In-house lawyers were reminded that they are not alone in the challenges they face within their organisation at the launch of a new ‘Handy Hints for in-house counsel’ guide at the NSW Law Society last night (March 19).

The panel of in-house lawyers at the event named a number of common dilemmas for in-house lawyers including: how to properly define their role, educating the rest of the organisation about confidentiality and privilege, how to deal with regulators and keeping commercial and legal advice aspects completely separate. The event was the brain child of Coralie Kenny, an in-house lawyer with more than 15 years’ experience in the wealth management area who is also a councillor on the society’s corporate lawyers committee. 

The committee has produced the easy reference guide for members of the profession struggling to demonstrate how their role adds real value to a corporate organisation. “The purpose of putting together this document is really to provide a reference for lawyers who practice in-house to get some form of comfort – that the challenges you find yourself facing aren’t just unique to you,” said Kenny.

The panel included Leanne Clark, an in-house lawyer with more than 10 years’ experience focused on corporate services; Hugh Loughrey, who has experience managing in-house risk and compliance teams, and was with BT for more than 10 years and John O’Shannassy, who is company secretary of Apex Energy NL, and was instrumental in developing and teaching the Applied Law (in-house) diploma offered by the College of Law. PDF copies of the guide ‘Handy Hints for in-house counsel’ covering 15 key issues are available from the law society’s website: www.lawsociety.com.au.