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Navigating Ownership Transitions From PE to Public Holdings: Brian Chase, GC, ServiceChannel
89 Plays1 year ago
Mergers and acquisitions, private equity buyouts, and transformative deals are part of business. But what's it like for the lawyers making them happen?
Get an insider look at high-stakes corporate transformations from Brian Chase, GC of ServiceChannel. Brian shares a candid glimpse into the complexities behind major corporate moves as he delves into his experiences navigating company changes under different owners, handling new responsibilities, and adapting to shifting corporate structures along the way.
We also discuss:
— what it means to be “more than just legal” as a general counsel,
— what it’s like to work at an early-stage company and set the foundation for the legal team,
— how to overcome budget constraints and train your team members to fill the gaps in your team, and more.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-12
Topics:
Introduction: 00:00
Navigating transitions in ownership structures and responsibilities: 01:13
Lack of communication leading to frustration regarding desired roles and responsibilities: 07:30
Being the GC of a subsidiary in a public holdings company: 10:03
Building internal credibility and expanding beyond legal: 12:14
Identifying your strengths and weaknesses, and communicating them: 15:39
Brian’s experience as employee #31 at Foursquare: 20:03
The importance of networking in growing your career and opening up to opportunities: 26:00
Training people up to fill gaps in your team and overcome budget constraints: 30:41
The evolution of the structure of in-house legal teams: 33:36
Concluding questions around failures and learnings: 37:09
Resources mentioned in the episode:
Take the StandOut Assessment: https://www.tmbc.com/standout-assessment/
Register for the SpotDraft Summit 2023: https://www.spotdraft.com/spotdraft-summit-2023-newyork
Connect with us:
Brian Chase - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-r-chase/
Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading CLM platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues. Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
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Transcript
Sales Team Triggers and Adjustments
00:00:03
Speaker
I tell these things to our sales team. I tell these things to our other teams, like, listen, I have triggered. If you do this, I'm going to slow down on you. If you do this, I'm going to accelerate.
Roles of General Counsel in Company Transformations
00:00:13
Speaker
From policy advocacy to crisis management to M&A, GCs have the opportunity to be part of important transformative events in a company's journey. On today's episode of The Abstract, we'll talk about one significant aspect of the in-house legal role, financing and mergers and acquisitions.
Perspectives on Mergers & Acquisitions
00:00:31
Speaker
We'll delve into this theme through a few different lenses, including working under private equity ownership, getting acquired by a public conglomerate, and adapting to the changing responsibilities and reporting structures that come along with all of that.
Guest Introduction: Brian Chase's Career in Transactions
00:00:46
Speaker
I have the pleasure of being joined today by Brian Chase, the General Counsel of Service Channel for a candid conversation around what goes into these transactions and how to work within the changes that come after them, both in terms of the company and his own career.
Service Channel's Evolution and Ownership Changes
00:01:02
Speaker
Brian, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.
00:01:05
Speaker
So before we get into kind of the nitty gritty of your experiences, tell us a little bit about what Service Channel does and how some of the ownership structures have changed over the course of the past five, six, seven years that you've been there. Yeah. So I've been at Service Channel for seven years. Service Channel is a facilities maintenance software company. That's primarily our business is we provide a SaaS platform that allows companies to manage their contractor and internal technician workforce.
00:01:34
Speaker
We also offer professional services to help them when they don't have the internal resources to do so. So if they don't have a facility manager, we can provide somebody on the outside to help pull the levers and, and, and help do the work. It's been an exciting company. The ownership structure is an interesting question. When I joined service channel, service channel has been around for quite a while since 1999. It was founder run until 2014.
00:02:01
Speaker
In 2014, it was purchased by a private equity group. The private equity group came in, they actually placed their own CFO, CEO, board members. And I joined in 2016 under that structure. So it was run like a private equity run tech company.
00:02:20
Speaker
Few years after that, we did raise a new round with some encouragement from me.
Venture Backing and Board Dynamics
00:02:25
Speaker
I recommended that we should look into the venture realm for some venture back money, partially because that's where a lot of my experience has been. When I worked for Gundersen Detmer, I represented a lot of venture companies when I was general counsel of Foursquare.
00:02:41
Speaker
We also had a primarily venture-backed board, so I was much more comfortable with the venture-backed type sector.
Acquisition by Fordive and Public Company Dynamics
00:02:47
Speaker
So we got a great investor in Excel, had a couple of their partners come join as board members. It definitely changed the dynamic of the board.
