2 GCs and a Law Firm Partner answer YOUR questions. Kate Dugan and Joe Glynias return to join Stacy Bratcher in The Legal Department and share their views on maintaining and getting the best value out of in-house relationships. They talk about managing remote teams, crisis communications, and how to get up to speed managing a new function. Joe also reflects on the first year of Husch Blackwell’s “HB In-House” program, including some hot takes about what it is like to be in-house counsel.

Got a burning question for Office Hours? Reach out at hello@legaldepartmentpod.com

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Listen to the podcast here

About Joe Glynias

As an employment law attorney, Joe connects with clients, their businesses and their employees so he can provide the ongoing, custom guidance they deserve.

Joe concentrates much of his practice on the facets of employment law that regularly change, such as wage and hour collective/class actions under state and federal law. This developing, and often times state-specific, body of law offers new arguments and fresh approaches for Joe to seize as he vigorously advocates for his clients. He also counsels clients on the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), Department of Labor actions and discrimination laws.

Joe knows that most employers genuinely have their employees’ best interests at heart and want to promote a productive, satisfying work environment. However, there is often uncertainty within the evolving layers of employment law. From routine counseling to investigations and litigation, he is a trusted partner as clients navigate the labor and employment jungle.

After serving on the firm’s Executive Board from 2015-2022, where he played a major role in revising and modernizing the firm’s performance expectations and evaluation metrics, Joe became the firm’s chair, effective April 1, 2024.

Joe also serves as an executive sponsor of the firm’s HB Allies Employee Resource Group.

   

About Kate Dugan

Kate Dugan leads the Legal function for Energizer Holdings and serves as the primary legal advisor for Energizer globally and as Corporate Secretary to Energizer’s Board of Directors.

Since joining Energizer in 2014, Kate has held various leadership roles, most recently as Energizer’s Associate General Counsel, Commercial, Marketing and Intellectual Property. Previously, Kate was a litigator with Greenberg Traurig in Chicago; Shook, Hardy & Bacon in Kansas City, Missouri; and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner in St. Louis.

Kate holds a Juris Doctorate from Saint Louis University and a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri.

Transcript

On this episode of the Legal Department, we’re taking a left turn into our office hours and I have two repeat guests here to bat around your questions. Kate Dugan, who is General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Energizer Holdings and she was on Episode 48 of the show. I also have Joe Glynias, who is the Chair of Husch Blackwell and he was on Episode 30. I’m excited to bring them back together and answer your questions. Kate and Joe, great to have you.

It’s great to be back.

All About Kate Dugan and Joe Glynias

I don’t want to go into your backgrounds too deeply, but I do want to set the stage. Joe, you’re a law firm partner and head of the firm. Kate is in-house. As we know from her prior conversation here, she has also worked at a firm. We’re going to be answering the reader questions but a theme that we’re going to work through is law firm in-house relationships. Especially for folks new to a GC role coming from a law firm that’s a different experience. I think we both get value out of those relationships. I want to dig into those issues with both of you. Kate, why don’t you just kick off? Give us just a high-level of your role and your team.

I am the General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Energizer Holdings, home of our wonderful battery lighting and many people don’t know but great auto care products. Probably since our last conversation, the only updates for you is that my remit has widened a little bit. In addition to government affairs and regulatory, we now have our compliance and trade compliance colleagues in our function as well and have added ESG. We have a lot going on in our department and a lot of great colleagues. I’m very excited to share that exciting update for my role.

Congratulations. Joe?

Not a whole lot has changed with me. I’m still in the same role at the firm serving as the chair. We have a full-time non-lawyer CEO who is the one responsible for running the place. My main job duties are to run the board and then interact with her in whatever other largely external efforts the firm has toward lateral or group combinations. In terms of the firm itself, the only real changes since we last talked. We moved up a bit in the MLAW rankings. Now we’re 78, so watch out.

Congrats. Your episode was about the HB in-house program. I’m very curious about what you learned from that program. To remind everybody, that’s a program where the firm helps folks who are working for the firm get exposure to in-house careers. Do you want to just give a little bit of background about that?

This was something that we put in place. In fact, we just started year two. It was supposed to be a response to what we identified, which was a gap in the development efforts that we were making as a firm to help our people grow. We always and for many years, have done a lot to help them be good technicians, be good partners, and help them understand the business of law but did nothing to help prepare them for whatever unique elements exist to be in-house. The reality is, a lot of our people leave us to be in-house lawyers at some point in time.

The last time we checked, about 42% of our alumni were in-house. As a law firm that prides itself on providing development opportunities and development information for our folks, we felt like that was real miss. We created this program so that we could provide that background so that anyone who was interested in going in-house, not only would get that education but also, hopefully, find a safe space to say, “I’m interested in that path in my career.” That has been the case. To your direct question about what we have learned, is what we learned is our suspicions were right.

There were a good number of people who were anxious about raising their hand. Still, even with the broad embrace of this path through the program and other things. There are still a couple people from time to time who will call me and say, “I’d love to know what’s in the program, but I don’t want to participate so that people who don’t know them,” which is fine. We give them the materials and all the opportunities and hopefully, someday get past that anxiety for everyone here and say, “It’s fine to say I’m interested.”

