#6 - Fergus Speight and Jenny Hacker of Royal London Discuss Legal Ops and Tech in the UK vs. the US

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Hello everyone and welcome to Pearl On Gloves Off. I am your host, Mary O. Carol. Today we have a very special show because we are recording this in London and for the first time we are being joined by a dynamic duo of guests. A very forward thinking general counsel, Fergus Speight and his superstar legal operations leader, Jenny Hacker. So for background, Fergus is a general counsel who's been recognized many times over as an innovative lawyer by groups like the Financial Times since All the way back in 2012 and the Lawyer magazine in 2020. He has recently stepped down after 11 years in the GC role at Royal London, which is UK's largest mutual insurance, investment and pensions company. We also have Jenny with us. So Jennie is the head of Legal operations at Royal London. Since she started establishing the legal operations function and team in 2017, Jenny has been instrumental in the design, implementation and ongoing delivery of Royal London's legal operation framework, winning them the Lawyers in House Legal Operations Team of the year award in 2020. So I'm absolutely thrilled to have the both of you here together today. Welcome, Fergus and Jenny. So there's so many things that I definitely want to cover with you because I know many people out there want to know what legal operations and tech and innovation looks like in the uk, sort of compared to what, what it's like in the us. What are the trends, what's different? But first, let's kind of set the stage a little bit about Royal London's legal department. You know, how, how big is it legal office? Does it have a team? What are the biggest focus areas for your department? Kind of what does that world look like?

The legal team is 22 and there is a separate legal operations team. And I'll have Jenny talk about that in a second. And where it all began was when I joined Royal London in 2011, when we realized that we were well loved by the business, we were doing all the things that the business asked us to do. But my thoughts were that the team could be doing slightly different things and be more aligned to the strategy of the company and be absolutely clear that we were moving up the value curve. And so what we did was we set about reviewing how many people we had in the team and what they were doing. And that brought us on to the conversation about legal operations.

Yeah. So in 2017, when we started looking at what the team were doing and what they wanted to do and what we thought they needed to do, we quickly realised there was quite a big mismatch there. So Fergus and I spoke about what we could change, what would need to change, and we realised actually it wasn't just about directing people to different activities, it was about how they were doing those activities, it was the processes we had in place, it was the technology we were using, it was how what the business wanted from us, not just what we wanted to give to them. So my role was created in 2017 initially as a way to kind of have dedicated focus on all of those non legal activities. Again, very quickly, arms and legs grew and that remit, and I think my team is now four, and that's growing quite quickly. So one person a year adding to that team, each with a slightly different focus. All four of us spread ourselves across the majority of the legal operations activities. But the three other members of the team do have kind of their own little areas that they focus on.

And Mary having all these activities, they weren't new activities and they weren't new responsibilities to me, but they were not getting the time because I was busy doing the things that were coming in and the requests and the instructions that we were being given. However, with having Jenny, between the two of us, we managed to be able to share ideas and look to the future. And when you've got somebody who can speak your language and can be on the same wavelength with you, but also have that person who can turn the ideas into action. Right. That is a real winner. So it allowed me to step back a little from just dealing with the transactional pieces that are coming in and think really carefully about the future of the legal function. And that had to be tied closely to where the company was going and what its intentions were.

So how did it. Because, you know, so many general counsel I talk to now are thinking that they should put in this role, but they're not certain what it is, how it will work. It was so new back then, I imagine. Where did you come up with this idea? Were you hearing about it from other folks or did it just occur to you that you needed this help?

So it occurred to me quite early in my tenure at Royal London that what I needed to have was greater bandwidth to be able to cope with everything that was in my remit. And when I spoke with Jenny, When I first came in, as I spoke with all of my team and asked what they wanted to do in terms of their own development and in terms of their employment experience, what did they want to do in their job, I realized with Jenny that she talked in a way that was really much more about being an executive assistant to the gc. And what that meant for me was this gave me the foundation that I could take my ideas that I've been thinking about on my commute as to how we're going to do things better, not just how am I going to get this instruction done, actually thinking a leadership capability, a leadership role, both for my function but also for the company, which is really where the GC should be. You're not just doing all the difficult transactional pieces. You're actually a senior leader in the organization. And from that point of view, you're wearing a number of hats. So there's a point. But put your hat down, the legal team, legal side, and actually think, how am I organizing myself? Finite resources. How are we going to do things better? Yeah. And from that and having somebody to speak to, that started us off. So I didn't. We didn't see it elsewhere. Law firms have often organized themselves with having practice managers, but in house, that was not being done. So it was quite innovative at the time.

