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How General Counsels are redefining leadership in an age of disruption
In this episode of the Tax and Law in Focus podcast, host Susannah Streeter speaks with Sarah Rosser, Bjarne Tellmann and Dan Hendy on the evolving role of the General Counsel. |
In this episode of the Tax and Law in Focus podcast, host Susannah Streeter explores how the role of the General Counsel (GC) is being transformed in an era of disruption. Beyond their traditional role as legal guardians, GCs and chief legal officers are now expected to act as strategic business partners — guiding organizations through rising regulatory demands, geopolitical volatility, cost pressures and the rapid adoption of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI).
Joining the discussion are Sarah Rosser, General Counsel at Lenovo Solutions and Services Group; Bjarne Tellmann, CEO of FjordStream Advisors and former GC at Haleon, GSK Consumer Healthcare and Pearson plc; and Dan Hendy, EY Global Legal Transform and Operate Leader. Together, they unpack findings from the 2025 EY Law General Counsel Study and explore how legal leaders can manage “role overload” while still delivering measurable business value.
The panel highlights how GCs can embed risk awareness across the enterprise, avoid the pitfalls of technology-first transformation, and build resilient, multidisciplinary teams. They also examine the growing expectation for GCs to demonstrate purpose, strategy and ROI — reframing the legal function as a driver of resilience and innovation.
For today’s legal leaders, the message is clear: success requires thinking beyond law school training and leading as the CEO of a legal services business. This conversation offers practical insights to help GCs balance stewardship with innovation and remain indispensable to the organizations they serve.
Key takeaways:
- Understand how the GC’s role is shifting from legal guardian to strategic business partner.
- Learn why risk resilience, digital transformation, and collaboration across functions are now essential.
- Gain practical insight into avoiding “role overload” and building multidisciplinary, high-performing teams.
- Explore how legal leaders can demonstrate value through purpose-driven strategy, measurable outcomes and alignment with business objectives.
For your convenience, full text transcript of this podcast is also available.
Susannah Streeter
Hello and welcome to the Tax and Law in Focus podcast. I'm your host, Susannah Streeter. Today, we're homing in on the evolving role of the General Counsel. It's undergoing a transformation. As well as being legal guardians, GCs and chief legal officers are now expected to act as strategic architects in this age of disruption. With mounting complexity driven by regulation, geopolitics, budgetary constraints, and disruptive technology like AI, legal departments are being forced to rethink their operating models and redefine what value they bring to the business. In this episode, we're going to unpack the findings of the 2025 EY Law General Counsel Study and explore the tension between the GC's role as a legal guardian and a business enabler. So how can legal leaders best balance these seemingly competing demands? Well, to explore this question and more, I'm joined by a brilliant panel of legal and business experts. But before we begin, a quick reminder that conversations during this podcast should not be relied on as accounting, legal, investment, or other professional advice. Listeners must consult their own advisors. Now, without further ado, please do welcome Sarah Rosser, who's the General Counsel at Solutions & Services Group, Lenovo, UK.
Streeter
But where are you in the UK, Sarah?
Sarah Rosser
I'm in very gloomy Newbury today, Susannah.
Streeter
Also, Bjarne Tellmann, who's the founder and CEO of FjordStream Advisors, and is also the former General Counsel for Haleon, GSK Consumer Healthcare, and Pearson plc. Hello, Bjarne. Where are you today?
Bjarne Tellmann
Hey, Susannah. I'm in Munich actually, and it's gloriously sunny, and I am adjacent to a beer garden. So, after this, I'll probably head over there.
Streeter
How very handy. And let me introduce as well, Dan Hendy, who's the EY Global Legal Transform and Operate Leader. Dan, are you near any good bars?
Dan Hendy
I'm going to be. I'm going to be in Charleston, South Carolina, which is a wonderful city in a few hours. But right now, I'm in North Carolina in the US.
Streeter
Lovely, Dan. A real international flavor to this podcast. It's very apt because we're going to be looking at really what's happening on the global landscape. Sarah, let me start with you. What kinds of pressure would you say legal departments are under today? How are geopolitics, regulations and emerging technologies all converging on the GC’s role?
