If your first taste of working life was going to Stone Roses and Happy Mondays gigs and doing PR for Daft Punk, then managing the legal aspects of properties in St Albans and looking after data protection has the potential to seem quite dull. But CGI UK & Ireland general counsel Stuart Goldberg seems happy with his lot.

Responsible for legal aspects of the UK business of Canadian IT and business process giant CGI since 2014, Goldberg didn't have the most orthodox of beginnings to his legal career.

Having studied law during the late 80s, Goldberg moved to Manchester to complete the Law Society finals. However, he decided that this was not a profession for him, and lured instead by the city's burgeoning music scene, wrote to legacy Titmuss Sainer & Webb, where he was due to start his articles, to inform them he would not be joining.

"I absolutely hated the old Law Society Finals. But I loved Manchester, which at that time was exploding. Although I passed the final exam it left me with very little appetite to actually study law," he comments.

For around a decade he worked as a music journalist, including a stint running his own record label. But after 10 years of "everything the music industry could throw" at him, Goldberg's priorities changed.

"I realised it was a young person's game and I had been in it 10 years. My priorities had changed; I had a wife, was starting to think about a family, buying a house. I really needed a career change."

Deciding to become a "proper" lawyer, Goldberg got back in contact with Titmuss Sainer (which in 2000 merged to become part of Dechert) to ask if there was any possibility of joining them after all. It was a stroke of luck that former trainee recruitment partner Steven Fogle was by this point the firm's London managing partner.

Goldberg eventually joined the firm in 2000, 11 years after initially applying - making him infamous as the trainee that took the longest to make up his mind. He initially started working in IP litigation, gradually moving into non-contentious work as he got more involved in matters such as data protection.

After six years at Dechert and wanting to move in-house, Goldberg started to look for a job again. But due to his lack of in-house experience (he had never even been on secondment) and Dechert's comparatively low profile in the UK market, roles weren't initially forthcoming.

I am fortunate - or unfortunate - enough to have done data protection since it was deeply unsexy in the early 2000s when nobody was interested in it

He instead joined Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's IP team. "I went to Freshfields even though I swore never to work for a magic circle firm," he recounts. "I was astonished they asked me in and even more astonished they offered a job. I thought what the hell; I'll do it for six months and get it on the CV. I ended up there for 6.5 years."

Knowing he didn't want to be a partner, from there Goldberg moved to Royal Mail's in-house team, where he stayed just 18 months before switching across to CGI to take up the UK general counsel role just as its £2bn acquisition of fellow business services group Logica was bedding down.

The deal (on which Blake Cassels & Graydon, Freshfields and Minter Ellison advised Logica, while Fasken Martineau and Sullivan & Cromwell advised CGI) significantly expanded CGI's UK presence to around 6,000 employees, increasing its competitiveness in a busy market.

Along with one other lawyer from the Logica side of the business, Goldberg's role sees him largely working independently from other CGI regional GCs, with the business model meaning many of the projects are restricted to one market, with each country running its own P&L lines.

Among the work CGI is currently involved in is running Edinburgh city council's outsourced IT function; the Ministry of Defence's secure cloud; and managing Smart Meters for British Gas.

Many of the day-to-day contracts are run by a large contract commercial management team, who carry out most of the negotiations working within a framework agreement. The legal team tends only to be brought in on larger projects, if there is any deviation from the framework or if there is a dispute.

In addition, Goldberg takes responsibility for managing the company's sizable UK property portfolio and HR matters. Prior to Goldberg's arrival these two areas were run separately from the legal team, with their own budgets and their own legal advisers.

Goldberg set about reviewing all of the legal advisers used across the UK business, creating a centralised but informal group of preferred advisers.

"What I found was that because they were all being used by separate departments no one had explored the synergies that could be had or the competitive tension you could drive," he comments. "So one of the things I have been able to do is go out and talk to all the firms and explore the relationship and see what else could be done."

Typically CGI uses DAC Beachcroft for HR matters, Blake Morgan for real estate, and for other areas including disputes or technology advice it tends to turn to either Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co or Pinsent Masons. However, it has recently started using Trowers & Hamlins after taking on a sizable regulatory project which it was felt the other firms didn't have the expertise to advise on.