The fact of the matter is, and this is something that people will see over time. We have just as many people who go through the program because they’re interested in going in-house as people who go through the program with no interest in going in-house. They just want to learn more and want to understand their clients. They want to broaden their own educational base. Very soon, it will be the broadly held belief that just because you’re in the program, doesn’t mean that you’re a short-timer.

What Is General Counsel Work (And What Isn’t)

That’s amazing, by the way. I would hold on to those people that have recognized that learning about the in-house role can help them in their career. I want to dig in a little bit, and I’m going to start with Kate but I’m wondering if you have a perspective on this as well. Kate, this is a reader question, “I’ve been in my GC role for over two years. I have a team, so I understand that the majority of my time is focused on managing that team and making sure they get work done. I feel like I’m supposed to still be doing legal work and I know that for myself that there are certain things I still do. How do I know what GC work is?”

May I dial back to Joe’s last comment about each being in-house and provide a plug for it, then I’m going to answer that question?

For sure.

I have a fun fact for you, Stacy. Energizer is the beneficiary of, I believe, two participants in the HB in-house program. I also participate in the HB in-house program as I can, and let me just plug it. It is one of the most phenomenal programs out there. Husch produces great lawyers anyway, but the in-house program has produced at least two lawyers who are ready to become ultra-contributors in our organization. I just wanted to provide that fun fact that it is not just talk. It is real and we, ourselves, have been beneficiaries of that program.

No money changed hands for that, Stacy.

I just wanted to make sure that was said because it is a fun fact.

Thank you. That was a host faux pas that I did not throw to you. I was not sure if that was the case or not. Joe, I also want to give you kudos because this is probably obvious. I would imagine that those two lawyers who came from Husch and are loyal to you from going through their in-house program and now have their first in-house jobs are probably still sending you folks work. Well done.

Thank you. For what it is worth, too. Some people sometimes think that we just put the people we do not want in this program. These are very good lawyers. These are the people we value a lot.

Thank you for letting me do that, and onto this very good question, what is GC work? What is not GC work? I am going to answer it maybe in two parts. I did give some thought to this one because, Stacy, you were kind enough to give me a preview of some of the questions. The first thing I will say is that if you are sitting in a GC seat at this point, you have learned the lesson that your substantive knowledge and your technical abilities are minimized now to your capacity to influence and your ability to get things done in a larger organization and on a cross-functional basis.

You have already had to stop doing a lot of the technical work that you used to do so that you can be able to open your mind up to be able to address the strategic issues and the leadership roles that you would have had to have accomplished before becoming a general counsel. What I will say is, you already have the skill set to decide what is or isn’t appropriate for your workload. That is number one. A lot of it is just tests and learning and schedule.

The probably third piece of it is delegation and trusting the team that you have to do the work. Maybe not as you would, but in a responsible, competent and effective way. That’s point one. You have the skill set to make those determinations. I think this is very organization specific. Point two, I always get very skeptical of people who are like, “That is not the right level for me, or I cannot possibly be doing that because I am the fill-in-the-blank executive or fill-in-the-blank leader.”

Meaning that the work is below them?

Meaning that the work is below them or not in lane. As a general counsel or any leader of any function, two things. Number one, this concept of narrow lane, at least for me, has not been predominant in my career. I am providing input on things that admittedly are not legal. They are for sure more business-focused questions and conversations, which this is going to be attached as exhibit A to whatever litigation when we are having an argument over. In any event, it is a real comment about the role.

What I would say to the question is, do not be too narrow in where you think you can either add value or have a voice at the table because you do have a perspective that is important to bring to the table. The second thing is, we all are there to get jobs done. This is very organization-specific. Some organizations are very sensitive about what’s your job but other organizations are more, “Let’s pull together and get stuff done.” I work much more on that. There are times when I am doing work that no human being would ever say, “That’s an executive level job.” It needs to be done, because we are all trying to accomplish something together.

I’d say I wouldn’t be too fussy about defining a bucket of what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate. What I would do is be real protective of your time to be able to do the real work of your role, which is setting a strategic vision not only for your function, but contributing to the overall strategic ambitions of the enterprise that you are working for. That’s where the puts and takes of what you do on a day-to-day basis. You have to be guided by that as your North Star.

There’s so much there and I agree with that answer. One thing that was in my mind as you were talking. I’m doing things that are not executive level work and one thing I find with my team or I found this in the past. When I see that they are underwater or their plates are overflowing and I offer, and it’s a dumb thing.

It’s a little thing and people are always like, “I can do it.” There’s this reluctance to let things go and delegate up but I wonder if that’s your experience as well. I feel like as a manager, my job in some ways is to help be a relief valve. Either calling outside counsel like Joe, or bringing an attempted fractional resource or rolling up my sleeves myself. I don’t know if you see that as well.

