About

Carol Leland took up her in-house position with Johnson & Johnson as assistant general counsel in the pharmaceutical group in 2004, specifically Janssen Sciences Ireland. She was assigned to support the R&D Global Infectious disease group as well as the global diagnostics group based in Cork. She joined Johnson & Johnson from A&L Goodbody, having been an associate in the IP department specialising in privacy and data protection law. She identifies that ‘during that time I designed and delivered many in-house training programmes for healthcare clients and came to really like being involved in a very real way in the day-to-day business of the client companies. It was this which prompted me to move in-house in 2004 to Tibotec Pharmaceuticals, a Cork-based R&D company engaged in R&D in the area of infectious disease, which had been acquired by Johnson & Johnson’. Prior to A&L Goodbody, Leland was in private practice as a barrister in Dublin and Cork, having been called to the Bar and graduating from Kings Inns in 1993. Prior to that, she held a position as a judge’s researcher at the Irish Supreme Court, providing research and legal support to the judges of the Irish High Court and Supreme Court. Since 2016, she has developed a strong interest in the culture of the in-house function and the design and motivation of legal teams in the in-house context. She completed a postgraduate diploma in organisational leadership at the Said Business School at Oxford University and an MSc in personal and management coaching in 2017 both of which, she says, ‘have allowed me to look and closely evaluate the optimal environments for motivating lawyers working in-house’. Since 2004 Leland’s role at Johnson & Johnson has evolved considerably and she supports global diagnostics, global public health, HIV global commercialisation group for Janssen as well as legal direction for Janssen Sciences Ireland and Janssen Pharmaceutical Sciences in Ireland. Her work includes R&D contracting, negotiating and concluding agreements with governments and government organisations globally – particularly in African countries – advising on antitrust law and devising antitrust trainings for the global business. She is part of the Johnson & Johnson global law department of over 400 lawyers and the EMEA legal group consisting of medical devices, pharmaceutical and consumer lawyers. As part of this global scope, Leland has developed an award winning in-house ‘Law School’ programme, including programs in global public health and other directly applicable legal topics designed to strengthen the overall company’s knowledge base. In the words of a nominator, ‘Carol Leland is one of the most senior in-house lawyers in Ireland in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries. She has extensive experience, is at the cutting edge of legal practice in her industry and has a hugely demanding and diverse portfolio of legal matters, regulatory and non-regulatory, contentious and non-contentious. She is innovative and pragmatic, with a sharp legal mind matched by extensive commercial acumen and experience’.