Absolutely.

For us to be thinking about this.

Yeah.

And initially it happened quite organically, I think, didn't it? You would just give me your thoughts and I would just take them away. And some of them I would just kind of pop aside and think, that's great, we'll revisit that. Other things, I thought, hang on, I think I can do something with that. So I would go away, I'd have a think about it and I'd come back to you and say, well, listen, you mentioned this. These are the things we could do. These are the things that we need to think about. These are the people challenges we're going to have. Should we do that or not? And it was a yes or no. And we just started making changes and differences. We were going along, didn't we? Maybe. Maybe four or five years before we even formalised the role.

Yeah. And by the time we met Mary, you know, I was carrying two business cards, you may remember, and I. Because I would hand out my own card, but also I carried Jenny's card with me as well.

That's amazing.

And when people would say, could I have your details? Back in the day when you shared business cards, I would hand out two cards. I would give My own over and I would give Jenny's over and I would point people to Jenny for that initial conversation. Many law firms, many other GCs would want to speak with me and only me. But actually widening that touch points. Widening the touch points and having not just a cone of focus and everything coming through me.

Yeah.

But expanding. It was quite symbolic. So I would say for people thinking about this, there's a huge amount to be gained because what you do is you expand your own bandwidth and also what you both in terms of your thinking ability, but also how people are touching you and how they are sharing their thoughts with you. Because GCS and law firms speak to me, the GC about certain things, but actually when they want to bring the whole firm to Royal London, they actually have to need to speak to the head of legal operations also.

I do think that's quite a unique approach from the legal operations leaders I speak to. More often than not, there are challenges with the general counsel giving them full mandate and giving them absolute empowerment over their remit and also in terms of managing their stakeholders in the business and within the team. So I think I've been super lucky to have been in an environment where I have had that from the general counsel.

Well, I think you've got to be bold and you have to give people the responsibility that they deserve and that they require. And so if you're going to do this, go all in, don't do it in a half hearted way. If you want to really reap the benefits, this is what you've got to do.

Right. And I mean, Jenny, you, you and I have talked about this. Everyone is always looking for a general counsel who has that mindset. You know, you're one of the ideal, sort of innovative, forward thinking ones who are going to hire someone and trust them and empower them and give them a leadership seat at the table so that they're viewed with some level of authority amongst your team so they can actually get things done. And I often hear, you know, I'm a GC and I'm interested in having this role and I do want change and transformation. And then when push comes to shove and they get pushback from their leadership team or some of the lawyers, they quickly back down and say, oh, never mind, we don't need to do that. But it's really important to have the back of the legal ops person so they can actually get things done.

Yeah, 100%. I don't think at the beginning we wouldn't be where we were now if we hadn't have done that. I think at the beginning we thought it would have been a lot easier. So you remember when we sat the team down and we said, right, we're going to create a legal operations function. This is what we're going to focus on. And you guys are all going to kind of come together and work together with Jenny to achieve all of these things. Everyone was kind of like, yes, yes, we are. But then went back to their desks and carried on doing their job. And it took quite a while, didn't it, for us to kind of build the momentum and get everyone on the same page. But once we did, it's just been really great trajectory since then.

And what were some of the tricks or what did you do to get over that? Because I know everyone's running into that, right? You say we want to transform and we want tech and we want all these new things. And then when it comes to actually changing behavior, people get nervous.

