Ross Mansbach has worked in a big corporate legal department that didn't need outside counsel for a lot of matters because the company had experts for many types of legal challenges. Now he helps run a small legal department, one that has to use outside counsel more often.

Mansbach is the vice president, deputy general counsel and corporate secretary at Halyard Health Inc., a medical device company that spun off from Kimberly-Clark Corp. in 2014. Mansbach worked for Kimberly-Clark and went to Halyard with the spinoff.

Asked about the key to managing outside counsel, he said, “The first part is just choosing the right counsel. You're going to be working with someone who's extremely capable and driven to help. Assuming you've hired the right counsel, the key is enabling them to do their best work.”