Do not lose touch with your legal practice. It allows you to be a more effective leader and maintain your credibility. Share on X

What you just described, that descriptor of a relief valve is great. There is a dynamic when your boss is managing work that is on your plate and people don’t like that. Even if you are such a great manager, you’d never feel bad about doing someone else’s work. That still is an impression that they’re going to have or at least a dynamic I’d say in that.

It’s like I can’t cut it. I can’t get it.

Whether that’s right or wrong, that is how people feel. I find it to be a much more constructive conversation to be like, “It is clear. You’ve got however many hours a week work week and you double that amount on your plate. Let’s talk about who can manage the overflow.” Also, let’s talk about maybe prioritizing because this is another key part for our teams. It’s not only finding the right resources for them, but it’s also being clear about what we should and shouldn’t be prioritizing in your organization. As a general counsel, chief legal officer, you have the proximity to the people that are talking about what is mattering the most to the organization on a day-to-day basis.

It’s our job to bring that insight and whether it’s your one-on-one, your legal team meeting, or your department meeting. It’s one of the reasons why I talked so transparently about our earnings calls, which are externally facing the community. This is our business communication. What are the corporate priorities? What are our CEO and our CFO talking about? You understand what they’re talking about so that the work that you’re doing is supporting what they’re saying and is supporting the ambitions of the organization. Transparency is key.

I don’t know about you. It sounds like you’re doing a great job of it. I am always confused and this is a reflection on my leadership. I’m not doing a good enough job letting people know what the priorities are because a lot of times, I’m like, “Why are you working on that? That should be at the bottom or mid of your list.” I sent an email like, “This is our number one thing. Let’s get this done.” Joe, I have two questions for you related to this. I’m wondering if anything that Kate is sharing is anything that you learned or observed in HB in-house? Do you have awareness of this issue?

I do. I was a participant in the 2024 HB in-house class, so I got to hear from people like Kate and Kate herself talk about these things. I remember in my one-on-one with mine. We had a conversation that echoed a lot of the things that you guys already talked about and added another piece. There’s a level of credibility that comes along with being a leader who can demonstrate the ability to do the things that the people who he or she is leading are doing themselves. It’s something we talk about here, too.

It’s a law firm and we are forward thinking in a sense we have lots of non-lawyers in leadership positions but we still have lawyers in leadership positions, too. We talk to all of them and say, “Do not lose touch with your practice.” Selfishly, you should want to keep it but if for no other reason, it allows you to be a more effective leader of your people, if you can have the credibility to show that you’re capable of doing those things.

That is second to what you all have already said, which is setting the strategy and the vision for the team setting priorities, and then allowing them to have success with the things they’re asked to do without stepping on their toes. When the opportunity comes up, the ability to demonstrate and the ability to do the work provides that credibility in a way that makes leadership a little easier.

Demonstrating Your Knowledge And Technical Expertise

That’s a great point. I’m thinking back to very early in my in-house career, and I came from a law firm, and healthcare firm, where I did a lot of regulatory work. Knowledge and demonstrating technical expertise was an important success metric. When I got in-house, and I would imagine this resonates with anybody in-house. It is shocking how many things you don’t know and yet you need to make a judgment call at the moment.

Making that transition from a technical role to a non-technical role was not a crisis, but I felt some discord internally about it. It felt very uncomfortable. One of the things that was uncomfortable, and I want the law firm perspective here. I would use outside counsel, and I would feel and maybe this was because I was more junior. I felt like I needed to demonstrate when I was calling a partner at a firm. I’m not an idiot.

It’s like, “This is what I think but I felt pressure to demonstrate that technical expertise, even though I was phoning a friend.” You want the law firm people to respect you. There is a little vulnerability when you call for help. I’m wondering and maybe this is too candid. Is there anything that in-house lawyers need to be aware of? Is there anything they need to be worried about just as they present issues, or develop those candid conversations with their law firm partners?

That is a fantastic question. The short answer is going to be no, but it’s going to be no from the perspective that I’ve always lived. I’ve always worked at a large law firm. The model of any large law firm is that everyone specializes and some of us specialize in very narrow things. The import of that in some ways can be that it’s unreasonable to expect that anyone would be as specialized in the thing that we do as we are. At least from my experience, and I’m a labor employment attorney. We didn’t mention that to the audience at the beginning. Even if I’m dealing with an inside employment attorney that doesn’t mean that they were an expert in the 2030 exception to the FLSA for donning and doffing activities.

No one can see this, but Kate and I both recoiled at that.

Glad you know it, Joe.

Exactly. Hopefully, I won’t say anything else to make you guys sick on the rest. I will tell you, at least from my perspective. Never once in my interactions with inside counsel did I expect they were going to come with the same breadth of knowledge on these topics that we have. I will say that very commonly, it’s easy to see just how talented all these folks are.

To flip your question on its head a little bit, Stacy. Many times, I get jealous after talking with the in-house counsel to see how much more they know about other things than I know about my small, very niche practice. I would say no one should feel any anxiety about that and certainly from an outside counsel perspective. We’re, most of the time, not bringing that perspective with us.