Yeah, exactly. So we have to. The main thing we had to focus on was what the team didn't like, what was annoying them, what was frustrating them. We started out with, we're going to do this because it will be great and you'll love it and it will change your lives. And that didn't really work. So then we started asking them, what don't you like? What would you like to change? Would you like to stop doing what frustrates you? And we worked on those things first. We brought our ideas back from top level to kind of more tactical operational change and we just did a few smaller changes. Didn't we get some buy in? And then we moved on to some of the bigger things. We also tried to, we did include the entire team in what we were doing. So we broke the operating model down into eight blocks and we asked the team, if you're interested in any of these, you can join the work stream and you can help create that change and deliver the change. So I think that helped to some extent as well. You put it into their performance goals for that year, didn't you?

Right. I was going to say, do you.

Celebrate them and pop up it in and yeah, that helped.

The legal team has a huge service ethic. Their desire to do what their clients wish, the business their colleagues wish, is a huge driver for them. So asking them to stop doing certain things which one of their colleagues has asked them to do is a very difficult concept for people to grasp. And we realize one of the tips I would say to people is don't say to the team, what do you want to stop doing. Because you will get no answer to that because somebody's asked them to do it. It must be important to that person, so it must be done. And Jenny came up with this way of dealing with it in another way, which was, okay, what are the pain points, what are the pinch points? And actually then not saying that we will stop doing something, saying that we will deal with that thing in another way. And that can be either self help or teaching the person who's giving the instruction what's important in respect of that, or indeed just risk accepting or indeed moving into Q&As on the website or what have you to deal with that in a different way. And that really then allowed us to drive greater engagement because that frees people up and in their mind they're not letting anybody down. Yeah. And that was really key because we had built a fabulous relationship with our business colleagues and we did not want to destroy that because of course we were going to lever that to move up the value chain and to also not alienate yourself. Also because we are very much regarded as an enabling function. We help people achieve their goals. You do not want to destroy that. So you have to think very carefully as to how you engage in terms of cultural change, both with people giving the instructions and then within the team itself. And you mustn't become too wrapped up within the team. You've got to constantly be looking outwards. And.

How are you continuing to enable, not be thinking, this is good for the team, this is great.

That's right.

Custom effects customer.

Right? Yeah. And I think I've talked about that being the evolution, sort of a legal operations where you sort of start with, how do I make the lives of the lawyers in the legal department a little bit better and smoother. But you have to look beyond that and think about your. Your clients who are the business and how are you making their life better? And that's exactly right. Self service or expediating, you know, the work that the legal department does to make business faster.

Yeah. And also I think that what we shouldn't overlook is the way that having a dedicated function and having a certain personality within the legal operations piece allows that horizontal network to be built. Jenny had been in the organization for more years than I had been at that time. So she knew a lot of people through her various roles. But she also really understood the business from the beginning to the end. And the whole business operating model and leveraging that is something that should not be overlooked. That goes into the whole point about being self aware so what do you know? And we often talk about lawyers and we often talk, we often did talk about just the lawyers, but actually one has to realize that the legal function and people you are speaking to, they're not necessarily legally qualified and the level of experience in the various areas that your colleagues is different. And so having the right people at the right level talk about the right things is really key as well. Having that awareness to do that was something that we, it came naturally to us, but we had to become more aware that that is happening. Right. And that is when you start to position.

Yeah. Be more targeted. Be more targeted, yeah.

And how did you find a Jenny? You know, I, I know you had a vision for what this role was. Again, it was nebulous at the time. And how did you go about knowing what skill sets, what backgrounds you were looking for and how did you find each other? Because you, you definitely have a great working relationship and that's also key. Right. Is to have that trust and the, the cultural alignment with, with your GC and your legal ops person.

So there's, there's a couple of aspects to that, of course, working with colleagues because you are one of your colleagues and so you have to be, you've got to assess who you are building in your team and why you're building that way. So one has to be quite self aware of your own strengths and where you need complemented. So I knew that I was quite futuristic in my thinking and I could dream, but actually having somebody to be able to share and do that strategic thinking but then be able to turn that into action, I knew that was a complementary skill that I needed. And so speaking with Jenny and watching her work, it became obvious to me that that was the type of person that I needed. Then the second thing is actually let's humanize it. So what is Jenny like and how is she? She's grinning and, and so what you want is somebody who's engaged, who is innovative and who has as much a drive to service as you have. So there's a lot of luck, there's a lot of chance that you just come together and actually through the conversations you just release things within you that can actually complement one another and go forward.

