Team size: Five

How important is choosing to work with external lawyers who align with your company’s values? Are you likely to reconsider what firms you work with based on this?

It is essential to work with external lawyers who are aligned with our company’s values so that they can truly understand our priorities. For instance, our company’s mission is to provide maximum value to customers through superior quality services. To achieve this, we cannot afford to have external lawyers who cannot work within the stipulated timeline as requested by our customers for our company to provide superior quality services.

It is also important for our company to consider whether the external lawyers embrace the idea of a responsible and environmentally friendly corporate citizen. The said value must be reflected in the way the work is carried out and whether significant steps have been taken to mitigate the impact of the working culture on the environment. Only by doing this are all stakeholders working together to become more responsible and environmentally friendly corporate citizens, taking care of mother earth.

As far as the company is concerned, we do not want to be implicated or fall into the trap of guilt by association if we engage law firms that do not share the same value as our company.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

In-house lawyers need to build a strong relationship with business partners to enable the internal stakeholders to move forward in growing the business. Internal counsel should avoid being seen as a showstopper. They need to find ways to understand the business of the company and try their best to support them. The corporate legal team should not ignore and forego the needs and requirements of the business partners as they understand the business better than the in-house lawyers. It is also vital for in-house lawyers to communicate their concerns on specific aspects of the transactions to the business partners so that the relevant stakeholders know and take the necessary steps to mitigate any risks.

Strong relationships with business partners can also be achieved by being resourceful to them. There might be times when the assistance required from in-house lawyers is beyond legal issues. However, by being resourceful, the in-house lawyers will gain the trust of business partners. By having this mutual trust, both parties can share their respective concerns and will take the necessary steps to address them.

Besides the above, in-house lawyers should be humble in giving their opinions or views to the business partners. The in-house lawyers should use their level best to speak the language of the business partners and avoid legal jargon so that the message can be communicated effectively. It is undeniable that in-house lawyers are the subject matter expert in a company regarding legal matters. However, the business partners are the subject matter experts in doing business for a company. The corporate legal team’s function to complement the business partners will help to build a strong relationship between parties as we are seen as united and together in doing the business.