Rosser
I think you've just listed it, right, Susannah? All of those things are happening at the moment, probably in the most unprecedented way. Certainly, in my career, I haven't seen such a vast amount of change at such speed ever before. I think it's a common theme that we've all had to do more with less over the years, and that's been a continual challenge. I think the “more” is just getting bigger and bigger and more complex and more diverse, whether it's US politics and reeling from executive orders and postponements almost on a daily and weekly basis, to the rise in regulation. It seems like each field wants more and more regulation, whether that's data privacy, cybersecurity, AI, sustainability. It's all coming thick and fast. Then we have the emergence of AI, which is not just exclusive to legal departments but to businesses as a whole. We're being tasked with compliance and governance around AI at the same time as being asked to adopt AI and use AI and change with AI. So, all these are converging to really put a lot of pressure on legal teams at the moment and on GCs. With pressure comes huge amounts of opportunity, which I'm sure we'll talk about. But yes, it's interesting times.
Streeter
Certainly are interesting times indeed. So, lots of forces colliding. And Dan, from the 2025 EY Law GC Study, what do you see as the biggest external force really driving transformation across legal functions?
Hendy
Yeah, I think Sarah actually must have taken the survey, because what she just described was really consistent with the findings of the survey. Actually, 75% of GCs put in their top three geopolitics, the regulatory environment, and then third was advances in technology. Those were really the top three that stood out in the survey as the external forces that were impacting legal functions. I think what’s interesting about that is that two of the external forces are changing how you think about the scope of your law department and how you're supporting your stakeholders. That's the geopolitics piece and the regulatory environment. That's changing the practice of law and what you're focused on, what the top risks are. But then you have this other front that you're dealing with, which is technology advances. That is almost pressure from within in terms of how are you evolving as a function and providing the right tooling to your teams and legal department. Are you being an efficient function as part of your overall business? So it's really these two different kinds of external forces that are impacting the legal department right now.
Streeter
So much to juggle. And Bjarne, you've written extensively about the GC becoming like a mini-CEO. So, what tensions can arise from this?
Tellmann
Well, yeah. I mean, just hearing the points that both Sarah and Dan have made, I think it's quite clear that the world of the GC has expanded significantly. And to address that, obviously, you need to be much more creative, much more innovative than perhaps you had to be 10 or 15 years ago to be successful. That just creates tensions because you have this tension of really trying to come up with new ways to deliver services more effectively. If you fail to do that, you risk drowning and you risk hitting a point, in many ways a tipping point, where the level of risk and the level of complexity that you're trying to deal with becomes unmanageable. To succeed, I think what we're seeing is that GCs really need to be able to shift and move away from just being the head lawyer to being a mini-CEO. That's how I think of it. Really, you want to be the CEO of a legal services company that sits inside a larger company. You have to handle all of those new complexities. You have to squeeze efficiencies out of opportunities. You have to steer and lead large teams, in many cases now, teams of multidisciplinary professionals. You have to constantly be able to motivate and reassure in a very uncertain and volatile world. Really, I think what you're seeing is role overload creeping in. The GC now has to be in a mini sense of the word, not just a CEO, but also a chief technology officer, a COO, a communicator, a talent builder, a process expert, a strategist, a finance expert. And all of that comes in addition to being the top lawyer. And the irony of it is that really there's no way to unravel that. Even though it is really more than any one person can handle, the role itself inherently requires you to deal with all of those things. And the other irony is none of the skills you need for this brave new world are skills that you learned in law school. So clearly, I think one solution here is not to try to do it alone, but to make sure that you have a great team around you and a team with varying degrees of expertise across a whole range of disciplines. I think that's the only way to really approach it.
Streeter
Certainly, it does seem like a huge amount of tension. And Sarah, from your perspective or from a global perspective, is that how you see leaders are doing this by assembling the right team just so they can keep their head above water?
Rosser
Yeah, I think that's spot on. The role has changed significantly from being the best lawyer in the room to leading teams and being the CEO of your department, as Bjarne just mentioned. How you structure your departments now, looking at the more risk side and the guardianship side of litigation and compliance and regulation, paired with that strategic team who are doing the more contracting day-to-day, I think we're seeing a lot of GCs reorganizing their departments. They've got that distinction between the two. Again, going out for help, relying more on external advisors to do the horizon scanning and the interpretation and the immediate response of the wave of regulations that are coming in. Building your own legal ops team so you have specialists who have that knowledge and expertise around operations. They're not just lawyers. They know how to run departments, do data, do financing, process reengineering, whatever that might be that you put into legal ops. Then external consultants and external advisors who shape how you should be structuring the department and how you should be running some of these key transformation projects as well. This is not a do-it-all-by-yourself task anymore. It is about assembling teams — the right teams with the right skill set and support around you.
