Our experience of placing lawyers in to the financial services sector precedes the global financial crisis. We recognise that what clients looked for in a lawyer pre-2007 is vastly different to what they now look for. We therefore have an excellent understanding of what is expected of in-house lawyers in today’s climate.
The financial services sector is a challenging and stimulating environment to work in these days. Whilst the financial landscape continually evolves in response to increasing regulatory pressures, correspondingly the role of the in-house lawyer is changing.
As well as being the technical legal expert for a business, in-house counsel is now expected to be a regulatory specialist, a risk manager and a solution provider. The overlap between legal and compliance has never been so apparent, and lawyers are having to up-skill or re-skill in the area of regulation, and work much more closely with compliance teams.
Those best equipped to deliver sound and timely legal advice must be acutely commercially aware, and have the ability to juggle the competing demands of the business they support, whilst being able to communicate with people at all levels, both internally and externally.