Sensitize your organization outside the crisis to determine when you need to be more careful about how you communicate. Share on X

Thanks. I still do it. I’ll say, “I’m not an expert here. I’m working on a big real estate deal now.” I’ve never done real estate in my career, by the way. It’s very difficult to be guiding a big project and you don’t know what the legal issues are.

Stacy, if I can offer a slightly different perspective on this. That’s a very powerful position to be sitting in. You are not stupid. To be honest with you, with all due respect to every single legal professional out there, none of us are performing brain surgery. None of us are. It’s very advantageous to have, maybe superficial knowledge because everyone can go get superficial knowledge by Google or AI or whatever you choose. It’s not sufficient to be able to guide or advise your business.

Everyone can get superficial knowledge so that they at least know generally what questions you should be asking and what the conversation should be. When you get on the phone with an expert like Joe or a real estate expert or whatever. I find it to be a very powerful position to put that person to task like, “Explain this to me, please.” I, like you, do the same thing and Joe knows because I’ve had conversations with him where I’m like, “I have no idea what you just said. I need you to take five minutes and use real words and tell me what you just said.”

That is powerful because you, as the chief legal officer, of the organization are going to go out to talk to your CEO. You’re going to have to use real words and explain the situation to him or her and I’m just going to use this as a crazy example. Say, you’ve got a blue pants issue. We can’t wear blue pants. Why? It’s a reasonable and easily understandable reason.

You’ve taken a lot of time to understand the reason, and you’re able to translate it to the organization and guide them to make good decisions. Which may be one is like, “We’re going to wear blue pants. We probably need to be prepared for some outcomes as a result of wearing blue pants. Here’s what they might be but we’re willing to go into these eyes wide open.” That’s the conversations that you have every day.

Managing The Flow Of Information

That’s great bringing the newbie and thank you for bolstering my confidence because it’s true. When you are somebody who’s familiar with the area, you tend to not realize some of the things you’re taking for granted that people understand when they don’t. That’s awesome. I’m going to shift to the next question and again, this is going to hit for both of you but I’m going to start with Kate.

“One of my biggest challenges is managing information. The best example I can give of this is during a crisis or high-profile project. I find a tension between keeping people up to date, knowing who those people are and managing confidentiality, which we all work in a confidential space. Any suggestions on how you know who to loop in and how to manage the flow of information?” I thought this was a great question. Very complex but, Kate, start with you.

It’s very complex and I would say, again, it is very organization specific. We are a very communicative, connected organization, which in so many ways is wonderful. People know what’s going on. People communicate about issues, big and small all the time. It’s great. Sometimes and particularly in our space, there are issues that cannot be talked about on a broad basis. I’ll say a few things. Number one, the first thing you can do is sensitize your organization outside the crisis to why there are times when you’ll need to be more careful about how you communicate.

There are great careful communications training out there. There are even you either do it yourself, which I recommend versus bringing outside counsel in to help you because they want to hear from you about why we need to be careful on how we communicate. In doing that, you will have to sensitize your organization beforehand about why there might be circumstances where you need to be a little bit more cautious or maybe a lot more cautious in how you communicate and why. For example, Kate can’t tell you every single thing that’s going on in a compliance investigation or a particular piece of litigation or whatever.

They’ll know that, “I don’t want to convert myself into a witness in litigation.” I’d say that fundamental groundwork in the organization is important. One of the things we’ve tried to do as an organization is improve those trainings, keep them light and short, but keep them frequent and top of mind for our colleagues so that they understand it.

To maybe the more specific question, which is like, “I’m in the middle of a crisis and everyone wants to know what’s going on now. Everybody’s super curious about it.” Communication again is super key but it’s going to be very specific. You’re going to have to have probably a face-to-face conversation with whoever is dying to know about whatever you’re trying to protect them from.

We can talk about a logical or more sensible way of sharing communication, but we have to keep the reins on who knows about this for this reason. It’s much more targeted, I’m going to use the word training, but it’s a much more targeted conversation that is very specific to either the person or the group of individuals who are feeling like they need to know. There are other people in the organization. I’m just going to say this flat out where you may not want to tell them, but you do have to let them know what’s going on.

Your CEO needs to know what’s going on. Other people are going to need to know what’s going on so that, for example, they can help you make the best decisions for the company. Remember, we are ultimately the lawyer for the organization and the organization is the one that holds the decision-making rights as well as decisions around privilege and all of these topics. It’s very case specific.

It is very organization specific, but one of the best things that you can do just to harken back to what I said first is just get the organization sensitized to like why versus keeping a tight lip and not explaining there’s no harm in explaining, “I’m happy to have a conversation, but here’s what’s on my mind and why I’m not able to share this with you.”

   

Joe, I wonder. I’m sure you’re also litigating. I would imagine that frustrating for you at times to deal with the evidence witnesses that you’re like, “Why are they even here? Why did they have to tell the janitor or why was marketing involved in blah, blah, blah?” What do you learn from Kate’s perspective there?

