The Life of an In-House Counsel with Luciana Andrade

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Studying Law Around the World. We here host law professionals from all over the world and get the opportunity to hear and understand a little bit more of their experiences. In this last season, we've been focusing on the Canadian legal market as well as Canadian law schools and how that works to be a lawyer in Canada. Today, we'll be happy to welcome Luciana Andrade, who is legal counsel at Phillips Canada. Please join me in welcoming Luciana. Hi, thank you so much for joining us today. Hi, it's my pleasure. Happy to be here. We really appreciate your time to join us today, and today we'll be discussing the role of working as an in-house lawyer. And we are so excited to have you here with us today, Luciana. So could you please introduce yourself briefly to our listeners? Of course. I'm always happy to talk about in-house, the in-house lawyer's role, because this is something that's not commonly You know, known. So happy to be your person for the day. So for everyone who don't know me, I'm Luciana. I am in-house, as Klaus suggested, that I'm an in-house counsel for Philips Canada. I, for Philips, I am a privacy compliance and litigation management lawyer, which means that I deal with a wide variety of topics, which we're gonna get. Into more details later. I immigrated, I'm originally from Brazil, and I started my career back in 2010 as a lawyer in Brazil. I did private practice for, which means, you know, I worked for law firms for the first 5 years of my career. And still in Brazil, I transitioned to an in-house role. I was a lawyer for Samarco, and I was responsible, one of the responsible lawyers for the Mariana disaster at Samarco. It was a very high-profile case in Brazil. And then around 2018, I decided to immigrate to Canada. Came to Canada with my family and got all my, you know, equivalency done and became a lawyer in Canada. And here as well, I started my career at a law firm. I started at a Bay Street law firm. For the first 2 years, I did quite— completed my articles, but I always I knew that in-house is where my heart was. So at the end of when, as soon as I was called to the bar in Canada, I had this opportunity at Philips, and that's what I've been doing ever since. That's incredible. Thank you so much for sharing. I love it how you, you really had the opportunity to do in-house work in 2 countries. So I'm sure that your contributions will be very, uh, especially incredible to, to get you here. And if I may ask, I was thinking about what are the best things we can get to know as law students especially on like what does in-house counsel entail. And you mentioned that you have a specific role with privacy and all of that, but if I may ask, is there such a thing as a typical day for an in-house counsel lawyer? And if so, could you describe to us a little bit of what that would look like? There's no typical day for an in-house counsel. It's because we— just because we deal with a wide variety of matters and different projects, it's always changing based on the business need. So I did come up with a list of— I call it like bucket of activities that, you know, thinking about my day-to-day, what do I do usually and typically? So I have a few buckets of activities, and the main one being intake. So I had meetings with different business stakeholders, or it could be somebody from the services organization within the company, or somebody who's Salesperson, everyone from the business comes to me for legal advice, right? Whether they're facing a legal issue, they're being threatened, whatever the case, or they need you know privacy guidance, whatever the case may be. They set usually starts with them sending an email or setting up a meeting. So I have a lot of meetings all the time, all day long, and in those meetings. They, those business people, they describe what the problem is and I do a bit of a triage to see, okay, this can be done. I can give you guidance on the spot. I think things get repetitive after a while, so you kind of know how to guide the person, the business people. So that's what I do. If I can respond on the spot, I provide guidance on the spot and then they go away. But if not, if this is something that requires a bit more thought, a bit more research, then I reserve it and I say, okay, I'll get back to you. So I also need to make sure that I have some time in my schedule to do the substantive work, right? We, which involves, you know, research. It involves maybe sometimes consulting with external counsel. Those would be your law firms. And this also involves me drafting comprehensive guidance. I do a lot of drafting as well. I help with policy drafting. So the company wants to come up with a policy about vacation. So I help the business reviewing the draft and see if it's accurate, if it's legal. So there's a lot of drafting in my day-to-day as well. And I also spend a big chunk of my time managing litigation. And participating in things that are in a pre-litigation stage, meaning there is a threat of litigation, but it's not quite litigation yet. So we need to be doing a bit of damage containment or even providing guidance to the business. So you know evidence is preserved and that we have everything in place. We're doing everything that we can to prevent this from going into litigation. I also. Do oversee litigation. So in that front, what an in-house counsel does is we discuss strategies with external counsel. I've never, as in-house counsels in my two roles that I've been, I've never actually done litigation myself. I always had the