00:02:56
Speaker
And I think led to the, led to the, to the eventual outcome with service challenge being acquired in 2021 by Fordive. And this is a whole new world. Fordive is a publicly traded company. It is a holding company that has a lot and I always forget the number. I think it might be 19 operating companies underneath it, that span of rod.
00:03:18
Speaker
range of different companies. We are part of what's called the interactive operating system network. We're the software companies. They have a lot of hardware companies and we're the software companies. And it's been a different ride to being part of a public organization.
Brian Chase's Evolving Role and Strategic Impact
00:03:35
Speaker
We're going to talk about some of those transitions and how you've managed to find interesting roles all through those transitions in just a second. Tell us a little bit about you recommending seeking out venture dollars. How did that conversation go? I mean, you think oftentimes of the CFO or the CEO or board members advising on that sort of thing and maybe the GC doing more of the transaction, but it was really your idea to go out and pursue a different type of investment. So I have been very fortunate in my in-house positions to
00:04:03
Speaker
to be much more than just the legal advisor, to be able to work closely with the management team. I worked very closely with the CEO and the CFO. We communicated
Challenges and Multifaceted Roles at Service Channel
00:04:17
Speaker
quite often on things that were way beyond just the, you know, what's the legal question.
00:04:23
Speaker
And so in those conversations that came up, the company actually was in a place where it didn't necessarily need money. It was just one of those situations where there was interest. And as they say in the private company space a lot, if there's money available, take it. And as we were talking about things and I threw that out and said, Hey, it might be good to, to bring in some different viewpoints. And it wasn't really even a hard battle. I think.
00:04:51
Speaker
partially because the venture firms that we were looking at were all well-respected and a pretty easy, an easy decision. And so when the process went, it went pretty quickly.
00:05:02
Speaker
With every one of those funding rounds or acquisitions has come a little shift, I'd imagine, in how things are run at the company, the outlook, the sort of goals the executive team is pursuing, even maybe some turnover in the leadership team itself. You stuck around through those changes. Tell us a little bit about how your role evolved and how you found a place in each of the sort of subsequent executive teams.
00:05:27
Speaker
So that's a great question. As I said, when I first joined, it was new for all of us to have a legal person on the team. I was the first legal hire at Service Channel in 2016.
00:05:44
Speaker
Fortunately, I had come from an opportunity at Foursquare where I had been involved in a lot of extra things. I started as employee 31 there. And I think some of those experiences gave me opportunities to have a lot more experiences. One surprise that I got within my first week of being hired was that during my interview process, they had mentioned, hey, great news. We just hired a head of HR. I learned when I joined that they didn't have a head of HR.
00:06:10
Speaker
that that person had actually declined in the period between those two conversations. And they asked me to take over HR responsibilities. So pretty quick off, I was not only just general counsel, I was also head of HR. Fortunately, there were great individuals there. We were using a PEO at the time to help carry a lot of things because I'm not an HR professional by training. So it was good to have that as well as some great internal team members who assisted. But
00:06:38
Speaker
I guess because of my four square days, I was so opinionated about different other things that I got involved. And, and when there weren't people to fit a role, I was more willing to sit in a role. So when there wasn't somebody to run sales ops, I helped with sales ops. When we learned that there was no lease management group, I helped with lease management. And so I would say when I started, I
00:06:59
Speaker
had a lot of those responsibilities. And that actually stayed pretty much the same for most of the time. Over time, we did, as the company moved out to California and as we hired new executives, I hired a head of HR who reported to me for a while before she was moved under the CEO. A bit by bit, those responsibilities kind of went away. I think the interesting one was when Service Channel was acquired by Fordive, there was a, I would say,
00:07:29
Speaker
perhaps lack of communication on both sides about what my role was going to be. There were a lot of responsibilities that I had as a private company, general counsel, that were no longer under my purview. And I fell into a kind of rut where I would say I stopped being a general counsel and became more of a VP of legal.
Redefining Roles and Expanding Beyond Legal Work
00:07:51
Speaker
And when I say the nuance there, I think of VP of legal as I only responded on legal questions.
00:07:57
Speaker
in leadership meetings, and I'd say, oh, from a legal perspective, which is really weird because I used to argue that I never would do that. And it was probably about six or seven months where I was unhappy because my job was strictly only legal. And coming to find out that our president at that time was also unhappy because I was only being strictly legal. And unfortunately, in a mid-cycle review, he brought that up. He said, you know, I thought you were a general counsel.