I think it's worked because when we met we were so far away from one another and how we operated. So I was extremely task delivery focused, very reactive. That's the role I had and as father said, future thinking, strategic. And we're a bit closer together now, so I think we've learned a lot from One another along the way as well. I've learned a lot from you saying, don't just go and do something. Hang on, just talk about it. And I will say to you, let's not just talk about it, let's do something about it. So we kind of meet each other in the middle.

Very complimentary.

Yeah, I think you're right, Mary, because everybody will have somebody within their organization or their friendship group that is somebody who they really connect with. And I was very fortunate to have that really close to my desk. And from that point of view, what I would say to people is, this isn't just luck. This is very achievable. But you have to think about how you are hiring and really get into the personality of the person when you are. So you have to change your interview style and what you're looking at and also think about who is in your organization already that is working in a space where maybe they don't like it, but they have some experience, but they're complementary skills. And so from an organizational point of view, how you capture people's capabilities and skills and then move people into the right place is really key. And that is something that we have done within the legal function. So widening it out to do an enterprise wide piece, I know is a big ask, but it's a heck of a lot better if you can redeploy a resource that is already in the organization because you get them to add value quicker.

Faster. Yeah.

Rather than bringing somebody in. Yeah.

And that works both in and out of our department. So we've taken some of our lawyers and they're now embedded in the business in different roles where we felt that they could add more value and progress their careers quicker than they might do in our small legal function. So it does work both ways as well, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does. And also the other thing we've done with some staff is we have put them out in secondment. So one of the team has gone in secondment to the CEO's office and is working there. And that is an opportunity for them to, yes, build on their legal skills. But again, it's for them to build complementary skills and also to build a network across the organization because to bring back into the country. And these will be people that Gail meets that she will be working with for the next 20 years if she prevails. Continues to prevail at Royal London.

Yeah.

Amazing. So how do you find it? How do you find somebody? You have to work at it. There's no easy answer, but it's very achievable.

Yeah. I mean, I often tell folks, you can't just put out your job description and wait for that person that you're looking for to show up. And, I mean, we're better. At least now there are people looking for these types of roles. But often you've got to pound the pavement and knock on doors and find.

Them yourself very much. And so that's why you've got to be observing, listening, see who is out there in other departments of business.

Yes.

And thinking, okay, how could I use that person? And then not try to get too caught up in the politics of it all and try to. What we have also tried to do is think about how do we bring people into the function that perhaps on secondment, on a day, a week or two days a week, not get caught up in the budget of it all. I don't think this has got to be five days for 12 months. There are ways to do things so you have to be flexible and different in your mindset and your approach. But it's very achievable. Yeah. You just need to think about it. Think hard. But, boy, is it worth it.

Yeah. What are some other pointers you'd give to someone who's trying to start out and create transformation and maybe an operational function?

So I would say start small, Think big, but start small. I suppose so. Have a plan or have a direction. Fergus had a really clear direction. Clear strategy to. To focus on core business activity and develop staff. So engage the staff. So those are our two big things that we had to land as we were moving through. So I would say get your data together. So first of all, know exactly what your team are doing, know exactly what you're using external counsel for, know where you're spending your money, understand all of those things, understand the business strategy and then put all of those things together. Speak to stakeholders, test your assumptions, make sure that you're absolutely right in the direction you're going and then just start. Just start somewhere.

Just start. Yeah.

Make sure what the team are doing is aligned to what the business want them to do and they need to do, and then work down from there. What processes you need in place to operate that. How can technology enhance those. Yeah. Just build everything back from that business strategy.

