General counsel George Paramananthan of real estate services company Jones Lang LaSalle recently established the firm's first Australasian legal panel. He tells ALB how he came to the decision on his final four
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If there were to be an award for the most peculiar way to get introduced to law, George Paramananthan would undoubtedly win it.
As a young man, Paramananthan was interested in art and his drawings were selected by the federal government for a youth art exhibition as part of the celebration of the bicentenary in 1988. But his life took a turn when he finished secondary school and prepared to enrol at university. Faced with the dazzling array of courses, he did not quite know what to choose and, in the end, his older sister filled in his application form.
"She wrote down what she wrote down on her own form and she is a lawyer. So there we go," says Paramananthan, with a smile. "She probably had a better idea than I did; that's what big sisters are for."
Serena Paramananthan, who is a senior associate with Hunt & Hunt affiliate Macrossans Lawyers in Brisbane, cannot quite remember the incident herself, but chuckles and says, 'it's probably right'.
Commercial mind
George Paramananthan joined Jones Lang LaSalle in July last year as general counsel and head of legal & compliance. Before joining the real estate services company, he ran a legal and commercial consultancy business for seven years.
"My business was a legal and commercial consultancy business. I did strategic planning for some clients, but primarily legal work." He focused in particular on intellectual property, information technology, telecommunications and broadcasting, but says he took on any work that came through the door. "Anybody that asked me to help them out, I helped them out."
His last major job was for National Australia Bank, renegotiating a business voice and data contract with Telstra worth 'a couple of hundred million dollars'.
The experience he gained in advising on commercial issues resonates in his approach as general counsel. "Until you understand the commercial side of things, you're absolutely ineffective as an in-house lawyer," he says. "You've got to understand the commercial drivers of a deal. You have to be able to say: 'Well, there is a risk associated with this; let's restructure the deal in this way'."
Creating the panel
Jones Lang LaSalle initially asked Paramananthan to come on board as a consultant. They liked his approach and asked him to stay on. He now leads a team of four lawyers, covering the company's legal needs in Australasia.
Fresh on the job, one of the first things he did was to review the way external counsel was briefed and he was not impressed by what he encountered. He decided to establish an official panel of law firms to keep a tight control over the instructions going out to firms and keep costs down. Pricing was an important criterion in his choice of panel firms. "It's a very competitive market," he says. "Expertise is often assumed, especially with the big firms. So what is your differentiator? Cost!"
Paramananthan decided to make the rounds of all the business units in the company and ask them which external providers they used and who they would recommend. "The tender that I sent out was essentially a closed tender. I took all those names and requested an expression of interest."
He ended up with four names: Baker & McKenzie, Blake Dawson, DLA Philips Fox and Gadens Lawyers. "My big expectation is that I expect every services provider to be solutions driven. That's how I expect my team to run and I expect my external lawyers to do the same."
Apart from the usual reasons for outsourcing work such as the need for specialist expertise or a lack of resources, Paramananthan says he also chooses to seek advice on matters where high risks are involved. "If there is advice that I'm not really sure about, I ask an external advisor what to do and follow that advice." This way the risk is shifted to the law firm, who is accountable for the advice it provides.
Reciprocity
Paramananthan says in deciding on which firm to appoint to his panel he looked for specialist expertise, competitive pricing and the availability of resources, but he also asked law firms to think of ideas how they could help growing the business of Jones Lang LaSalle.
"I call this reciprocity," he says. "Do you have clients that we can leverage off? For example, are there publications that we can co-market with you that will increase our audience space? Do you have speaking opportunities that we can present our case to your clients?"
He says his request was received mostly with favourable responses, although sometimes he needed to explain what exactly he was looking for. But after clarifying his intentions, Paramananthan says that 'they came back with some interesting ideas'.
Jones Lang LaSalle panel
* Baker & McKenzie
* Blake Dawson
* DLA Philips Fox
* Gadens Lawyers
Jones Lang LaSalle in numbers
* Company operates 170 offices in 60 countries
* Revenue: US$ 2.7bn
* Net income: US$256m
* Asia-Pacific operations contributed US$602m to revenues
* Australian revenues increased 43%
(Financial data applies to the financial year ending 31 December 2007)