00:08:28
Speaker
kind of woke me up. It gave me not only the opportunity to let him know what I wanted to do and the things I wanted to be involved in, but also gave him the opportunity to give me more avenues. And so I am participating a lot more broadly in a lot of things that aren't even closely related. Well, I guess everything's related to legal. But I help support the finance team, I help support the product team, I help support the marketing team from
00:08:55
Speaker
I would say professional experiences more than just legal experiences. Sure. So is the lesson really there for folks who may be going through a transition, whether they're being acquired or the company is going public and they're not exactly sure about will their job be around afterwards or will it look the same? Will they still like it? Is the lesson there really communicate or over communicate, kind of be candid?
00:09:21
Speaker
Yes, exactly. That is something I wish I had done. One of those things we have to remember is that we are valuable members of the company. As part of an acquisition, we help them through the acquisition. We know stuff that it's going to take them a long time to learn. Whether or not the acquirer see you as a long-term hire versus a short-term hire, you shouldn't have the fears I had that it was going to affect your career.
00:09:48
Speaker
I think would have helped. Yeah, it would have definitely helped me if I had just been a little bit more open about my concerns about my desires. It would have gotten me ahead of the curve. So yeah, I definitely agree with that.
Working Within a Holding Company Structure
00:10:00
Speaker
Tell us a little bit about what it's like to work as a part of a holding company that has its own legal team. Because I think it's kind of an interesting structure that you're under. What does that look like and what has it been like so far? So that one took me quite a while to get my head around.
00:10:14
Speaker
And I've actually learned recently that they've tried different structures in the past. So I do not report to fortives general counsel. I report to the president of service channel, but I do have a dotted line, I guess, reporting requirements up to. So when it comes to quarterly and annual reporting, there's certain reporting that I need to do. I do report that to the fortive group.
00:10:45
Speaker
I do have regular contact. We have what is referred to as a segment level general counsel. I do meet with her on a regular basis, but that's more for me to be a sounding board for me to find out maybe there's a more efficient way to do something within the company.
00:11:01
Speaker
And there are different resources that are shared. So we have labor employment has a great team of labor employment lawyers that I'm able to go to. So I don't need to go to outside counsel, but we have a privacy and information governance group, compliance group that all sit in the fort of level that allow us to use them as a first place to go to before we have to seek outside counsel. And then beyond that, there are all the general counsels at the other entities and
00:11:31
Speaker
I would say I stay in contact with at least one of them each week. We reach out to each other for advice for, hey, what's the standard work that's been done?
00:11:42
Speaker
in this area. And so it's kind of like our own little network of a legal team. And it kind of also gives you that opportunity for those like legal jokes where, Oh my gosh, can you believe that's happened as lawyers, but that none of our other business colleagues understand. So it gives us that little network as well. I like that a lot of GCs today, whether they got a slightly bigger team or they're like you operating, you know, maybe with a smaller group, but
00:12:12
Speaker
even within a larger org or they want to expand
GCs Expanding Roles Beyond Legal
00:12:15
Speaker
beyond legal. Take on other sort of executive roles or functions. You talked about HR for a minute and you say today you're still pretty deeply involved in product finance. How did you build the sort of internal credibility or position yourself to take on some of those other functions or some of that other work? Did it just start with a small project and build from there? What did that look like?
00:12:40
Speaker
So I've always been interested about multiple aspects of the company. And I started at least here at Service Channel. It was by asking the leaders of those teams whether or not I could sit in on some meetings. Some were more hesitant than others to have the lawyer come into the room. But I would promise, hey, I won't say anything that should cause issues.
00:13:09
Speaker
And I don't think they did. And so it gave me an opportunity to go and I use it as a learning
Brian's Role as a Connector and Influencer
00:13:13
Speaker
thing. You know, my, my general practice to come when I come into a new company is to take about three months as a learning experience. Obviously there's got to be a little bit of the work, but I try not to make drastic changes in those three months of my behavior or the company's behaviors.
00:13:29
Speaker
And so I was able to use that as a learning opportunity. And I think by doing that and building the rapport with the team, they could see that, Hey, wait, he, he does have an opinion about this and it may be a good opinion, or it at least causes us to think. And I think I'm also quite responsive. So when people have questions for me, I'm really responsive back. So they realize that I was somebody that could trust that they could reach out to. I recently did a survey.
00:13:56
Speaker
one of those, I think it's called the, now I'm going to forget the name of it. We read a book for one of our leadership conferences and yeah, so I'm just going to blank. But I learned during this thing that one of my strengths is I'm a connector. And when I say as a connector, it's not necessarily that I'm not a networker, but I'm a person who likes to grab different buckets of knowledge of like, who knows this, who knows that. And so people will come to me more often than I like.