What I would say that I learned is, you feel the same thing here. My dual role as a lawyer and then as a manager of this organization. All the things that she said are right. Providing that understanding goes a long way in getting buy-in for the times when you can’t share. The interesting element Kate said more than once, it depends. It’s organization specific. My particular organization is a bunch of lawyers. About half of our 2,100 people are all lawyers. Inherently lawyers understand the need for confidentiality.

The tension I have is we’re also a partnership. As partners, all of them feel like, “I’m an owner in the business, so I should know everything that you know.” That all being said, they do get it. The only thing I would add to what Kate said and this just follows on because it’s an outcropping of the approach she described. I think you get more buy-in for those moments when you can’t share by sharing as much as you can in other moments and we do that. We are a very transparent firm and I tell them all the time.

Here’s an easy example, the executive orders from President Trump directed toward law firms earlier in the year. There was a lot of conversation about that and I shared as much as I possibly could. Every time I spoke with the law firm though, I said, “There are certain things I can’t share and you understand why.” That’s all I had to say and they did. It grows out of what Kate said, providing an explanation but also sharing as much as you can when you can. It creates a little bit of confidence that you’re not trying to hide information just for the sake of hiding it.

I wonder if you guys have any tactical advice here because having done a lot of firefighting in my career. Keeping people up to date is almost a full-time job. I don’t know if you’re in a crisis that the law firm recognizes or the crisis comms firm you’re working with. I don’t know if people realize that like the internal work, there’s the project, the crisis you’re dealing with and then there’s the internal work of like therapy sessions with people and communications. Have you ever delegated a resource? It’s a lot for the GC to be mission control for managing internal comms, but you need a lawyer to do it for privilege reasons. Any thoughts on that, Kate or Joe?

I would appreciate it if your readers would send in their suggestions other than mine because I have not figured this out either. I think you’ve hit on probably the top one, which is trust your team and delegate where you can, but be honest because there are some messages that the organization wants to hear from you. They want to hear it from you. Maybe you can have somebody help you continue writing those communications or scheduling those meetings or getting the talking points together.

The truth of the matter is, I like that phrase mission control. People want to hear from you. How do you feel about this particular development and a piece of litigation? How do you feel about whatever this geopolitical or macroeconomic issue is, it’s going to have a legal impact on the organization? How do you feel about it? I’d say pull on the help that you have in your organization, which is why you got to build a great team. I am still struggling with this. It’s rough and I will say the technology of our world does not help.

It makes it way worse.

Google alerts are my nemesis. People who decide to write to other people in our organization before I have had an opportunity to even think about what occurred is frustrating and it happens. The only thing I would say is pivot and move on and get your advice out there or get your guide out there as quickly as you can. The only thing I have figured out to do is build a phenomenal team that knows when to help you out.

Joe, Kate touched on this in her earlier answer and I’ve certainly done this where you have a key person, an executive or a business leader or whatever, and they want to know but by informing them, if they don’t have a direct reason to know, it turns them into a witness. Maybe the legal lens here advises around that and helps manage that tension.

To be honest, I don’t have a more creative solution other than what we do, which is we are very direct about it. We say exactly that. It’s better for you. It’s better for the firm if this conversation doesn’t extend to you. I can’t recall an instance where after having a conversation with someone along those lines, I bet I’ve probably done it a dozen times. For someone didn’t understand or was upset or upset or pushback. Again, that’s not super creative for your readers but it’s the truth. Being very direct and blunt about it is the fix.

I will say in 2024, I had a former colleague that called me to thank me because I kept them out of the line of fire. I’m just saying, “Did you want to get deposed about this?”

As an employment lawyer, one of the best defenses I always have to a claim of retaliation is the alleged bad actor didn’t know. How can they retaliate when they never even knew? That’s a pretty good defense.

Let’s take that to the bank right there.

The action item there for people thinking about, “How do I implement that?” This is not an easy action item, but it is a building of trust with your organization and also not abusing moments where you need to maintain confidentiality. I have worked in legal organizations under leaders who I would say abused privilege. Used privilege as a means of withholding information from the organization. It’s not healthy.

We are very sensitive to that but it’s that trust that you’ve built with the organization so that when Joe has that conversation he just described, which is not an easy conversation to have. The conversation you had with executives to say, “I can’t involve you in this and here’s why.” When they have that conversation, maybe they don’t like what you’re saying but they trust you. They’re like, “I trust Stacy. I trust Joe. I just need to do what they’re saying here because what they’re saying is probably right. Even though I don’t know everything about what they’re saying.”

Team Building Advice For Remote Teams

Let’s switch to a lighter but still important question. This is something many of us have struggled with post pandemic. Although, I know Joe and Husch Blackwell have been leaders in this area. The question is, “I’m new to managing a team. I’ve been head of legal on a small team for a while, and we expanded to several other offices throughout the country in different time zones. What suggestions do you have for team building, especially remote teams?” Joe, I’ll start with you.

As you alluded to, Husch Blackwell has maintained a virtual office that we call the Link since before COVID. It spans back to probably about 2005 or ’06, when we started to have lawyers. At the time, we were a law firm that had maybe 5 or 6 offices. Now we’re 20, 22, or 23 depending on the day.