Streeter
Yeah, the DIY approach just won't cut it. So, Bjarne, how do you see the role of the GC continuing to evolve? Because we're not in a status quo. It's changing all the time. Also, the nature of risk is changing as well, isn't it? So what evolution are we going to see?
Tellmann
Yeah, in addition to all the things that we just talked about in terms of the role having an element of overload to it, there's this risk beast that has emerged over the last 10 or 15 years. It's a growing component of the general counsel's responsibilities. Many GCs today have formal roles around risk, whether they're chairing the risk committee of the company or whether they're thinking about risk and advising the board and the executive on it, they have these new responsibilities. The interesting thing about risk is that it's evolving and changing. We've already mentioned geopolitical risks, Black Swan events — events that are largely unexpected but have a massive impact, such as COVID arising. All of these things are arising in an age of constant and instant media. A pollution event in one country will very quickly become a legal, reputational, financial, and other issue around the world. So, this notion of risk is really merging across the various silos. The general counsel can no longer just look at risk as a legal risk and then leave the other elements of risk to someone else in the company. They're really being tasked with thinking about risk much more holistically. So, to succeed with that, you have to integrate all the dimensions of risk and take a much broader view and step back and think about how those risks are interconnected. I think one interesting aspect of how you manage that interconnected world is that you need to evolve your enterprise away from this notion that you're going to somehow identify all the possible risks and then come up with risk strategies that will mitigate those risks. Clearly, you still need to do that, but I think you need to move the company towards much more of a risk-resilient posture where it actually is able to flex. It has redundancy so that regardless of whatever the risk is that hits you, you have an organizational structure that can adapt quickly and effectively to a very volatile environment.
Streeter
So as Bjarne has pointed out, Sarah, companies need this risk-resilient posture. But are internal barriers holding GCs back from transforming at the pace that the business really does demand right now?
Rosser
I think that's the key — the pace of the change, the pace of the demand. How do you fly the plane and build in all of that risk resilience and strategic thinking and forward planning? I think that's the really tricky balance at the moment for internal legal teams. It's time available, like sorting out the immediate needs, immediate demands, and then establishing what you need to do in the future. I think that comes back to the earlier conversation about help and structure and how you can do that balancing act by maybe dividing up teams, dividing up your departments to focus on those different pieces, as well as bringing in that external help, not just from other parts of your own organization but externally as well, because it's a Herculean effort to get that balance right and to set up that structure from where we are now and where we are today to where we need to be.
Streeter
Absolutely. It does seem like an immense effort, as you say. What practical steps can organizations and GCs take, Dan? How can legal leaders really start closing the gap between ambition and execution?
Hendy
Yeah. Well, I think building off of some of the things that Sarah was saying, I think that legal departments can think about a lot of their trusted providers not just on a transactional relationship basis. I think there are so many providers that are wrestling with these same challenges that legal departments are, in terms of figuring out how best to serve the legal department, thinking about what legal solutions look like in the future. If we can create this environment where there is co-investment and collaboration and thinking about long-term relationships, that's one way that you can really put providers to work for you. That's one practical piece of guidance. I think the second thing I would mention is just that within the organization, sometimes there are larger initiatives that are happening, and legal departments need to be tapped into those larger company-wide initiatives that are taking place. Oftentimes, that's where budgeting lives, that's where resources live. I think legal departments can be strategic in terms of how they tap into broader company-wide initiatives to really put some of their own priorities of change in motion.
Streeter
Is that essentially what you've done on your journey?
Rosser
Absolutely. I think one thing about legal departments is sometimes they think that legal transformation is exclusive and so different to other transformation projects within the organization. I don't think that that's necessarily the case. I think to Dan's point, tapping into general transformation and using the breadth of your organization's skills, whether that's in technology or business processes, really can help a legal department with that transformation. I think if we can open our eyes a little bit wider and see some of the synergies and the similarities between these organizational transformation projects, we can really benefit from everything that comes with that, including the money and the budget. So, absolutely, we've been using our IT departments and our transformation teams in legal as well as being part of these corporate structural transformational changes.