I completely agree with what Jenny says there. Several years ago, I had a conversation with the chief operating officer of our asset management army, and he and I went through what was on his to do list and what we were doing for him. And if we were doing 50 things for his team, actually, there were only five that were coincident with what was on his priority list. That led us to thinking, okay, do we really know your business? Do we really understand what is important to you? And the reason that we had 50 instructions from his team was because he hadn't organized himself to understand who was doing what and who was instructing other departments, such as legal department, to do things for them. So that drove a conversation within his own function as to what they were doing and how they were doing it. So there was a bit of cross fertilization there. And because then we changed the conversation, you get that hybrid vigor and where we can drive better conversations. And really it comes down to, as Jenny says, do you know your business? Do you know what. And I mean the enterprise business and how it actually operates. And then what does each individual executive have in terms of their objectives and then what's happening below that and what are their objectives and what's important to them? Now, this all sounds intellectually spot on, but actually, in order to gain that, you've got to go and speak to people.

That's right.

And you've got to have a network that is not just me speaking to my executive colleague, but other people need to speak at different levels and in a different way and be observant as to what is happening. Yeah. And so this is into how do you network then, Mary? And you know that that's a podcast in itself.

Yes.

And how. But part of the operating model that we then did was what are the conversations that are happening between people? And we tried to put a bit of consistency within that so that people come about with the same topic, same story, so we can understand better.

Yeah, I think we also had. We had independent view as well, didn't we? So at the beginning, we had one of our law firm partners come in and interview each of the exec, just to make sure an independent person was hearing the same thing that we were hearing as well. Sometimes it's really easy to come back from these meetings and say, well, this is all great and they love all of this and, oh, you know, they're broadly happy and you kind of gloss over the things that really need to change. So from that independent review and interviews we did, we got a few more pointers, didn't we?

And I hope what you're hearing is that actually it's not all about me, wasn't all about the gc. Everybody's got to be included. Everybody within the team has got a role to play here and how the team develops and what is going to happen in two and five years time. And so including them is a cultural change and also having them come back with ideas as to what to do and to. Or even just to give intel into the pot and then how you interpret that. Intel is something that can be done by somebody appropriate. Jenny was very good at interpreting that intelligence that we get in and turning that into strategy and then actions. And so everybody's got a part to play here.

This is so fantastic because so many legal departments are still very reactive. You know, they take orders, they try to facilitate what the rest of the business is trying to accomplish and they see themselves as in service to the rest of the company. But what you're saying is where I think legal is going to go or should go, which is thinking about how do we service the enterprise, how do we play a part in achieving the company's goals. And legal is in such a unique position to do that, even though many of us don't feel like that's the role it should be. Because you are working so cross functionally more than any other part of the company. You're touching all the parts of the company you know, whether it's sales or product or finance or engineering or. Every company is different. But you're hearing everything that's getting done and you're in such a unique seat to be able to put all the pieces together, like you said, know which pieces of information to share and with whom and to create that strategy or positioning for the company and puts Fergus and GCS in a seat in a position that is in the leadership of the whole company and that's where we all want to be.

It's really interesting. We had something come up just last week actually that demonstrates that it's quite simple. So we're looking at obviously being digital first and as a legal function. Over the last few weeks we started getting requests from all over the business. What legally, what can I, you know, how. Where can I remove paper? Can I just send this mailing by email? And we're getting it from lots of different areas and so we've now actually connected all those areas up and we've created a digital first team. So it's a collaborative group from all these people around the business which needle have kind of instigated because we're the first people that we've realized everyone's trying to do the same thing, is put them all together.

Yes.

Without us, everyone would be going off in their own direction for however knows long. So, yeah, we've already kind of joined Them up.

Yeah. And that makes the whole company move faster because not everyone's recreating the wheel and learning, learning from the work you've already done. So that's a theme just pivoting a little bit that I've heard. We're in London, I've been here for a couple days now talking to a lot of folks. The word digital, the word transformation is like the buzzword here and seems to be something that everyone's focused on. I'm interested to hear, are you feeling that or more GCS and legal departments now focused on this sort of digital transformation and modernization that we know everyone needs. But is it here? Is it coming?

Yeah, I think it definitely is. I think. I think the pandemic has catapulted it to the top of everyone's agenda and organizations that weren't already thinking about it, it's now their number one priority.

Sure.

People weren't quick enough to respond to things when the pandemic hit. For us, certainly is now core part of our strategy and it means for us, as a legal department, we have to provide to our business clients the same level of digital experience that we are aiming to give to our end customer.