00:14:27
Speaker
They'll come to me and ask questions. Hey, where's this in the travel policy? It's like, okay, well, I'm not the right one, but let me send you here. Or, Hey, tell me where this data is held. Well, I'm not the right one. So I'm really good at being like the, the switchboard, but that strength has helped build that rapport with everybody knowing, Hey, well we can go to Brian. We can trust Brian. And that's giving me opportunities where maybe I don't know if I'm like, Hey, that's not something I know, but I'm really interested to learn it with you. And so I can jump in and participate.
00:14:56
Speaker
That's great. And for those who are listening, we will get the book from Brian. If he's able to remember it, we can put it in the show notes after the fact. It reminds me of a pretty great quote that I heard once. I was reading a book called How Google Works, Jonathan Rosenberg, who was sort of Eric Schmidt's right hand man for many years there. He's got this great quote or story, I suppose, where he's talking to an engineer and an engineer starts to get angry and, you know, he's pretty
00:15:22
Speaker
highly paid and influential in the business. And he's like, you're just a very expensive router. He sort of sat back and thought for a second. He's like, yes, that's exactly what I am. Okay, so I did look, do a quick look at my notes. So it was called the standout assessment. The standout assessment. And tell us a little bit about that, because it seems like it may have been kind of impactful for you and how you go about your day to day today.
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah, so it was an assessment where they believe that they are asking the types of questions and fast enough that you have to respond enough that you're not allowed to game the system.
00:15:56
Speaker
that by answering these questions at the speed that you have to that they can find out what your strengths are. They refer to them as your superpowers. And you usually get one or two, the strengths roles or they, I'm not going to go through and explain the whole standout roles, but there's equalizer, connector, pioneer providers. So there's all these types of things. And they let you know which one you are the highest and then the second one. And then based on that, they analyze
00:16:19
Speaker
Like, Hey, if you use these strengths, you'll be successful. What's interesting about it is that almost everybody who took the test and read it said, this is wrong. Like this is completely not me. And then with me, I showed it to my wife and she's like, Oh, this is a hundred percent you. And that's like, like almost everyone I talked to, they're like, no, no, this isn't me.
Managing Tasks and Productivity Triggers
00:16:41
Speaker
And then when you explain what they, their results were like, no, that's you. So it's kind of funny that we have strengths and we don't necessarily recognize them. Yeah.
00:16:50
Speaker
I follow up there. It's interesting. I think, you know, to, to realize those things about ourselves, has it changed the way that you practice, uh, or like the way that you go about your day to day role, are you leaning more into those strengths? Or I guess sort of the converse of that is, are there things that you're maybe handing off more to others these days that way you can focus on what you think your strengths are? So I think so. I, it's interesting because.
00:17:17
Speaker
I actually have a colleague who had the same results as I did. And she said, I always feared that I was lazy because I was always passing stuff off. Whereas now we recognize, actually, no, we were being efficient because we actually didn't know the answer. It made more sense to make the connection than for us to play telephone and go through the middle. I don't remember the test. Again, I've taken a bunch of management tests over the years, but I've learned little quirks about myself.
00:17:44
Speaker
For example, I'm the type of personality that if I don't want to do a project, I'll do it. I'll just do it last. So when any new project comes in, I push it. And I share this with my team members. I share this with my team. I share this with my leadership. And that way, they can check me on it. Like, they know, like, fine, we know you don't want to do this. We really need you to anyways.
00:18:12
Speaker
But then other things, like I have certain triggers. If you ever send to me something that says, which I know isn't true, clients waiting today, or this, you know, like short times, like if you play the, if you cry wolf to me. Sure. Like, I'm going to put you down again, same thing. I put you down my list, I'm going to get to you within my SLAs. Yeah. But there's certain individuals in my, in our sales team, for example, who figured me out on this.
00:18:41
Speaker
And they're the ones who just sent me an email that says, Hey, can you take a look at this whenever you have a chance?
Effective Team Communication Strategies
00:18:49
Speaker
For some reason that whenever you have a chance, it always jumps to the top because I push everything down. And yeah, so like, and I tell these things to ourselves team. I tell these things to our other teams. Like, listen, I have triggers.
