legal leaders can successfully introduce and implement a culture within a legal department?
I believe the most important driver of culture is tone from the top. As such, I feel that implementation can be successful if fortified through example. With regard to development and introduction of culture change, I feel team members are more inclined to endorse or support a certain culture, if the culture being introduced reflects their personal views and values. As such, I have found some success in managing such change collaboratively, including soliciting feedback from team members before making key changes that could have a material impact on the culture of the legal department.
If you had to give advice to an aspiring in-house lawyer or general counsel what would it be and why?
As a lawyer in private practice, I believed that the hours I spent fostering relationships with clients, was something less relevant or unimportant in the in-house counsel world, where business customers generally have one option in obtaining legal support, namely, the in-house legal department. Very soon after making the jump to an in-house counsel role, I recognised that I was mistaken in my assumption. Fostering strong business relationships with customers is arguably just as or sometimes more important in the in-house world than in private practice. I believe that in-house counsel can best add value by understanding their business customers’ roles and responsibilities in the broader organisation, and through direct involvement in business initiatives, so as to be able to effectively identify gaps and legal risks. Such understanding and involvement can only be achieved by building strong relationships with business customers.
As such, I would always suggest that aspiring in-house counsel take care to prioritise client relationship management and development, as I believe is critical to supporting success as an in-house advisor.
How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners within their company?
Show an interest in what business customers do – ask questions and get involved; know business customers’ roles and responsibilities; know the ins and outs of the products and services they support; learn their business or technical lingo; and remember that customer service is key, so be sure to set appropriate customer expectations at the outset and always strive to meet or exceed these expectations!
What techniques do you use to provide commercially-focused advice to your company, and how do you communicate these to more junior lawyers in the team?
I once heard an in-house lawyer being referred to as a “dream killer.” The rationale for this reference was that the company’s lawyers always prevent the business from executing on ideas. In-house lawyers should make an conscious effort not to appear as killers of dreams that are often the result of countless hours of work by business professionals. Try to keep an open mind and try to be flexible when helping business customers achieve their business objectives. I think in-house counsel can add significant value by offering solutions and suggesting work-arounds to promote commercial success, rather than simply rejecting ideas on their face because of their potential risks or an onerous compliance burden.
Lawyers are trained to identify risks and point out potential legal issues that may ensue from a particular business initiative. Lawyers in private practice are often not close enough to the business to be able to suggest a viable alternative direction. In-house lawyers can contribute to the commercial success of business initiatives, by using their deep understanding of their business and their business customers, to develop viable commercial solutions whist still managing legal risk.
Like many industries, the automotive industry is currently undergoing some notable changes – from an expansion in autonomous technologies that seek to augment or replace many manual controls, to expanding alternative fuel systems, connected vehicles, as well as changing consumer preferences relating to vehicle ownership and use. Such changes will certainly impact the means by which businesses interact with their customers, as well as bring with them changing laws and regulations and other novel legal considerations. In-house counsel who work in industries such as this that are undergoing several changes in a short time, should to be exceptionally diligent in keeping abreast of legal developments and in adapting their legal knowledge base, skill set, and service delivery methods, in order to continually add value and provide customers with the legal support necessary to promote business success in such environments.
Managing one’s in-house practice in such a quickly changing environment can present some exciting challenges and opportunities to enhance an in-house lawyer’s knowledge base, skill set, and approach to service delivery. Despite such opportunities, in-house lawyers can get so focused on dealing with the business demands of the day, that they fail to recognise or make time for an equally or more important need to sufficiently invest in personal learning and development and in strategic development of their practice methods to adapt to changing business needs and requirements.
In-house lawyers can get caught-up meeting the short-term needs and constant demands of their business customers and can find it difficult to switch gears (no pun intended) from doing work to developing their craft by keeping in-tune with the changing legal landscape in their industry. In-house legal departments that fail to invest the time and effort in internal learning and development, and in adapting service delivery methods to meet changing business needs, run the risk of diluting their value proposition to business customers over time. In this case they will undoubtedly lose their ability to identify certain potential issues, and may no longer have the necessary expertise to independently advise business customers on many issues, thereby increasing their reliance on external advisors.
In-house lawyers should take care to stay abreast of developments and should allocate significant time to doing so. Lawyers should prioritise ongoing learning and development and effectively balance this with fulfilling day-to-day business requests. Setting aside time to read legal publications as well as court and regulatory decisions, participating continuing professional development programmes, and preparing and presenting novel legal topics to business customers, can support the ongoing effectiveness of in-house legal advisors. In furtherance of such objectives, general counsel should continually empower their teams with adequate direction and tool to consistently learn and develop and should continually assess the legal needs of the business and look for ways to align their team’s service delivery methods to business conditions.