We are not in these firms' top 10 clients - we are probably not even a top 50 client

While Goldberg is in favour of maintaining a good working relationship with these firms, the reality is much of the company's legal work to date has been done in-house, with CGI currently recruiting for another junior lawyer to join the team.

"The disadvantage is we are not in these firms' top 10 clients - we are probably not even a top 50 client," Goldberg says. "But these are people that we have longstanding relationships with - Blake Morgan, for example, knows our property portfolio inside out, and has visited every one of them."

One of the biggest headaches for the legal team isn't coming from the daily grind of the business so much as the changing regulatory environment, specifically data protection laws. The diversified nature of CGI means that a lot of these matters have tended to be managed on an ad hoc local basis, but changes in data protection laws in the EU in particular mean it is something the entire company has to be aware of.

We do new cutting edge stuff; we create IP -you have to like technology

"CGI's vision is to have everyone marching to the same tune and sometimes that can be difficult when the regulatory environments are drastically different. Data protection is a great example," says Goldberg. "I am fortunate - or unfortunate - enough to have done data protection since it was deeply unsexy in the early 2000s when nobody was interested in it and there were no consequences."

He is working with the legal team at CGI HQ in Montreal on what this vision means for a business like CGI, and who should take ultimate responsibility for areas such as data protection and risk and compliance.

Unsexy it may be, and certainly more down to earth than his previous hedonistic days, but it is firmly at the cutting edge of the technology and IP sector.

"To be a successful in-house counsel you have to understand the business. I can't do stuff my kids can do with technology and I don't go home and do bits of coding, but you do have to understand how technology contracts work, how service level agreements work. We do new cutting edge stuff; we create IP - we are not at the bulk end of the commodity market. You have to like technology - if you're not slightly geeky then this isn't the place for you. "

Stuart Goldberg - career timeline
1985 - 1988 - Studied law at New College, Oxford
1988 - 1989 - Completed Law Society Finals at Manchester Polytechnic
1990 - 2000 - Worked as a music journalist
2000 - Completed Legal Practice Course
2000-2006 - Titmuss Sainer & Webb, later Dechert
2006-2012 - senior associate, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
2013-2014 - Senior legal adviser, ICT, Royal Mail
2014 - present - General counsel, UK & Ireland, CGI

If your first taste of working life was going to Stone Roses and Happy Mondays gigs and doing PR for Daft Punk, then managing the legal aspects of properties in St Albans and looking after data protection has the potential to seem quite dull. But CGI UK & Ireland general counsel Stuart Goldberg seems happy with his lot.

Responsible for legal aspects of the UK business of Canadian IT and business process giant CGI since 2014, Goldberg didn't have the most orthodox of beginnings to his legal career.

Having studied law during the late 80s, Goldberg moved to Manchester to complete the Law Society finals. However, he decided that this was not a profession for him, and lured instead by the city's burgeoning music scene, wrote to legacy Titmuss Sainer & Webb, where he was due to start his articles, to inform them he would not be joining.

"I absolutely hated the old Law Society Finals. But I loved Manchester, which at that time was exploding. Although I passed the final exam it left me with very little appetite to actually study law," he comments.

For around a decade he worked as a music journalist, including a stint running his own record label. But after 10 years of "everything the music industry could throw" at him, Goldberg's priorities changed.

"I realised it was a young person's game and I had been in it 10 years. My priorities had changed; I had a wife, was starting to think about a family, buying a house. I really needed a career change."

Deciding to become a "proper" lawyer, Goldberg got back in contact with Titmuss Sainer (which in 2000 merged to become part of Dechert) to ask if there was any possibility of joining them after all. It was a stroke of luck that former trainee recruitment partner Steven Fogle was by this point the firm's London managing partner.

Goldberg eventually joined the firm in 2000, 11 years after initially applying - making him infamous as the trainee that took the longest to make up his mind. He initially started working in IP litigation, gradually moving into non-contentious work as he got more involved in matters such as data protection.

After six years at Dechert and wanting to move in-house, Goldberg started to look for a job again. But due to his lack of in-house experience (he had never even been on secondment) and Dechert's comparatively low profile in the UK market, roles weren't initially forthcoming.

I am fortunate - or unfortunate - enough to have done data protection since it was deeply unsexy in the early 2000s when nobody was interested in it

He instead joined Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's IP team. "I went to Freshfields even though I swore never to work for a magic circle firm," he recounts. "I was astonished they asked me in and even more astonished they offered a job. I thought what the hell; I'll do it for six months and get it on the CV. I ended up there for 6.5 years."