Streeter
And as Sarah is saying, Dan, there's a real need to help GCs deliver greater value under pressure. So what other strategies might help?
Hendy
Yeah. One that I've seen helpful is that you want to, as a legal department, be curious. And I think in the right ways, you can be the guinea pig for different initiatives that are taking place across the organization. Like, raise your hand, put legal into the mix in terms of going first in different pilots and initiatives that the organization is launching. Obviously, you can't do that everywhere. Some areas are more sensitive than others but putting your foot in the right way and just participating in what the organization’s got going on, I think, is one real way. The other is back to the point of leaning into your partners. Your partners really do want to invest in the future of legal and where things are going. Having open conversations with your key partners about what you're trying to do and what you're trying to achieve in the environment, I think you'd be surprised at the receptivity that exists on the other side to collaborate and work on things alongside you.
Streeter
Obviously, the essential element here is to make it all business-relevant, not just, say, a project run for a legal department. Would you say that's the case, Sarah?
Rosser
Yeah, absolutely. You can do both as well within that transformational change. The one that jumps out at me that we're working on currently is we led on a legal AI assistant from our department. We started it ourselves. We got our knowledge in good shape to be able to use AI for the benefit of our business colleagues. Then alongside, we've now collaborated with the whole organization that's got a project very similar, looking at organizational knowledge, information, answering questions. So I think it doesn't need to be exclusively done in the legal department, but I'd also encourage people not to wait for change and to get going and to start your own projects. It's also a neat way of then collaborating with the wider organization when those projects take off and when they need to deliver results.
Streeter
Bjarne, what's your take on this?
Tellmann
Yeah, look, I think both Dan and Sarah have covered it well. I'd just add two additional points. I mean, number one, I think legal departments in general are pretty terrible at pitching investment proposals, and in particular, thinking about what the return on investment will be. That's something that they need to get better at. I think to Dan's point, in many cases the external providers can actually lend a hand there in terms of helping to flesh out what that ROI looks like so that it's clear this is an investment proposal and not just a request for money. Legal operations as well can be a very helpful enabler in that regard. Then the second point, I think, is it's very often easy for legal departments to lose sight of the overall strategy. Why is it that you need this particular technology, this transformation, this investment? It has to go back to your overall strategic imperative. Why do you exist as a legal department? One thought experiment that I often ask people is, if an external consultancy came and pitched to your CEO and argued that if the CEO eliminated 100% of the legal department to save 20% total costs, why should the CEO say no to that proposal? If you don't know the answer to that, then you really haven't figured out why you have a license to exist, what your purpose is, and then by extension, what the strategy is to achieve that purpose. I think you need to start there to understand how you're going to maximize the impact of your purpose by generating a better return on whatever investment you're proposing.
Streeter
There are these existential questions that you've posed yourself.
Rosser
Yes, I think everyone needs that justification of why they exist, right? The so what. There's a lot of work that legal does that if you challenge yourself with that question — and I don't mean to be facetious when I say it — but so what? What benefit does it bring or what problem does it solve? I think that's really important, that you have the answer to that question because it retains focus on your purpose and why you're doing that task. I think 100% it's something we all need to ask ourselves. It's also probably as relevant in other departments as it is in legal. What benefit are you bringing, or what problem are you solving?
Streeter
Absolutely. Let's explore the role of technology further because it's relevant to technology as well, isn't it? Bjarne, digital transformation is a major theme in your writing. To what extent is it already shaping and reshaping legal teams? And for those that don't embrace it, is there this real risk of falling behind?
Tellmann
Oh, yeah. I mean, look, it's changing the structure of legal departments around the world. And it's doing that because the structure of companies is changing. They're changing because they're evolving around AI. And so, if your legal department is not changing now and your company is, then if you fail to take action soon, someone is going to come along and do it for you. I think the problem is there's a real lack of clarity around how to digitally transform. You know you've got to do it. You have the budget. The company is urging you to go ahead and transform in a way that will make your service delivery model more efficient and better configured for the new company structure. How do you actually go about doing that? And what we found is that there is a wrong way to do this, and there's a right way to do it. I did a law review article a few years ago with some co-authors where we looked at how general counsels are digitally transforming. And it turns out the vast majority do it the wrong way. What they do is they put the technology first and then try to figure out how that technology might solve problems. So, they buy a hammer and then they're looking for nails. The better way to do it is really to first understand what problem are you actually trying to solve for, and then think through how you're going to solve for that problem in terms of design thinking, in terms of changes in your structure and in your service delivery model, and only then at the end, think about how technology can overlay that and accelerate the solutions that you're undertaking. So really, the key is being holistic and maintaining that holistic strategic lens in order to make sure that you're digitally transforming in the right way.
