Wrap up: Real In House Talk

On Thursday, November 12, 2020, the GC Forum had a great session with with Orit Sinai, Warren Bongard and Christopher Sweeney!

Firstly, an extra special thanks to the ZSA Canada team for their donation to Pro Bono Ontario as their contribution for sponsoring the event. While a “swag pack” delivered to each participant may have been more fun for all, providing funding to pro bono initiatives is more important than ever.

It was a thoroughly engaging, frank and very candid discussion about things that do not often get discussed by GCs. Orit, Christopher and Warren shared, with close to 60 GCs/CLOs/law department leaders (the most ever for a GC Forum event!), their views on issues of compensation, department building and succession framed within the context of the pandemic and drawing upon their long history and experience as industry leaders.

Some key takeaways: titles matter (more than ever), the importance of having a clear succession plan for the GC AND team members (consider relying on external counsel as a sounding board to assess in-house department team members’ performance) and tactics to leverage data points from various sources to succeed in salary negotiations with employers.