help of an external counsel. So we worked side to side, them being the person who actually goes to court, prepares all the legal documents, and as in-house. House, you are going to— you're closer to the business. So, you know, you help your business, your board of directors, your, you know, whoever the business person making the decision on the litigation is, to make this decision because you know the business so well and you are the person, the point of contact, translating the legal experience, the legal— all the legalese, all the memos, all the, you know, the Lingo into the business people. So you're you act like a translator, and you you're also doing the opposite. So the business say, okay, this is my level risk. This is what I want. And as an in-house counsel, you have to process that and transform this business goal into a legal strategy. And then you convey that and make sure that your law firm is following you know the strategy that you created. Along with the business, and you know they also you also take feedback from the law firm in this strategy. So it's really like a teamwork and it's a communication exercise. And something else that I typically do not every day, but sometimes is conduct trainings to different departments within the company. We will, as I said, I do compliance. So you know. Antitrust trainings and things to help the business identify red flags and compliance red flags. So I usually, from time to time, I do also conduct those trainings and I serve as a reference to any questions that they might have. And then, you know, the loop goes around, the business comes to me, but when I conduct the training, they're like, oh, Tiana is the person. So I'm just going to ask her and then I get the question. So that's in a nutshell, which is not very small, but in a nutshell, that's That's what I do. Wow, wow, incredible. I can see why you wouldn't have a typical day with just the broad range of work you kind of have to do. So that's quite incredible. All in one day. So we have to divide and conquer. I'm sure, I'm sure of that. That's for sure. That's awesome. Well, and considering all this diversity you get to work with, lots of people and all of that, what's your favorite part? What's the thing you enjoy the most? About being in-house? I enjoy the most, what I enjoy the most, it's the variety of matters that I get to handle and I get exposed to. Because I'm this kind of person who's naturally curious and I like, I am very dynamic. So I'm interested in a multitude of things and I like to know a little bit of everything. So that's an interesting skill for an in-house counsel because you're gonna be a generalist. You're never gonna be that person who goes to work and completely dominates that subject matter. You're always put in a position where you don't know what you're doing and that you're gonna have to figure it out. So I really like— some people get scared, some people get uncomfortable. With this feeling, for me, this is something that feeds my natural curiosity, and I get the opportunity to kind of get the exposure that you know I thrive in. So it's a it's a it takes a different type of person to be a good and happy in-house lawyer. Another thing that's a bit of a list here because I really do love being in-house, as you can probably tell. Something else that I really really like about being in-house is my my closeness to the business. So as in private practice, you are acting on reactive mode. You're waiting for your business to come to you, and usually that happens when, you know, something has exploded, right? As in-house, you're part of the business. You know your business very well, and you work together with them. You get to learn, are the business risk tolerances You get to learn how to speak the business language and you get to develop those extra legal abilities that you don't necessarily do when you're working for private practice. That makes sense. You collaborate with different people from different backgrounds, and that focuses you to have a more business-focused mind as opposed to a legal mind. Right? And the last thing that I really love about— I mean, there I can single one and on and on forever about this, but the last thing I, you know, written down was, as in-house counsel, I get the opportunity to act proactively instead of reactive. Oh my God, reactively. So as I mentioned earlier, I do have the ability as in-house counsel with my legal knowledge to step into a problem and prevent this problem from becoming a litigation later, just because of my background, you know, and just by guiding the business as opposed to waiting for this to become a litigation and then, you know, put out the fire. I'm now acting proactively and helping the business to stay out of trouble. I really do enjoy this, you know, this, the satisfaction of, and, and I mean, this goes on and on because you can, you're saving the business to get instead of being a cost center, you're like with your skills, you're providing that value for the business to save money in legal fees, which is also very, you know, satisfying. So it gives me a lot of satisfaction. Satisfaction. Oh, that's incredible. I see that a lot of the, just like the variety, the answer to the first question really kind of ping-pongs into each of the other questions and probably will be related to everything we speak about today. And I really liked the point you mentioned on being a generalist and just kind of having to know a little bit about, about like most areas of the law. Yeah. And I'm sure that's very classical of an in-house role, right? It is very classical. And usually I like to use an analogy. So in-house counsels are like your family doctors, right? They're general. They know a little bit of everything and they know enough to spot the issue. So I don't know if you have an issue with your heart, then your family doctor is going to refer you to a cardiologist, right? This is pretty much how we operate with, and I think that's a nice segue into your next question. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Uh, what are some of the biggest challenges that you have, uh, as in-house? Quite frankly, I think, well, for some people who just go into an in-house role for work-life balance and not necessarily, you know, have the skills or has the personality for this type of job, then, you know, the variety could be an issue. It could be a challenge. But for me particularly, I love all of this. The only thing that, I mean, is challenging for me is time constraints because I do want to spend all my day in one matter. I do want to write the beautiful memo, you know, that's perfectly elaborated and detailed, but as in-house, you just do not have the time to do that and you have to cut some corners. You have to, You can't, you know, you have to be very diligent with your time. And that goes against what we're taught in law school. In law school, we're taught to be very thorough. We're taught to be, you know, detail-oriented. In-house, you have to let go of this a little bit. You still need to be detail-oriented enough. to spot all the issues, but you have to be quick, you know, and that could be a good thing. That could be a bad thing depending on, you know, the person. That's great. That's great. I've just, just because you mentioned that, I remember seeing some memes on the internet that, that always like sales brings the matters to legal. And then it's always rough to, you know, in a way help to administer the anxiety of all the different parts of the company, right? Because they all have urgent pressing matters. And they all get to you at the same point. So I see what you're saying about the time constraints and maybe end up getting like funneled in you, right? Yeah. Well, that's a good point. And that, that was something I didn't consider, but it's definitely a challenge, you know, setting your priorities, but coming from a private practice setting, I find it easier to define my priorities in-house as an in-house counsel, because when you're working in a law firm, you have different clients and they all have competing priorities in-house. You only have one client. I mean, you have multiple stakeholders within this organization, but you kind of know what's more important for the company. So what's more important for the company is gonna be your priority, right? When you're in private practice, you can't turn to a client and say, hey, I'm swamped with this other client's matter. You know, you kind of have to do it all. You have to juggle it all. You have to be Timely. As in-house, you have more room to accommodate deadlines. Well, some days you're going to have to deal with a situation where everything's urgent and you're going to have to do it all. But I find it easier as an in-house counsel to kind of work around that. Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, Luciana, let's say we have a law student listening to this podcast and they are really identifying themselves with the things you're mentioning. You know, you said it takes a different kind of person, a different kind of personality to become in-house in a way. And as a student, what do you think that somebody should consider if they're thinking, hey, I really like this, I think I really want to do go in-house, kind of what does that look like? What's the kind of training or what's the kind of skill that somebody should start developing early on their career to either start in-house or get ready to transition in-house at some point? Yeah, I think it takes a level of experience and exposure to clients, to the real-world problems. It's not necessarily meant for, and I mean, I mean this the nicest possible way. People usually say spend some time. In private practice, and then if you want to transition, transition later into your career. And that's what I did, uh, twice. And I find this to be a very good piece of advice because if you go in-house inexperienced and you get exposed to all those different urgent requests and the pace is very quick, at least the organizations that I joined, you know, you need to have— in order to handle your workload, you need to have the ability and the confidence to stand on your feet and say, this is your guidance. Let's go forward, you know? And that's not a skill that a junior lawyer has. It takes some time to develop this confidence. And then You know, this, it's this level of confidence. So it is a good idea for someone who doesn't, who's not experienced in the legal world to spend some time in private practice. Or if they go, if they really want to go in-house, to really take a position where you get the mentorship, you know, that you need some, you need a lot of handholding, you need a lot of shadowing. Because it is not an easy rule. It's definitely not an easy rule. Yeah. So all of this that we discussed earlier, you know, the issue spotting, that ability that you have to have in order— because if you don't know how to spot, if you don't know enough about the law, if you haven't been exposed to business, if you haven't been part of contract negotiations, you don't know what goes wrong usually. So you don't know where the issues are and you don't know what the issues could be, you know? So it's a very comprehensive exercise and you need to