76 LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
FEATURE
When it comes
to Litigation, especially high-stakes Liti-
gation, you might think everyone on the same team has the
same objective.
You might be wrong.
e company has a business objective. External counsel
have that too, as well as a Litigation objective, public-rela-
tions advisers a reputational objective, government-relations
people an outcome-related objective. Usually they overlap,
but not always completly.
It is up to in-house counsel to keep an eye on all the
balls in the air and co-ordinate the exercise. And it can be
a daunting task.
SETTING THE TONE
Bell Canada Enterprises, which is headquartered in Mon-
treal, has a large law department that includes 10 in-house
litigators. Melanie Schweizer, the company's vice presi-
dent of legal, says they generally go into that first meet-
ing with external counsel with a strategy already in mind.
"e value add of our external counsel is that they will
help us refine that strategy or, at times, persuade us that
the proposed strategy isn't the right one. But we would
almost always outline our proposed approach during that
first conversation."
And when the two don't see eye-to-eye?
"It doesn't happen very oen, but I can think of a couple
of times where we felt that the firm just didn't have the
heart in the file, didn't see the arguments we saw, so we
needed to make a change."
She says Bell wants to feel its outside Litigation counsel
are whole-heartedly behind the legal strategy the company
is using. "It's very difficult if you feel a firm isn't 100% be-
hind an argument we think is strong and important to make
IN-HOUSE
COUNCEL NEED
TO MANAGE INTERESTS
THAT SOMETIMES
OVERLAP,
SOMETIMES
COLLIDE
BY SANDY RUBIN
IT'S A
JUGGLING
ACT
PHOTO:
SHUTTERSTOCK