Streeter
Sarah, you mentioned how you're already using AI tools. Did you look at it this way, the way that Bjarne has outlined?
Rosser
I think I see two things, as well as the splatter gun approach, which I think Bjarne was just describing. We need a CLM tool, therefore we'll bring one in without actually thinking of the problem statement or what the result needed to be or what we were trying to achieve. There's also this decision paralysis where, oh, technology is going so quickly, so I'm going to wait and I'm going to bide my time. There's no point in buying it now or doing it now because in 12 months’ time, it will be so different. I think there were two things that we had in mind with our digital transformation. One, start, do something, give it a go. It actually has to start with a problem statement. Ours was a glut of random questions, frequently all of the same nature. In the grand scheme of things, a small problem, but an irritation that you could solve quite quickly and had an amazing byproduct of sorting out knowledge and structure in our knowledge, which can be used for multiple different things in the future. Those two things played in our decision making. One, do something, start something, don't be afraid to fail. Hook it onto that problem statement. Make sure you are bringing some value in solving the problem. You're just not implementing it for the sake of implementation. It's not a tick-box exercise. It is designed to lead to a poignant change. So yes, absolutely that did — and the desire to achieve something and to try it — as well.
Hendy
The legal department is like, if you think about the scope of what legal does, it can be very different kinds of processes and touch very different pieces of the organization — from litigation and intellectual property to processing contracts and managing risks through proactive compliance measures. So the processes that we deal with and the types of things that we go to partners to get run into are really varied. I think also looking at technology and how you're incorporating it in your department through a lens of where it's going to have the biggest impact on your “run the business of legal” is an important lens to look through as well. I don't think it's the role of legal departments to have to change the way that big litigation is delivered efficiently or how running a major transaction is delivered efficiently. That should be things that they're pushing back on their providers to support. But focusing on what are those things that run the business of legal for your organization and how you can have the biggest impact on your stakeholder experience there.
Tellmann
I would agree 100%. And one of the things that I think often gets overlooked when legal departments start thinking about transformation is, why don't we ask our customers, “What do you think we need to do?” Because that often gets lost in the mix. There's a lot of internal navel-gazing, thinking about how we deliver services more effectively without really actually asking the beneficiaries of all that work where we are getting it right and where we are getting it wrong. And then the second point that I wanted to mention was just the importance around measuring and tracking what you actually end up caring about. Making sure you have the right KPIs is so critical to being able to track where you're heading. Those are just two additional points.
Rosser
I think that's absolutely spot on. I agree. As Dan was talking about the things with the biggest impact as well, I think often they could be the most overwhelming. They're the biggest, toughest projects, and I think sometimes breaking it down into bite-size achievable pieces to start moving that dial gives the sense of momentum and possibility that I think helps achieve those goals. As you said, having that touch point along the way about what you delivered and what benefit it made is also really key to success.
Tellmann
I have a client whose department decided to just really begin that small-step journey, as you say, by re-examining some of the key commercial contracts that they have hundreds of thousands of with customers around the world, and just challenging themselves to say, how many things can we take out of this contract that we actually don't need? How can we put this in plain English and make it so easy for customers to say yes that we actually reduce the turnaround time for closing new contracts? And that little step actually resulted in, I think, an average of four days reduced turnaround time, times however many thousands of contracts per year, which translated into a huge revenue gain for the business. So you're absolutely spot on.
Streeter
But of course, implementing transformation is never just about tech. It's also about expertise, and that plays to what you're saying, Bjarne. You need the expertise to know what you can eliminate. So, Dan, what's your take on just how central talent is to transformation?
