Team size: 12

Career Biography

Joakim Forsberg is a Swedish lawyer educated at Stockholm University, a licensed Norwegian attorney (Nw: Advokat), and a member of the Norwegian Bar Association.

Forsberg works as in-house counsel at Pareto Securities and primarily assists the firm’s Investment Banking division, including ECM, DCM, M&A, and Project Finance. Forsberg is also part of the group’s general compliance function and serves as corporate secretary for foreign subsidiaries located outside Norway.

Forsberg previously worked at Nordea Bank, where he primarily focused on financial regulatory matters. He has also worked as an Associate and Senior Associate at law firm Schjødt, mainly within the firm’s Oil and Gas department, but also with M&A, corporate law, dispute resolution, and investigative assignments. He has had a part-time secondment role with an oil exploration and production company.

Forsberg has published several articles and is a co-writer for the law commentary on Karnov for parts of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.

What are the key projects that you have been involved in over the past twelve months?

Apart from ordinary tasks in relation to daily advisory and compliance-oriented work, I would highlight three examples of larger projects outside the norm that I have participated in during the past 12 months. I have been involved in the firm’s handling of Norwegian and international disputes, and litigation related matters, as well as in the firm’s handling of investigations; and in development of industry standards and guidelines for the Norwegian capital markets.

As the in-house role continues to evolve from legal advisor to business partner, what strategies have you found most effective for stakeholder management and aligning legal advice with business strategy?

Much of an in-house counsel’s work is centered around the function of identifying legal and compliance-related risk with business operations, educating stakeholders of such risks, and to propose alternative routes to achieve the commercial goal. In order for stakeholders to “buy-in” to the proposal, it can often be smart to make the stakeholders (through questions and dialogue) identify the risk themselves rather than pointing it out directly.

What do you think are the most important attributes for a modern in-house counsel?

There are many important skills that one should possess. A key one is the ability to quickly identify legal risks and areas that require the organisation’s attention. In-house counsel should not expect that colleagues automatically will spend much of their precious time outside of their focus area, where there is no immediate upside. In-house counsel therefore have to be proactive and “find the problems” that they or potential outside counsel should solve.

The ability to quickly provide general guidance in a broad range of legal areas is also key. In-house counsel are typically expected to know something about everything, including when there is a need to seek further assistance from outside counsel.

In-house counsel must also have the ability to carry out relevant risk assessments for business operations. In the end, it is often in-house counsel that has to either recommend or make the actual decisions.

Thick skin and integrity is also essential. The in-house counsel position will never be a popular role, due to its responsibilty to point out problems and provide solutions that do not always match all the wishes of relevant stakeholders.

The ability to learn possibilities (and challenges) and to actively work with new technology is another important attribute. This is particularly relevant for AI, which most likely will increase expectations on in-house counsel capabilities over time.