I look forward to learning more about that math.

I know it. It changes all the time. We announced a new office in Atlanta. At any rate, we had these lawyers who for one reason or another, were leaving the location where we had a physical office. Sometimes a spouse had a job somewhere else, or there was a family need to be with a parent or whatever. We didn’t want to lose them in the firm. The question to us became, was there a way to keep them as part of our law firm, even though they weren’t working in a brick and mortar?

This was way before the times of Teams or Zoom or anything like that and we did. We did it successfully for many years. In fact, the lawyer who I still call the best lawyer that I know has worked remotely for us since 2006 or ‘07. She followed a spouse who had an interest in something in a city where we didn’t have an office. We now have an office there just out of coincidence. At any rate, she was remote for about seventeen years and it worked great.

We did more and more of that. Once we got to a point of feeling like it worked and it was an advantage for us to be able to proliferate it. We created this office called the Link. Now the Link has over 800 people in it and 240 of them are lawyers. Many of them work on the same team. We have a massive and very successful toxic tort practice. Many of them work together, but that’s only about half. A little bit less than half of the Link. There’s still lots of folks in that office who are not part of that practice.

What does that mean in that office? Tell us what the Link is. I’m dying to know.

It’s a great question and it’s funny because to the point we were talking about earlier, where people may not know all the different languages and concepts they know. We talk about the Link now as an office like it’s part of secondhand. We regard it as one of our offices. We have an office managing partner. It has a budget. It is evaluated on productivity and contribution the same way that all of our offices are. The Link is everyone who chooses to work full-time remote from home is part of this office that we call the Link.

We currently have an office managing partner and a co-office managing partner. I’m probably screwing up those titles but two people help to run it. They have monthly partner meetings and scheduled opportunities to get people together in every city where we have people who are part of the Link, but we also have a brick and mortar.

We have lots of intentional outreach to bring those folks together. It’s a good example here in our St. Louis office. We have dozens of attorneys who are in town in St. Louis. Some of whom are within walking distance of the office, but prefer to work from home. We have a Link happy hour, Link social, and that’s at 4:00 in the St. Louis office, if anybody wants to come by.

That’s an in-person thing. Your lawyer who’s 20 or 18 years out of the office, how do they participate in the St. Louis happy hour?

They don’t come to the St. Louis one, but in addition to having office specific ones. We do broader outreach outreaches where regions get together for a certain thing. That’s not every month like our happy hour is, but it does happen on a regular basis. The leadership from the Link gets around to various regions throughout the country and meets with those groups when they’re there. Virtually, they have all kinds of virtual activities that take place. It’s a super intentional action to get this group together. Everyone who’s in the Link also is part of a practice group of some kind. We do practice group activities so that those bonds continue.

Putting them into an intentional structure. Kate, I know Energizer has offices throughout the country and you’re global as well. What do you guys do?

You get more buy-in for moments when you cannot share information by sharing as much as you can in other moments. Share on X

Again, I’m going to help Joe plug. It’s so smart and I do suspect it is a competitive advantage to be able to offer that to colleagues to work how they wish. I will say that Energizer similarly, particularly in our legal department, has leaned into the competitive advantage of allowing our colleagues to work where they would like. All being said, there are times when we need to get together because it’s important to do so, because we’ve got a business reason why we need to get together. Whether that’s a board meeting or some other large scale planning meeting where it is just simply better to be face-to-face across each other from a table or tables.

There are other opportunities to get together. We sometimes have training or other things where we’ve been able to be face-to-face and those are unquestionably important. As anyone that works for a company knows, sometimes travel dollars are dollars that are the ones where people are like, “I don’t know. Do we need to do that?” You do need to find ways to make this technology work. My advice on this is not creative. It is not inspirational. It is very logistical. That is to promote a camera’s own culture. Camera’s on is important. This is my opinion.

I know that there are others who have a different opinion, but I will say that it matters to be able to see your faces and to see how you’re reacting to the thing that I’m saying. It’s not the exact same thing as sitting across from each other at a table but it promotes more of that environment where you are together to have your cameras on.

I’m just debating whether I should talk about him, but my spouse works for a company that does not have a cameras on culture. He works at our home occasionally, too. I walk past him and I see his meetings where it’s just a bunch of black squares. I’m like, “Are you guys even engaged with each other?” I’m sure they are. It’s a great company and I’m sure they’re doing it the right way, too. For me, I find that having cameras on matters a lot in the quality of the interaction.

How Leaders Should Manage Multitasking Teams

We don’t have a specific rule around it, but I usually will encourage it. What do you do when you see people multitasking? I’m guilty. I own it. Any strategies?

I wish I had something super insightful. I’m also a multitasker. It’s a miracle I haven’t gotten text messages from people I work with during this report.

We shut off your access.

It’s blocked.