Hendy
Yeah. So, I guess I feel that in legal departments, some of the other talent that you need to really execute big transformation efforts exists in other places within your organization or external to your organization. I mean, there are people that really focus on data and change management and AI, and you don't necessarily, as a legal department, feel like all of that talent you need has to be part of your function. I'm interested in Sarah and Bjarne’s perspective on this as well. But I guess my advice to departments would be to really focus on the things that you learned in your training and in law school — where your judgment, the context, your domain expertise, those are your calling cards. That's your fastball. That's why you really bring value to your organization. I think the things that are around the perimeter that are helping with this transformation journey are things that you can lean into your organization and other external providers to support you with. Now, that's not to say that as a legal professional you should just have blinders on related to how tech is evolving and changing the way that we practice. I think you still have to figure out, to Bjarne’s analogy, when you need a hammer and you still use a hammer and a nail, and when you need to bring in a nail gun for the job. So that's how I think the shift in talent is really evolving today.
Streeter
Sarah, what's your take on that?
Rosser
I agree. Surprisingly, I think legal departments also think that they're so exclusive with the problems that they're trying to solve. I think within the organization, there are lots of people that can help them solve those problems, and external advisors who have experience in other areas that they can bring into law. I think lawyers always say, “Well, you don't understand our department, you don't understand the law.” I think you need a little bit of that understanding, which is where some of the internal talent comes in — the ability to see change and see transformation and see what's needed to be done. But I think we should also open our eyes a little bit more to the experts who can challenge us and bring a different perspective to the situation. I think if we blend those two together, then we get really good results.
Streeter
There must be specific skills, as well as using the expertise within organizations, that legal professionals need to develop right now to really stay indispensable and stay the core focus of the legal department. Bjarne, how do you think leaders can build cultures that really do attract and retain top talent?
Tellmann
Well, culture really, at the end of the day, is a summary of the values and beliefs that drive behavior in your organization. It's really what people might actually tell each other in the lunchroom on day one when someone comes in. So that's where you really want to target your effort in terms of building out a culture. But of course, the culture comes from the people that you bring in and how you curate them. I think one of the key aspects of culture that really needs to evolve is building a multidisciplinary culture — a culture that incorporates not just the core legal skills that Dan rightfully said are absolutely baseline, but also skills that the 21st-century legal function needs. I think many of those skills are soft skills. Jim Collins, who wrote a number of great business books, talked about his top 10 CEOs of all time, and three of them were lawyers. He said the reason that they were on his list was that lawyers are taught to ask good questions; MBAs are taught to give the right answers. I think cultivating a culture inside your organization that brings out that strength that lawyers have to bring to the table — that ability to ask good, curious questions. And that translates into trying to find people who are curious, who are adaptive, who are constant learners, who don't have a fixed world mindset but one that's much more open. That's a soft skill that I think is absolutely critical. I think there are a number of others. I mean, cultural intelligence, I think, is moving up the scale. We're operating now, everyone is operating, in global teams. So how well do you understand how you communicate, how that's going to land with people on your team from other cultures? Emotional intelligence has always been there — that's really, really important. Grit has always been there. I think that remains important. Communication skills — that's another one that I think is increasingly important for all the reasons we've talked about. How do you pitch something, an investment proposal, if you don't have decent communication skills? Adaptability. Then I think there are a couple of hard skills that need to move into the core area of legal domain. One of them is financial literacy. You'd be amazed how many lawyers still really don't have the ability to read a balance sheet or really know and understand what cash flow is. So, basic financial literacy is important. And then lastly, tech literacy. I think as AI moves up the ladder, we really need to have the basic understanding of how technology works, in particular how AI works.
Streeter
And you've spoken in the past about T-shaped people. Can you tell me a bit more about the concept and how it is relevant here?
Tellmann
Yeah. I mean, T-shaped people, it's clearly relevant in the sense that T-shaped people are basically people who have a deep vertical of expertise — let's say law. And then on a horizontal level, they have the ability to connect broadly across their organization. They can speak the language of other organizational silos. They can move outside the organization and bring information and ideas back in. And they have the ability to combine those things that they're gathering with their deep expertise. And if you look at innovation theory and creativity theory, much of it comes down to this single point: new ideas are born when old ideas marry and have children. So how are you going to create new thinking, new ideas, new creativity unless you're out there connecting, reaching out, combining and recombining ideas, and yet having that strain of strength in your vertical? The last thing I'd say on this is that, given everything we talked about in the beginning, this T-shaped professional, I think in the legal function, is increasingly becoming pi-shaped (π-shaped), or it may be even comb-shaped, where you need not just one vertical of expertise, but you may need two or three because you're managing a broader team of people. And that's particularly relevant for GCs.
