GC2B: Passing on the baton to the next generation of GCs

Experienced GCs know how fast time flies – but what happens next when they hang up their running shoes? What will stand out when they look back at their successes and what things would they have done differently?

What advice springs to mind for the new generations of GCs? What legacy will today’s top GCs leave for their successors? Plus, looking into the future, what are new challenges and trends anticipated by GCs that will need to be dealt with?

In a series of roundtables hosted by The Lawyer and Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), the role of GC2Bs has been explored – from their first 100 days in the hotseat, to an understanding of how GCs have fared five years into the role, through to what advice might have been particularly useful during the first few years of their career.

The third roundtable will explore the legacy left by today’s leading GCs. The series to date has sparked the interest of in-house lawyers in the midst of their own ‘race’ but has not yet talked to the veteran GCs who have notched up the training runs, learnt how to overcome the obstacles, and can see the finishing line in sight. This roundtable – where sights are set on the end of the course – is all about them.

It wasn’t long ago that perceptions of the in-house route were markedly different from how they are today. A combination of risk and regulation rising up the corporate agenda, and the efforts of those in the industry (including The Lawyer) to project GCs’ know-how back into the wider legal community from which many of them came, has changed all that.

Today the industry is keen to hear what GCs have to say – and not just on matters of pricing or client satisfaction. There is an increasing confluence between the in-house and private practice ways of lawyering – such that more of us can learn from the benefit of today’s established in-house players.

Facilitated by editor Catrin Griffiths and written up as a feature in the magazine, this roundtable will reveal a definitive guide for today’s rising stars to follow. We’ll examine the big lessons learnt from a career in-house when it comes to relationships, non-legal skills and the mindset of an in-house lawyer – now a valued member of the organisation and as much of a corporate player as a lawyer.

We will also ask our experienced GCs to talk through the external factors that helped shape their careers – what big (or small) industry changes have had the biggest impact? How have they had to change and adapt personally?

The Lawyer and BLP will unearth the legacy that today’s top GCs hope to leave for the next generation, their predictions for how the course of the in-house role will unfurl in the coming years and whether GCs will be more likely to make the jump to the CEO role in the future, currently a role often held by accountants.

We want to hear from experienced GCs who are interested in passing down their knowledge to the next generation of in-house lawyers, so if you would like to be part of the next roundtable on 25 March 2015 please contact The Lawyer through craig.belson@centaur.co.uk.

GC2B is an initiative from The Lawyer and Berwin Leighton Paisner