have, you definitely need to have the real life experience. I see it. I don't mean to discourage anyone going in-house. On the contrary, I think it's amazing. I think it's great. For some people, for example, when they start law school, they already have a lot of work experience. Right? And they've been— they had their— it's their second career. Maybe, you know, it's easier for these people to transition. Yeah. So in addition to that, I think you need to develop the ability to work well with different types of people. You need to develop the ability to work well with people who aren't in the legal world because as in-house, you are in your day-to-day talking to people who have no idea what the law is. And you have to be very good at translating the legal language to speaking in a way that your business partners will understand and not be confused and not be overwhelmed and not be by everything that you're saying. This skill that you have to develop. And yeah, that should be it. Thank you so much, Luciana, for getting us to this point. Now that we move forward for maybe wrapping up this episode, let me ask you, we just talked about what could be a good strategy for somebody who's a student and who's considering going in-house. And I was wondering, would you have any kind of advice or maybe could share some piece of experience that you've had from transitioning, from being at that point where you already have the experience at a law firm and now is transitioning into in-house, is there anything that you think maybe you wish you had done or maybe something that you would tell, hey, maybe you should do this? Is there anything like that that maybe you could share with us? Not specifically for going in-house. And I think for most folks this happens organically. That's what happened to me. It happened organically. I wasn't looking the first time around. I wasn't looking. It just happened. And I think here in Canada, usually Yeah. Typically what happens when people transition to in-house is that they reach a certain point of their career where they have the experience and they need to figure out whether they want to continue in private practice or they want to change it up a little bit. And they, at this point, they know enough about their skill levels and their preferences and their personalities to make this change. So I don't have a specific piece of advice for somebody Who's deciding to transition, but I do have— what I can share with you is, you know, some of the challenges that I faced when I made the transition. So the first one being the business language. When you, when you go outside of a law firm environment, you have to, have to get used to speaking the business language, which is, you know, more concise. It's more direct. It's a different form of communication that you need to adjust to. And as lawyers, you know, we use a lot of words. We are used to a very sophisticated communication. And in-house and in-house and in a business, things, as I said, as I mentioned, things need to be quicker. So you need to go straight to the point. You need to be more objective in that. in and of itself is an adjustment for somebody who's been, you know, in private practice for, I don't know, 5 years, 6 years. You know, there is a bit of a culture shock when you make the transition. But, and everything that I spoke about is just the different skills, the different skills that it takes you, and the pace in-house is a bit different than You know, in private practice, which is, which might come as a surprise for most of the folks because usually people think going in-house because work-life balance and they don't necessarily know that in-house can be a very fast-paced environment. It can be a very dynamic environment. It can be stressful. It can be, you know, you can work late. Uh, so it's just a different type of activity that people need to understand, like, whether they have the skills or not. Like, I guess one piece of advice that I would have for somebody thinking about transitioning is take a very careful look at your skill set and your preferences and know what you're getting yourself into. Just don't go just because, you know, people say there's a better work-life balance. You're gonna be miserable if you don't. Adjust. If you're not the type of person who's okay with not having a routine, if you're the type of person who likes to know exactly what you're doing all the time, you like to be the subject expert matter, you like to be that person who knows a lot about a specific topic of the law, if you thrive on this type of activity, maybe in-house isn't for you. Mm-hmm. But if you're like super dynamic, kind of like all over the place, then in-house might be for you. And if you enjoy the decision-making piece and the quick pace, then it's something to consider. That's, I think that's, that would be the first step actually. Like, look at yourself too. I have the skills. Am I going to thrive in this sort of like chaotic environment? If the answer is yes, then maybe consider it. Sounds good. That sounds great. Thank you so much for, for sharing your experience. Thank you so much for this great piece of advice. I hope all of you that got the chance to listen to this episode also were able to really see like a very, very honest look on what in-house looks like, and maybe it would even help to clarify your career decisions. So thank you so much, Luciana, once again for joining us today. Thank you for having me. And it's a pleasure. Love talking about my in-house role. So anytime you need. Thank you guys. Thank you for listening and tuning in, and we'll see you on the next episode.