Multitasking I would say is part of the job. To me, the focus is less on maybe the act of multitasking and more on like, “Did you hear what I said? Are we maximizing the value of the time that we have together?” Even though maybe your attention was focused for two seconds on responding to a text message or responding to an email that was clearly urgent that came in while we were talking. If the person who you’re having a meeting with or the team conversation that you’re having is like, it’s not happening.

You’re not having the quality of conversation that you need to have. For me, honestly, sometimes I’ll just say, “It looks like there’s something going on now. It is clearly more urgent than this conversation, so let’s reschedule this.” Sometimes, you just have to be that bold to be like, “We need to have this conversation. It is clear there’s something more predominant that’s occurring now. Let’s all shut down this call and just reschedule it.” Sometimes, it’s just bravery to do that.

Joe, anything to add there?

I assume that no one’s ever listening to me, so I just accept it and keep going on.

Said by the guy with four kids.

They’re clearly not listening.

How GCs Should Handle Litigation Management

No one’s listening to you. We’re rounding the bend here, but this might be something that you both can contribute to. To our earlier conversation about when you get in-house, especially in the GC role. You go many times from being technical to being general. People get to the GC role in a lot of ways, but many times it’s from doing a deal, being a deal lawyer at a firm and you’ve done a job and then the company wants you to run things. This question comes from somebody like that.

The best client relationships are the best interpersonal relationships with people on the other side. Share on X

“I’m a transactional lawyer by training, but as GC, I have to oversee our litigation portfolio. Litigation management is tough for me since I don’t know what to expect in terms of timing, results, and budget. What do I need to know as a GC?” This is a tough question to answer in bullet points but Joe, maybe you can just lead off here and give them some nuggets.

Part of it is accepting that litigation is unpredictable. You can never know exactly what the timing is going to be. I do think that much of this depends on who you’re working with as outside counsel. Hopefully, this isn’t a cop-out because it sounds like you want to fix the problem, just call Husch Blackwell.

I’ve heard that throughout the episode, especially that donning and doffing. I know who to call.

There are six nerds in the country who understood what I said. They’re welcome to call. We believe strongly that, if you’re dealing with a firm of our size and a firm of our experience. You are paying for niche expertise. Many of your cases involve or at least require some of that. At least some of the bigger ones for sure. Your lawyers should be able to forecast it in some way that’s reliable. We are heavy users of alternative fee arrangements.

In litigation, that can be challenging but it’s not impossible. There are different ways to approach it. As I mentioned with my nod to wage an hour law. As a litigator, most of what I do is class and collective action litigation. Putting a class action into an alternative fee or a flat fee is something that scares the pants off a lot of people, but it doesn’t need to. You can do it in an all-in big number. We do it all the time and say, “This is how much you’re going to pay.”

Now, that doesn’t help you with the timing piece of it. Timing’s always, to a certain extent, out of your control. Courts are busy. Judges have unexpected decisions, whatever the case might be but it can give you budget certainty. If you’re uncomfortable with one big all-in number, which I would understand why. We do a lot of phased flat fees in litigation. For initial fact finding, it’s going to be X. For initial written discovery, it’s going to be Y. For deposition discovery, it’s going to be Z. If we get on to the next phase, we’ll give you a number for that, too.

Every time you hit those phases, it’s triggered. There’s a lot of certainty with that as well. The nice thing about the phased flat fee model is it gives you off-ramps. If you, as the client, if something changes for you or the organization, and it’s no longer a priority to pursue this litigation, or maybe something changes the law and your position gets significantly strengthened or worsened or weakened.

There are off-ramps where you can say, “Let’s just end the case now for whatever reason.” To the piece about budget, my advice would be if you’re working with lawyers who are competent. They should be able to give you that proposal and a fee structure to manage litigation. In terms of timing and results.

Kate, any advice for somebody new to managing a lit portfolio when they came from trying to deal work?

I have two things. First of all, you could have inverted the words of that question and it would have been my story. Which is, “I’m a litigator. I’ve never done corporate secretarial work or managed a board. Can someone tell me how to do this?” I was your most unlikely candidate for corporate secretary when I became general counsel because I had not had that type of exposure and had to learn it. What I’ll say is remain curious. It is not rocket science. You will figure it out. It will be fine.

In terms of budget and litigation and all the fear that comes with managing a litigation budget and even understanding what’s going on in a litigation and why summary judgment is so expensive or why class certification is so expensive. First of all, you can learn all of those things and should be leaning on your lawyers to help you explain in real words what those phases mean and why they’re important so that you can explain to your CFO why you need this huge chunk of money to manage a piece of litigation.

What I’ll say now in managing many fiscal years of many overall legal budgets, but also litigation budgets. I did manage the company’s litigation for a long time, where you get twisted up in the organization is surprising. The best thing you can do to help avoid surprises are these alternative fee arrangements or other phased approaches to certain pieces of litigation where it’s particularly receptive to that type of arrangement and talk about that when you’re talking about the spend that you think you’re going to need on a particular litigation.

