How can General Counsel manage the new risk landscape?
18th October 2018
Walker Morris in-house lawyer seminar addresses key risks faced by UK businesses
Over 40 senior General Counsel and in-house lawyers attended the annual Walker Morris in-house training day yesterday. This year’s theme focussed on the potential risks to businesses in the current climate and the role of GCs in managing risk.
The Walker Morris annual in-house lawyer day has firmly established itself as the go-to event for General Counsel and Heads of Legal. This year, in addition to hearing from a range of experts across the firm, the day also featured several external guest speakers and risk specialists including Georgina Stanley, Legal 500 UK editor, Simon Cuerden, Deloitte and Billy Greenhalgh, Agent PR, as well as a range of senior in-house GCs.
Simon Cuerden, Crisis and Resilience Lead Partner at Deloitte led a keynote discussion on the changing nature of the General Counsel role, moving from an advisory function to a risk function and highlighted how different industries are undertaking risk scanning. Billy Greenhalgh, MD at agent PR, also gave valuable insight into crisis management PR and what to do when things do go wrong.
The day also featured a Q&A panel, which was facilitated by Georgina Stanley, Legal 500 UK editor. Other panel members comprised Janet Freeman (Sr. European Counsel, Precision Castparts Corp.), Simon Hardcastle (GC, Endless), Paul Smith (CEO Morses Club), Sarah Barrett-Vane (SBV Consulting) and Malcolm Simpson (Managing Partner, Walker Morris). The panel discussed the role of the GC in managing risk, what businesses expect from GCs and what in-house legal should expect from external advisers.
Other Walker Morris partners speaking on the day included: Judith Pike (Real Estate), Jeanette Burgess and Stuart Ponting (Regulatory & Compliance), and James Crayton (Commercial).
Key points, discussions and learning will be shared in a post-event Q&A document which will be available next month. If you would like a copy of the document please contact the marketing department.
Commenting on the day Judith Pike said:
“Each year businesses face an ever-growing host of risks from every part of society. However, the biggest threat is approaching risk in silos. Risk can’t be compartmentalised. To contain it and reduce it you need to step back and make the links that people typically miss.
“The day generated some really interesting discussions particularly around the changing role of GCs and offered a number of practical insights. On behalf of everyone at Walker Morris I’d like to thank all the attendees and in particular to our excellent external guest speakers, for contributing to such a high-calibre event. I believe everyone left having learned something.”
