The Association of Corporate Counsel named Reese Arrowsmith the first chair of the organization's budding legal operations group, called ACC Legal Operations. Arrowsmith, a nonlawyer, currently serves as the vice president and head of legal operations at Campbell Soup Co.

In his new role, Arrowsmith will meet with general counsel and discuss best practices in developing internal legal operations departments and ensure the ACC is providing educational sessions on a variety of topics, such as budget management, project management, value-based fees and outside counsel performance. And part of his job will be to create a “foundational toolkit” that brings new legal operations executives up to speed on developments of the past few years.

“We're going to be collaborating with a broader ACC community on tools, templates, disruptive technologies, the future of legal,” Arrowsmith said. He said he was drawn to the position because—after working on legal operations matters for decades—he saw the ACC as the “perfect place” and “home” to expand that work, and share it with in-house counsel.