Whether you lead a team or work within one, it’s important that you understand the context in which structuring and resourcing decisions are taken.
Legal teams are frequently restructured in part and sometimes as a whole in order to meet challenges caused by crises, mergers, expansion or budgetary cuts or simply as a consequence of the realisation that the previous structure was no longer working effectively enough to meet the developing needs of the organisation.
In this discussion we expect to explore a range of practical issues – strategic, people, financial - relevant to this important topic, including:
• Questions to ask yourself before deciding on the right structure for your team
• Helping clients to understand their needs and wants
• Deciding the size and scope of the team
• Using other resources to help you deliver the service – outside lawyers, the client, and others
• Developing your legal strategy and making the case for your resources
• Aspects of change management involved in decisions on structure
• Link between structures, recruitment and career development.
Leading the discussion will be our guest presenters:
Mel Nebhrajani CB - Director of Litigation for the Government Legal Department.
Mel heads Government’s litigation, leading 600 people litigating key cases of the day and having the UK’s largest caseload in the Supreme Court.
Mel started life as a barrister and since joining government in 1998 has worked in a variety of departments including the Cabinet Office and Number 10. Most recently at the Department of Health and Social Care, Mel led the legal work across Whitehall to deliver Government’s COVID-19 response. She also led on EU Exit, NHS reform and such ground-breaking ethics cases as the Charlie Gard case.
Over a 23 year career as a government lawyer Mel has advised on key constitutional changes such as the Human Rights Act, devolution, House of Lords reform and freedom of information, and a range of policies of national significance such as the Civil Partnership Act, academies and free schools and airport expansion.
Mel was highly commended in the Asian Women of Achievement Awards 2020 and appointed Companion of the Bath in the 2021 New Year’s Honours List. She is also a non-executive director for an adult education organisation.
Richard Tapp - Solicitor and Chartered Governance Professional
He has held General Counsel and Company Secretary roles in FTSE-100 and -250 companies for more than 20 years, building integrated legal teams internationally. He is the architect of a multi-award-winning legal services business which now forms part of a Magic Circle law firm.
Richard currently consults with law firms, in-house legal teams and alternative legal providers on a range of in-house legal, alternative legal services, and legal innovation issues. He has authored The Future of the In-House Lawyer and The In-House Lawyers’ Toolkit (both Law Society Publishing) and Managing External Legal Resources (ICSA Publishing). He is a winner of the FT Innovative Lawyers’ Award for European In-House Lawyer of the Year, and a member of the Company Secretaries’ Forum, which acts as an advisory group on governance matters to ICSA, the Chartered Governance Institute.
He serves as a trustee of a number of charitable bodies, and as a member of advisory committees in his professional sphere.
There will also be a Q&A session. The discussion will be moderated by Anthony Inglese and Paul Bentall of CLL.