The GC as semi-CEO
THE GC AS SEMI-CEO
CREATING A FUTURE-PROOF LEGAL TEAM FOR ROBIN
Bjarne P. Tellmann
GCN spoke with Bjarne Tellmann, one of the few General Counsel worldwide who, in addition to his work as GC at a large company, publishes extensively about our profession. So, he speaks from experience. Like no other, he is up to date on the latest developments for GCs and his or her team. We talk about his book and about the main challenges for GCs. In order to translate his expertise into practice, Bjarne advises the imaginary ‘Robin’ who, as GC, wants to create a future-proof legal team. In addition to your career as attorney and General Counsel, you have taken a keen interest in the professionalisation of legal leaders and their teams. Among other things, you wrote the book ‘Building an Outstanding Legal Team’ about it. Where does this interest come from and what are your most important observations? I wrote the book I wished I had available to me when I first became a GC. I was searching for something that would provide me with a framework, a manual for how to start thinking about building a legal team and what that would require, but nothing was available. I think that kind of framework is needed now more than ever given the changes taking place in the profession. The “more for less” challenge means in-house lawyers must do more work with fewer resources. This is driven by macro-economic and technological factors that are placing pressure on companies. The good news is that many of these same factors give us new tools that allow us to do better work with the same or fewer resources. The legal value chain is coming undone, and work that previously was all done by law firms can now
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