Knowing he didn't want to be a partner, from there Goldberg moved to Royal Mail's in-house team, where he stayed just 18 months before switching across to CGI to take up the UK general counsel role just as its £2bn acquisition of fellow business services group Logica was bedding down.

The deal (on which Blake Cassels & Graydon, Freshfields and Minter Ellison advised Logica, while Fasken Martineau and Sullivan & Cromwell advised CGI) significantly expanded CGI's UK presence to around 6,000 employees, increasing its competitiveness in a busy market.

Along with one other lawyer from the Logica side of the business, Goldberg's role sees him largely working independently from other CGI regional GCs, with the business model meaning many of the projects are restricted to one market, with each country running its own P&L lines.

Among the work CGI is currently involved in is running Edinburgh city council's outsourced IT function; the Ministry of Defence's secure cloud; and managing Smart Meters for British Gas.

Many of the day-to-day contracts are run by a large contract commercial management team, who carry out most of the negotiations working within a framework agreement. The legal team tends only to be brought in on larger projects, if there is any deviation from the framework or if there is a dispute.

In addition, Goldberg takes responsibility for managing the company's sizable UK property portfolio and HR matters. Prior to Goldberg's arrival these two areas were run separately from the legal team, with their own budgets and their own legal advisers.

Goldberg set about reviewing all of the legal advisers used across the UK business, creating a centralised but informal group of preferred advisers.

"What I found was that because they were all being used by separate departments no one had explored the synergies that could be had or the competitive tension you could drive," he comments. "So one of the things I have been able to do is go out and talk to all the firms and explore the relationship and see what else could be done."

Typically CGI uses DAC Beachcroft for HR matters, Blake Morgan for real estate, and for other areas including disputes or technology advice it tends to turn to either Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co or Pinsent Masons. However, it has recently started using Trowers & Hamlins after taking on a sizable regulatory project which it was felt the other firms didn't have the expertise to advise on.

We are not in these firms' top 10 clients - we are probably not even a top 50 client

While Goldberg is in favour of maintaining a good working relationship with these firms, the reality is much of the company's legal work to date has been done in-house, with CGI currently recruiting for another junior lawyer to join the team.

"The disadvantage is we are not in these firms' top 10 clients - we are probably not even a top 50 client," Goldberg says. "But these are people that we have longstanding relationships with - Blake Morgan, for example, knows our property portfolio inside out, and has visited every one of them."

One of the biggest headaches for the legal team isn't coming from the daily grind of the business so much as the changing regulatory environment, specifically data protection laws. The diversified nature of CGI means that a lot of these matters have tended to be managed on an ad hoc local basis, but changes in data protection laws in the EU in particular mean it is something the entire company has to be aware of.

We do new cutting edge stuff; we create IP -you have to like technology

"CGI's vision is to have everyone marching to the same tune and sometimes that can be difficult when the regulatory environments are drastically different. Data protection is a great example," says Goldberg. "I am fortunate - or unfortunate - enough to have done data protection since it was deeply unsexy in the early 2000s when nobody was interested in it and there were no consequences."

He is working with the legal team at CGI HQ in Montreal on what this vision means for a business like CGI, and who should take ultimate responsibility for areas such as data protection and risk and compliance.

Unsexy it may be, and certainly more down to earth than his previous hedonistic days, but it is firmly at the cutting edge of the technology and IP sector.

"To be a successful in-house counsel you have to understand the business. I can't do stuff my kids can do with technology and I don't go home and do bits of coding, but you do have to understand how technology contracts work, how service level agreements work. We do new cutting edge stuff; we create IP - we are not at the bulk end of the commodity market. You have to like technology - if you're not slightly geeky then this isn't the place for you. "

Stuart Goldberg - career timeline
1985 - 1988 - Studied law at New College, Oxford
1988 - 1989 - Completed Law Society Finals at Manchester Polytechnic
1990 - 2000 - Worked as a music journalist
2000 - Completed Legal Practice Course
2000-2006 - Titmuss Sainer & Webb, later Dechert
2006-2012 - senior associate, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
2013-2014 - Senior legal adviser, ICT, Royal Mail
2014 - present - General counsel, UK & Ireland, CGI