Jose Ramon Gonzalez, general counsel of QBE North America.

When Jose Gonzalez took over as general counsel of insurance firm QBE North America in April 2014, he was told to cut his 60-person legal department in half while still handling all the company's daily legal needs.

How did he pull it off? With a carefully planned process. Gonzalez spoke with Corporate Counsel about that process in a recent interview.

“QBE was being re-engineered from the inside out,” Gonzalez said. The downsizing included selling off two divisions and reducing the number of employees from 8,000 to 3,000. His New York City company is part of Australia-based QBE Insurance Group, which grossed nearly $12 billion in revenue in 2016.

Gonzalez had to coordinate the lawyers he let go with the changes going on in the company. “I had to adapt as I was moving through the process,” he recalled.

He said he began by “rigorously but diplomatically assessing the team.” He kept the strongest players and cut the underperformers, making sure he kept the right skill sets on bar. “I had to make the cuts without jeopardizing the work we were doing,” he explained.

He kept a mix of young and veteran lawyers, some with over 20 years experience. “I kept the institutional memory in place,” he said. “I really bolted those [veterans] down.”

More than three years in, he is rebuilding his department. “Once business realized we had cut way too many people, we were able to bring in newer blood, some with different skill sets,” he said. The legal department numbers 45 now.

In order to win approval for the rebuilding, Gonzalez said he had to play the role of legal team ambassador and raise the profile of the department. “I inherited a legal department not as well positioned in the organization as it needed to be,” he recalled.

“So I made sure that we are present and involved in all aspects of the organization where we need to be,” he said. “It may be the most important thing I've done.”

He said some business-side leaders came from larger organizations where they were used to having a legal department presence in their meetings. And they wanted a lawyer on their team again.

“We had no one with our business people,” Gonzalez recalled. “So we built alliances with them [business leaders] and made the case for having more people [in the legal department].”

Gonzalez said he used early resources to beef up compliance and regulatory affairs at QBE, and is now trying to hire someone to work on legal operations.

Among other tasks, he has been busy integrating two recent acquisitions for the company. He said he had done a lot of work on mergers and acquisitions previously, so this is his forte.

Before joining QBE, Gonzalez spent three years as global general counsel for Torus, a London-based insurance group. Prior to that he worked at American International Group in New York for 12 years in various roles, including deputy general counsel. He also worked for over four years as an associate at Weil, Gotshal and Manges.

 

Jose Ramon Gonzalez, general counsel of QBE North America.

When Jose Gonzalez took over as general counsel of insurance firm QBE North America in April 2014, he was told to cut his 60-person legal department in half while still handling all the company's daily legal needs.

How did he pull it off? With a carefully planned process. Gonzalez spoke with Corporate Counsel about that process in a recent interview.

“QBE was being re-engineered from the inside out,” Gonzalez said. The downsizing included selling off two divisions and reducing the number of employees from 8,000 to 3,000. His New York City company is part of Australia-based QBE Insurance Group, which grossed nearly $12 billion in revenue in 2016.

Gonzalez had to coordinate the lawyers he let go with the changes going on in the company. “I had to adapt as I was moving through the process,” he recalled.

He said he began by “rigorously but diplomatically assessing the team.” He kept the strongest players and cut the underperformers, making sure he kept the right skill sets on bar. “I had to make the cuts without jeopardizing the work we were doing,” he explained.

He kept a mix of young and veteran lawyers, some with over 20 years experience. “I kept the institutional memory in place,” he said. “I really bolted those [veterans] down.”

More than three years in, he is rebuilding his department. “Once business realized we had cut way too many people, we were able to bring in newer blood, some with different skill sets,” he said. The legal department numbers 45 now.

In order to win approval for the rebuilding, Gonzalez said he had to play the role of legal team ambassador and raise the profile of the department. “I inherited a legal department not as well positioned in the organization as it needed to be,” he recalled.

“So I made sure that we are present and involved in all aspects of the organization where we need to be,” he said. “It may be the most important thing I've done.”

He said some business-side leaders came from larger organizations where they were used to having a legal department presence in their meetings. And they wanted a lawyer on their team again.

“We had no one with our business people,” Gonzalez recalled. “So we built alliances with them [business leaders] and made the case for having more people [in the legal department].”

Gonzalez said he used early resources to beef up compliance and regulatory affairs at QBE, and is now trying to hire someone to work on legal operations.

Among other tasks, he has been busy integrating two recent acquisitions for the company. He said he had done a lot of work on mergers and acquisitions previously, so this is his forte.

Before joining QBE, Gonzalez spent three years as global general counsel for Torus, a London-based insurance group. Prior to that he worked at American International Group in New York for 12 years in various roles, including deputy general counsel. He also worked for over four years as an associate at Weil, Gotshal and Manges.