About

Team size: 60
Major law firms used: Clifford Chance, Herbert Smith Freehills, Linklaters

US-based BlackRock is the world’s largest asset management company with nearly $6trn in assets under management. EMEA GC Erica Handling joined the multinational from Barclays in 2015, in a move that showed the growing importance of asset management firms in the UK.

Handling manages a team of 60, mostly based in London but also on the ground in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Hungary. The team shape and size is broadly the same as when she first joined, although Handling notes that as the wider firm continues to see strong growth in Europe, added headcount will inevitably follow.

Handling says her ethos is to make her lawyers as happy and fulfilled as possible – initiatives have included the introduction of flexible working and flexible time off, meaning employees at the company are no longer allocated holiday and management has the discretion to give people more freedom about taking time off.

There is also a programme that acts as a clearing system for legal and compliance, called the Talent Assignment Platform. Handling comments: ‘If you’ve got a discrete project that needs to be worked on, then you can advertise it and people can say, “Hey, I’d like to do that.” It gets people working on completely different projects and working with people in completely different locations.’

Otherwise, she says she is focused on utilising technology within the function, and has used artificial intelligence and auto-drafting tools for a MiFID II project. BlackRock runs a hackathon each year, which most recently saw the legal team use developers to produce its own version of AI and auto-drafting tools. The project made it through to the European final, with winning projects getting funded by the group.

‘The issue we have is it moves very fast, so you’ll be talking to one provider who’s the best for AI for legal docs and then six months later they’re not the best.’