Right.

So I think as a legal department, we've got capabilities we need to build to support the business, provide better digital services. And as a legal department, we need to be able to offer a digital service to our clients. The thing we are looking at at the team at the moment is customer experience. And people want personalised experience. They don't just want the same as what everyone else is getting. So we're looking at that from a end customer perspective, but also as a legal team. What do our different areas of the business need? Do they need things digital only? Do they need human there? Are there things that we can try and do digital? Actually, if we need to be there, we can be there. So we're just trying to reassess all of our services at the moment to see can we get them quicker and by splitting them up and categorising them in that way, definitely. It's very high on the agenda, I think.

And what we're seeing is that with our end client, the person who is actually that the company is really servicing the man and woman on the street who want that. They want a personalized experience. Sometimes they want somebody to be with them for part of the journey and sometimes they want to do it all by themselves. And so they need information. And so that is consistent with what Jenny said about what's happening internally. So, again, you've got to align yourself with what the organization is trying to do in terms of how it's selling to the street.

Yeah. And so there's pressure for legal departments to also transform because the rest of the business can't transform. And then we sit around and do nothing. Right. And so in order to do that successfully, I mean, I think we all three here are big believers that you need a dedicated operations person or someone to focus on that because you can't have your general counsel, your lawyers focus on trying to buy and implement technology and evaluate things. But it's still a very new role here. Are you seeing more people hiring for this role? Is it growing? Is it still very new? How does it look compared to. We see the US a lot where it's exploding. What are you seeing here?

So what? I see a lot of adverts for vacancies for Legal Ops. So people are talking about it. And when I read the role profiles for those. Yes. People have it intellectually. They get it. I don't know what's happening in terms of where they're getting the resources from. Because actually, if they're advertising externally all the time. All the time. Why are they not looking internally? Because a lot of this is being done within their organizations anyway. But also, I don't know where they're getting the resources from, because how they are describing what they want. There are very few around. I know that.

Right. I see that, too. I see that in the States.

Really, really specific or so broad.

Right. Or something.

I couldn't do all that in one.

Sure. Or someone who's had 10 years of experience doing it. And there's not that many people who. I mean, it's a new role, right?

Yeah. But there's obviously a real want, a real demand and a desire to achieve this.

Yes.

And so people are realizing that this is what they have to do. How are they going to do it?

Yes.

And many people are realizing that I'm too busy doing what you call core business. I'm too busy reacting to the instructions that are coming in to do this M and A or litigation or what have you. I don't have time to sit back and actually think about what's the future looking like.

Yes.

And how is that going to be done. But that is the role of the gc. And so the role. If you. If you need a complementary skill set in order to achieve that, then you have to find somebody to help you do that.

Yeah.

And so. And also I would say to people that also, GCs can sometimes feel that they are superhuman and they can do everything and they will only hire lawyers.

Right.

When actually they need to abandon certain thoughts and certain bias and processes in order to allow them to innovate. And we see that in the HR functions we mentioned before about. Is there a role profile for legal operations? Is that against a benchmark, a grade within an organization and we didn't have one. But through Jenny's tenacity with a bit of allyship for myself, we got there and we've expanded that into a team. But there are a number of things that are holding people back from actually finding the right. Finding the right person is difficult enough, but there's a lot of processes and ideas and biases that are actually just making this. There's a lot of friction in the system, but it has to be overcome because the demand is not going to stop.

Right. The demand is everywhere.

Digital is coming and you've got to get there.

Yeah. And as soon as you do have a piece of technology as part of one of your key processes, you've just implemented a matter and document management system. And I know now actually that is now critical. The lawyers are using it day in, day out. They do all their work through this and if that goes down or it's not operating properly, that will stop us servicing the business. I mean they could go back to their manual ways of working and processes, but the amount of change management it's taken to move us across to this new solution, it would take a good week or two for them to remember what they were doing beforehand and go back to how they were.

Interesting.

I think hiring dedicated staff to manage technologies. The legal technology manager, for example. Example, that's definitely, I think probably one of my next hires.

Yeah, it's a must.