I have found that the firms that are willing to work with us on AFAs or other mechanisms to bring certainty to spend the better off you’re going to be. A legal budget doesn’t exist in a vacuum at a company. A legal budget will roll up into, for us, it’s our SGA. For other companies, it sits elsewhere. That rolls into your annual business planning, which rolls into your forecast for your year and your auditors care about it. All the business outcomes that you plan to deliver on a year-on-year basis.

If you have a big delta between what you said you were going to deliver in terms of financial spend versus what you delivered in terms of financial spend. That can have major implications for the company’s results. Bringing certainty to spend and avoiding surprises are your two tools to avoid drama around litigation spend. Everyone on this call, we all know you cannot predict what a court is going to do and when they’re going to do it. You can’t go into a motion and say, “It’d be great if you got this done in Q3 instead of Q4.” You can’t do that. You can say to your CFO, “It’s going to cost us $500,000 to get this done. We’re going to try to do it for less but this is our best estimate. By the way, we have an AFA.”

Kate, I can’t thank you enough for making that point. That is something somebody who is new to in-house and does not have experience with litigation to know the unpredictability needs to know. Being partners with the finance department and communicating with them all the time is crucial. I’ll just refer everyone to Episode 59 of the legal department, which is all about the Brass Tacks of Litigation Management with Adwoa Ghartey-Tagoe Seymour, who was at that time VP of Litigation, Albertsons and now leads litigation for Lowe’s. She said the exact same thing that partnering with finance is key.

Building A Good Law Firm In-House Relationship

As we’re rounding the bend here, I wanted to close with some general conversation about law firm in-house relationships. Joe, I want to lead off with you because, again, from that HB in-house experience, what did you learn about that or maybe share some just insights about what makes for a good law firm in-house relationship?

It’s probably a little lame, but it’s been my experience both through HB in-house and in my own practice. It’s having a genuine partnering perspective on these things. It leads to the best outcomes, to the most gratification, probably the most enjoyment for both sides and the knowledge and expectation that something’s going to go wrong at some point in time, but you are partnered together. You are committed to each other. For example, my commitment to my clients is when those things happen, we run into trouble.

The second we know about it, we’re going to let it and we’re going to come up with a fix and together we’re going to get through it. The client’s commitment there is the same. We are going to work together to come up with this. We’re not going to point fingers, but we are going to get better. We are going to make sure that this type of thing doesn’t happen in the future for one reason or another. That type of thing goes in both directions. In HB in-house, we talk about a lot of things, but one of them is building relationships and this is no different.

You have to put time into the relationship. It’s not just making sure that you send the email on time or that the email is fulsome. You need to understand each other, understand what the business needs, and understand what the individuals you’re acting with need. That’s why HB in-house has been so good. It’s given our people a bit more of a window into that life. In my 22 years of practicing law, I can say without equivocation that the best client relationships we have are where we have the best interpersonal relationships with the folks on the other side.

I agree and not to keep touting at HB in-house. I’ll bite. Another thing that the program does a good job at is not only encouraging these types of strong relationships, but also a deeper awareness of what it’s like on our side of the desk because there are a lot of lawyers out there that are very smart. Clearly, you’re smart but it’s important to me when I’m looking to hire somebody that you know what I’m going to do with the information that you’re giving to me, either in an email or a phone conversation.

It’s important to me that you know that I have to take everything you just told me and make it make sense for people who aren’t lawyers. Also, provide guidance that is suited to our organization that’s calibrated to where we are as a company and stand by that as we execute on whatever the decision is that we have made. Having lawyers that I can call upon, and there are many of them at Husch, whether they’ve been through the program or not, but I can call on them who are like, “I know you have to go talk to your CEO, or I know you’ve got to go talk to your CFO. There’s like two things you should probably say in that conversation and here’s why it is so invaluable.”

Value add, by the way.

It’s huge.

Frame it in terms of my work. Don’t just tell me what’s happening.

That’s exactly right.

Episode Wrap-up And Closing Words

This was so fun. First of all, thank you for coming back. I took a lot of notes because I got a lot of hot takes here that I’m going to take back to my own practice. Also, we didn’t say this, but we’re all from St. Louis, but we did not know each other. You two were acquainted, but the three of us didn’t know each other before my show. I’m excited about just the connecting power of this format.

Thanks so much for being here and sharing everything with my audience. For the audience, if you do have questions, I love doing office hours episodes. Please reach out to me at Hello@LegalDepartmentPod.com and I just did a website refresh. I’m proud of it. There’s a contact form on it. The website is LegalDepartmentPod.com. Thanks for being here.

   

Episode Resources

• Kate Dugan on LinkedIn
• Joe Glynias on LinkedIn
• Energizer Holdings
• Husch Blackwell
• Brass Tacks Of Litigation Management: Adwoa Ghartey-Tagoe Seymour, VP Litigation, Albertsons Companies – Previous Episode
• Don’t Say “No” Ask How: Developing A Team In The Legal Department Kate Dugan Energizer – Previous Episode
• How Big Law Is Helping To Develop The Legal Department: Joe Glynias Husch Blackwell – Previous Episode
• Hello@LegalDepartmentPod.com
• The Legal Department