‘As GC I find it invaluable to have a strong legal team,’ says Legal & General’s Geoffrey Timms. ‘They enable me to stay employed without doing much work.’ Getting there took a lot of work on Timms’ part, however. ‘The team is fairly unstructured, but unstructured co-operation is the hardest thing of all to achieve. I have tried to build people around me who are capable of getting on with things without direction. My philosophy is that if one of my lawyers has something to raise, they should go directly to the chairman rather than relying on me as the conduit. I want the fantastic work my team does to be seen directly by the business.’ The success of this policy is evident in the diverse career paths some of Timms’ senior lawyers have taken. Kaye Maguire left to become chief legal and resourcing officer to Legal & General Investment Management in 2017. In this role Maguire will be responsible for HR across a business unit that currently has around £1trn assets under management. Similarly, Natasha Mora, GC of corporate and Legal & General Capital, will shortly be moving to Australia to run Legal & General’s Asia-Pacific business operations. ‘Anyone who has an aspiration to move into business will be snapped up’, comments Timms. ‘The company can see the value lawyers bring to the table and are happy to move them laterally into non-legal roles. The breadth of Legal & General’s operations – covering everything from clean energy to aircraft leasing – also gives our lawyers plenty of scope to build up a range of expertise and skill. It has been several years since we lost someone senior to an external recruiter – the opportunities within the group are just too good to match.’ Chief executive Nigel Wilson describes the legal team as the midfield of the business: ‘They bring the grit that stops us conceding goals and the flair that allows us to score. Often, Geoffrey and I will form a negotiating team with the senior lawyers. I never see that on the other side of the table.’ The trust the business places in its lawyers is also shown by their close involvement in commercial matters, with the team effectively left to run many of the group’s M&A deals. Last year, Claire Singleton, GC of Legal & General Capital, ran the £630m sale of its Mature Savings unit to Swiss Re and was also closely involved in Legal & General’s acquisition of the remaining stake in CALA Homes, the UK’s tenthlargest housebuilder. That deal, says Timms, reflects Legal & General’s commitment to developing new product lines. ‘Things like urban regeneration have been a major focus for us in recent years. Few people are aware that we are at the forefront of building modular housing in the UK. We try to be a market disruptor, both because we like to do new things and because we have a lot of long-term financial commitments. There is nearly £80bn on our annuity book, so we need to think long term and find assets and investments that will deliver over a 40-year cycle. As the market shifts, the longevity and credit risks we have to be aware of as lawyers shift with it. That comes back to the need for a legal team that is comfortable working outside the confines of the law, addressing senior figures in the business.’