Streeter
Yeah. Dan, just want to get a bit more of an overview. We've talked about how the legal function is becoming more embedded in business strategy, and so organizations are having to redesign legal departments to operate more like business units. So, what's your take on the right way to do this? Obviously, as we've been talking about, we need the right skills, the right talent, the right people. Where might additional support be needed?
Hendy
Yeah, I would say that, Bjarne talked before about just all of the different risks that legal departments are trying to balance. And sometimes legal departments tend to take it from the approach of, what's all the risks — what's the risk that could happen? And then how do I mitigate those risks? I think that sometimes legal departments have to take a step back and realize, what's the role of the legal function for this company? When I think about the company objective and what it's trying to achieve and what success looks like for this organization and what drives stakeholder value, then how do I align my priorities as a legal department around that business purpose and those business objectives, and just making sure that the mindset of everybody that we're bringing in to the legal organization remembers that we exist in this department, we exist in this company, because this is the business purpose, right? How are we doing what we're doing in law? How is that advancing the purpose and the business objectives? Good legal departments don't lose sight of that and really always keep that as their north star. I think where practically you can advance that as a legal department is back to what both Sarah and Bjarne were mentioning about just the KPIs and measurements for a legal department. I think running your organization through, okay, how are your stakeholders experiencing your legal department from a speed, from a quality, from a cost perspective, and being able to articulate that to your leadership in terms of the value that you're providing qualitatively but also quantitatively is really important.
Streeter
Certainly is. Taking that big-picture view and your role as part of the organization. So, you've talked about the highly complex nature of the legal profession, the changes right now, changes afoot, and the capabilities needed. I want to close by asking each of you for a bit of a reality check, something that every legal professional needs to hear right now — a takeaway from this podcast. Sarah, I'm going to start with you. What would you say it is?
Rosser
I think I would say, and just listening to that overwhelm, like that summary, Susannah — the amount that is going on and the amount that we're expected to do and the amount that we're expected to navigate — it can be overwhelming. Do something. Just do it. Just start. However small it might be, you don't need to do it all. Prioritize and start something that is solving a problem, to Bjarne’s point earlier. You don't need to do it all by yourself. There are teams that you build. There are external advisors and consultants that can help. But I think doing that move, getting that momentum, starting that change is really important.
Streeter
Just get going. Okay, thank you, Sarah. Bjarne?
Tellmann
Yeah, I would say, look, in the world of immense complexity that you outlined, Susannah, I think it's really important to step back and remind yourself: you have to start with your sense of purpose. You have to start with a strategy based off that purpose, and you have to start with a culture that actually is aligned around where you're trying to head. If you do those three things, the tactics will follow.
Streeter
And finally, Dan.
Hendy
Yeah, I would say that you’ve got to ask why. Take a step back too. I think so many departments, in-house teams, have now been really active and engaged for a long time, especially in large organizations. I think sometimes things just have become second nature in terms of how things are done, how things are supported. I think it's really important, at least once a year, for leadership of legal teams to take a step back and reflect on: how are we serving the company? Are we focused on the right areas? Are our priorities really aligned with what's happening in the company? I think that can help manage some of the external volume and pressure that's constantly coming at teams and legal departments.
Streeter
Well, thank you so much. Have that razor-sharp focus. We certainly had that on this podcast today. I'd really like to thank you for all your time and insights.
Rosser
Thank you very much, Susannah. Great conversation.
Tellmann
Thanks a lot, Susannah. That was great. Really appreciate it.
Hendy
Thank you, Susannah. Thank you, Bjarne. Thank you, Sarah. It was a pleasure.
Streeter
It really was a pleasure. But before we go, a quick note from the EY team. The views of third parties in this podcast are not necessarily those of the global EY organization or its member firms and should be considered in the context of the time they were made. I'm Susannah Streeter. I hope you'll join me again for the next edition of Tax and Law in Focus, EY: Shaping the Future with Confidence.
Presenters
Susannah Streeter
Senior Investments & Markets Analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown, UK