It's critical because the implementation and the embedding of these in the sourcing of them takes a very long time. And it needs clear focus and also people who know inside out the technicalities of how it will work, how it will connect with our system, how to talk to our IT department in a way which they will then help and collaborate with us. Not just for the implementation, but ongoing if something goes wrong, the ongoing support module, that is a real full time role.

Yeah. And what I'd say, Mary, is the GC has been hired to be the gc and so the rest of the C suite, the CEO looks upon the GC as to be able to deliver the right legal services to the enterprise. And what the GC then has is an obligation to organize themselves in order to achieve that, and so they should not be pandering or thinking that the FD or the Chief Operating Officer can run their department better than they can. It's up to them to be able to run their department in order to satisfy the enterprise. And if the GC is feeling that they can't move because of other pressures or they are actually just a bit scared that they'll do a misstep and then they'll lose their role or they'll lose their seat at the table, well, I'm afraid they'll have to be more bold. We recognize that that is the case. Everybody needs to earn a living. We all have obligations. But at the same time, when it comes down to it, you are the one who is responsible for providing the legal advice, guidance, support of the enterprise, not anybody else. And so one has to accept that and move appropriately. So that takes a bit of courage sometimes to organize yourself in such a way that you're not just hiring lawyers, but you're hiring appropriate operations staff, risk analysts and also make sure that they are all facing the business. And Jenny will tell us that she, she is customer facing. It's not just the solicitors. Is that right, Jenny?

Yeah, oh sure, yeah. I spend as much time with the business as I do with the lawyers.

And probably more cross functional than anyone in the department you should be. So on that point we saw some parallels in the States to kind of where the UK is now. And this is what I'm observing. I'd love to know if you're seeing the same thing, which is in the early days of legal ops, it was a lot about managing outside counsel, working with outside outside counsel. And so for that reason a lot of folks were hiring lawyers because they were familiar with that world, they'd come from the firm, they know how it operates. So I think that makes some sense. But now that the shift, I mean that's obviously still a major focus, but there's a lot of shift to this digital transformation and tech and tooling that it's requiring more business acumen, project management, tech acumen, data analytics and interest. And I'm seeing here in the UK much more hiring of folks with business operations, technical project, management consulting type backgrounds. Are you finding that as well and do you think it is because of the sort of change in focus or shift?

Yeah, I think that's right. I'm seeing that as well. And also I think it goes right back to just process at a basic level. So it's understanding operational improvements and operational process set up. And I think that Kind of mindset and discipline, knowing how to map something, remove the waste, doing that piece before you even get to the tech. I think that's the most important part.

Absolutely.

And we were discussing this morning about the cost management focus kind of still, obviously still there, but it's very much now operational improvement. And how can we make things more efficient, how can we do things quicker, not remove cost and remove people, but actually how can we use them to their full capacity? Yeah, definitely seeing that.

Yeah. And I think what we realized as well was when we were speaking to the relationship manager at the law firms, actually it was always a solicitor, it was always a partner who was talking about one, the pricing of the actual instruction that we've given them. And then secondly, when we were talking to them about the bill and the phenotes that they were providing, again, it was the same relationship manager, but they were just being fed information. The partner was just getting that information, then being the middle person to us. And we started changing that dynamic and in a way demanding how to be able to speak to somebody else who was doing the pricing.

Right.

And then somebody else who was doing the actual billing and shifting that relationship management conversation away from the partner.

Yeah. And also so we can really properly understand their challenges.

Right.

And partner and the pressures they have behind the scenes was really helpful, wasn't it? On that. And also we've leveraged our law firms. We've been in their continuous improvement teams, their knowledge teams, their learning and development team. So anything, any initiatives that we are looking to establish in our in house team, the first thing we do is go out to all of our law firms and say no, we want to speak to the actual, actual person doing the project management day to day or the resource planner. So we have got a lot of insight from doing that, but we have had to push quite hard to get in there.

Yeah.

And they always send the partners a minder. Yeah. You know, and we said, no, out the room, I'm not coming, I have a gc, I'm not coming.

Right. You can have your separate conversation about the substantive legal issues and then us ops people will talk about the finance and the pricing and the relationships.

