How are corporate legal and compliance leaders setting priorities in such troubled global socioeconomic times?  Uncertainty has been felt for a long while now and digital advancements add new competencies and complexity to the leader's role and mission.  Enter the Pandemic, which moves both factors in countless directions, creating new roles, opportunities and risks for in-house counsel and their employers.

In the last six weeks we discussed this phenomenon with more than 80 global corporate legal and compliance leaders in virtual roundtables.  Part 1 of this two-part article shares findings and insights relating to the focus on technology and digital advancement found in our discussions.  Part 2 will focus on insights and approaches to top legal and regulatory risks, addressing resource challenges for legal/compliance functions.  You'll find some on-the-record comments from those pictured above.

Our live discussions started by sharing data and verbatim comments from an in-depth bi-annual 2020 Benchmark study of 60 heads of legal and compliance in major global organizations.  The study provides valuable insights around technology, resource-driven challenges and the direction of rising demands.

Those we spoke with in May and June closely mirrored the demographics of the 2020 Benchmark respondents:  82% based in Europe, the UK and North America, across diverse industries and mostly listed companies, with the remainder in the rest of the world.  We exchanged views on how the Benchmark findings (gathered Jan-Feb 2020) are shifting in light of the Pandemic.

Digital is top of mind for the Global In-house Leader

Comments on the need for digital change run through the leaders' answers to many questions the Benchmark posed, in relation to regulatory risk, service delivery, key competencies and cost and time pressures.

In-house leaders were eager to discuss their goals and challenges in addressing the impact of digital on their organizations.  Some shared their short-term digital advancements during COVID-19 response to customers and regulators, when speed of response and access to data has been mission critical.

Others noted ways that the impact of remote working is proof that we are not just moving towards digital work environment, we are in it now.  In detailed open-ended answers to Benchmark questions, global in-house leaders describe their #1 operational goal using the words digital transformation, technology strategy and automation.

Promise of Higher-Value Work, Increased Efficiency

The 2020 Benchmark study respondents describe how they expect digital to change their functions in these three ways, in order of importance:

1. Lessen time spent on lower-value tasks, allowing teams to focus on high value-add missions
2. Drive organizational efficiency and productivity;
3. Enable better risk assessment and mitigation through IT/data analytics

Regarding digital transformation of the legal department, Siemens Power Generation Services' General Counsel Florencia Garrido explained, "There is this constant aspiration to be the most modern and lean in-house legal department, although no one seems to be fully clear what that looks like."

Expanding on this theme, other participants commented that legal tech providers normally offer companies "point solutions" that claim to optimize a specific part of legal department operations, but it's hard for busy law departments to assess these kinds of solutions.  In any event, such narrow tech solutions don't help the department create a holistic vision for a fully digitalized department.

Nearly every in-house global leader has some major digital advancements planned for the year, and many have found it easier to advance certain automation and process aspects during the Pandemic.

A Pandemic plus for General Counsel:  Singular focus

A top UK global corporate General Counsel credited the great benefit of singular focus during the Pandemic's early days.  Bruce Breckenridge, General Counsel, Corporate for BT recounted how his company fully shifted to remote working after years of planning for it. "With COVID-19, we leapfrogged many more months of planning—our singular focus helped us implement remote working in the business in under two weeks, and in the legal team overnight," Breckenridge said.

Others agreed, commenting that ruthless focus enables major advancements that can have far greater impact than dozens of small steps in various directions. Most that we spoke with are concerned about protecting budgets for technology and operational process changes.

In past Benchmark studies and again in 2020, in-house leaders say that the biggest challenge to improve operational efficiency is "getting people to change their habits and consistently use new tools", followed by "integrating new approaches with traditional systems."

CVS' AETNA division General Counsel Charlie Klippel commented, "Virtual communication will increase because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, which will demand more robust digital collaboration and management systems."

There was general consensus that the Pandemic experience has shown us that under compelling circumstances, lawyers and their in-house clients are capable of rapidly changing their work habits and tools.  This suggests that they may be less resistant than many have thought to a broader restructuring and digitalization of law departments, provided the department's leaders communicate a compelling and urgent vision.

IT and Digital Skills and Competencies Needed

The Benchmark study identified the skill/competency GCs most want to develop in the coming year, expressed in write-in comments as "knowledge of IT tools and digital, especially data analytics."  For their lower and mid-level in-house legal professionals legal and compliance leaders consider "digital understanding and tech savvy" the most important competency alongside "business acumen."

Our live discussions found that in-house legal/compliance leaders expect the above skills to be of even greater importance today than six months ago.  They also point to the importance of many so-called 'soft skills':

• strategic thinking
• leadership
• coaching
• change management
• communication
• collaboration
• team dynamics

Royanne Doi, in transition from her role as Global Legal, Ethics and Compliance Adviser for Yamaha Corporation in Japan, viewed this finding as evidence of an important role for Legal leaders.  She explained, "We assume that our team has legal skills, so when we're asked what skills we need going forward, it's more about soft skills which are valuable to help corporate leadership understand key reputational risks."  Others commented that many of the soft skills mentioned above are required to manage change and digital transformation.

Overall, our legal/compliance leader discussions underscore the Benchmark findings that digital change is at the top of the agenda for leading law departments worldwide.  While some departments have successfully launched major digital transformations and many are experimenting with technology in selected areas of operations, most departments have not yet put together a comprehensive strategy for digital change.

The experience of the Pandemic, which forced immediate operational changes and will continue to increase financial pressures, has accelerated planning and spurred greater appetite for broad digital transformation.

E. Leigh Dance, based in New York and Brussels, leads the ELD International consultancy and is founder and executive director of Global Counsel Leaders Circle. Jon Pedersen has held several leadership roles in global financial institutions and is currently global adviser to the chairman of the Digital Legal Exchange. The authors thank the in-house leaders that shared their comments.