And the innovation is just making sure that the appropriate people are talking about the appropriate things.

That's exactly right.

And so getting away from these, abandoning those ideas and those biases and previous processes to actually progress.

Yes.

In a different way. So what we've now, I have to say my sense is that the relationship we have with the law firms and the way that we are Doing things is at the the forefront is how what we are doing and how we are doing things. It seems a bit new to a lot of firms that we speak to.

That's fantastic.

But it's not completely new to them because they are obviously you can get a sense that they've heard it before or they're thinking about it. So they may suck their teeth and say, well we haven't done that before or that's not the way we do things. But actually I know from looking them in the eye that they're going to shift. So you've got to keep pushing. Keep pushing.

That's right.

And also what we have done is we've changing the dynamic from the partner to the GC and introducing other people. And that change in relationship management, it really does bring us together as the team. It just so happens that.

They'Re employed by another entity and we are within Royal London. But actually what we're seeking to do is to achieve for okay, the enterprise but for our clients.

Correct.

And having that conversation at different levels allows us to drive that relationship and that change in relationship through and also.

Drives the development at all levels on our side and the firm side as well. Because we have the trainees, the associates, we've heard everyone in the room, everyone listening and hearing. And I think one of the great things that we've done with our law firms in the past few years, why we won our award at the initiation of engagements we're setting out, one of our mandates is we want you to train our staff whilst we're going through this matter. By the end of this matter next time we want to be doing 20% more of it and you doing 20% less. So we're upskilling our internal team throughout the journey as well. Which I think has been really great.

Yeah, that's really unique.

Yeah. And so, and we had the open conversation say, yes, we are sucking knowledge management out of you, but that is the way we want to.

It should work. Yes.

But we have committed, committed to have a long term relationship with our now that is not a financial commitment. Every year we will give you X amount. That is a more intellectual commitment and a real personal commitment that this is how we want to work together. And instrumental in that is how does the operation manager work with the external law firms again. So that falls into Jenny's skill set as to how she organised bringing them.

Inside and helping them understand how the company works, what the company objectives are, what the business really want to do rather than it just be. Can you do this for us. Yes. Here you go. We've really brought them inside, haven't we?

Yeah. And Jenny herself has expanded that into her team as well. So it's not. So again, it perpetuates in order that the. What we are talking about is not centered on one person. You don't have a key person dependency and leaving Royal London. So the ideas and the drive should not die with me. Because what I have done is I've worked closely with Jenny, with Peter McCusko, with the entire team to develop this legal operating model. So it is not reliant upon one personality and one way of working. And actually it becomes systemic.

Yeah. And you're doing the same culture as well. It's the culture that's been established.

Yeah.

And it permeates out to the rest of the business.

And I think that's the bit that people should realize it's not a quick fix, this. It takes a long time.

It does take time, you know, it.

Really does take time. I recall somebody saying to me when we were introducing legal operations and I was saying, well, all this activity used to fall with me, but now it's going to go with Jenny. And somebody said, well, what are you going to do? And I said, I'll take my chances.

Yeah, It's a common question. Honestly, I get that from general counsel a lot. If I hire someone to do all this work that's taking up all my time, what will I do? And I think there is a little bit of threat there.

Yeah, I agree with that. Which goes back to this comment I made earlier about being bold and that threat of your position. Because actually you were person who knows everything, who can get things done, you or the one in the room that people turn to and say, can you do this for me? Can you do that for me? So you actually moving to say, well, actually, can you hear is Jenny Hacker's business card? Have a word with Jenny, she will sort it for you. That's a leap of faith for everybody, but particularly gc. But as I say, that's where you've got to be bold, courageous. Also have some resilience as well.

Yeah.

It doesn't always work out, does it?

It's a very hard job.

But you've.

Got to be tough.

Yeah. Well, I so appreciate you both being here. I think it's so important to get the message out there and we all wish that there were more GCs like you and so such a privilege to have you here, sharing your story and hopefully it influences and inspires others to follow suit. So, Jenny Fergus, thank you so much.

Thank you, Mary.

Thank you for having us.

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