00:19:02
Speaker
If you do this, I'm going to slow down on you. If you do this, I'm going to accelerate. And I think that's definitely helped people work with me. Some people ignore it. And I just, I was just thinking you just an hour or so ago that somebody did something and I'm like, you know, that shuts me down. Like why, why would you do that? So, but I think it's good. Take these tests, be honest with your colleagues, share them with them and don't keep it in and be honest with yourself that, Hey, this is how I operate and it can help improve
00:19:32
Speaker
one, your productivity, but also how people work with you. Maybe a lesson for sales teams everywhere or product managers looking for privacy review of their features. When it's always urgent, you may undermine your credibility and actually get a slower response. That's funny. Don't stand the, hey, we need to turn this around today with the
00:19:53
Speaker
like email chain below that shows that you've had it for four weeks.
Early Career at Foursquare and Privacy Challenges
00:19:58
Speaker
I also want to talk a little bit about your time at Foursquare before you join the Service Channel. I actually spent a few formative years at Foursquare myself. Unfortunately, we did not overlap, but I worked with another amazing chief legal officer, Mark Ellenbogen there.
00:20:14
Speaker
You set us up for a lot of, a lot of great growth because you were one of the early employees. You were there for around six years as GC. I would notice for those who are counting, Brian spent six years at Foursquare and seven years now at Service Channel. So whoever's lucky enough to hire him in his next gig knows that they'll probably have him for the long haul. What was it like being employee number 31 there, being at such a fast growing startup and being in so early? So fun.
00:20:43
Speaker
Probably, probably some of the hardest I've ever worked, but some of the most fun. When you're employee 31, you're not just your role. Everyone had other roles. I jokingly say I was the guy who was fixing the printer, but literally I was the guy who had to fix the printer. I asked about posting our privacy policy in terms of use and, and I was told, Hey, we don't have time for it. Go learn how to code.
00:21:10
Speaker
So I had to learn how to code my own, own web pages. Fortunately, they were always really ugly. So at least they'd give me the time to like make it more pretty than what I did. But like whenever there was a privacy policy or terms of your change, I'd have to go in and try to remember how to, to code HTML. Whenever there were meetings about, Hey, we need to talk about new product things. Everybody came in. It wasn't just the engineer and the product teams. Everybody did it, everything, but it was nuts. And we were.
00:21:41
Speaker
We were in a space and in a lens that was so scrutinized, but it was so exciting that, yeah, it was a really fun time. I do joke that, you know, part of the reason that I was hired was because of the scrutiny on the location services. I joked that one of the benefits of moving to service channels, the FTC stopped calling my cell phone. It's not a great joke. Like, fortunately, through the years, I got a good relationship with the staff at the FTC.
00:22:11
Speaker
where they knew that Service Channel, not Service Channel, Foursquare had their customers in mind, their users in mind when it came to privacy. And so when there was a question that came up, there was a lot of incorrect things that would get posted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, et cetera, which would obviously raise the concerns of the FTC. But we got to the point where the FTC could call me and say, hey, Brian, what's going on? And we could explain and then, unfortunately, but that took years to get to that point. Sure.
00:22:40
Speaker
So, but yeah, it was, I mean, it was just fun. Everybody was working so hard. Everybody worked long hours, but we had a great time doing it.
00:22:48
Speaker
I can say from personal experience because then I was the guy doing privacy many years later at Foursquare. Those early decisions or that early work really does matter in terms of setting up a company's reputation in the right way, having the right relationships with stakeholders like regulators, just making product decisions or decisions around the deals that you do that
00:23:12
Speaker
may not come up or be scrutinized at the moment in time, but five, 10 years down the road, I might've been the one on the receiving end of something that had been done 10 years earlier, right? And having to deal with the sort of crisis that that provokes. So you made my life a little bit easier through your early work there. That's, I'm glad to hear it. And I, and I love the company. And one of the things that people may not know is that I was the one who hired my own replacement is that
00:23:36
Speaker
When it was time for me to leave Foursquare, it wasn't like a, I'm out. It was a, I knew it was time for me to make a switch in my career, but I love the company. I love the people there. And so I agreed to stay on an extra two months and I did the interviewing. So it was kind of weird to like hire your own replacement.
00:23:53
Speaker
Sure. And maybe I did choose an individual who may or may not have the same hairstyle as myself. I was very fortunate to be at a company that was so great to me that I wanted to leave in as best place as possible.
00:24:09
Speaker
You alluded to it for a second, but it actually I think is somewhat unusual for a lawyer or a general counsel to be hired that early on or as employee number
Transition from Outside Counsel to In-House
00:24:19
Speaker
31. You often sort of see that maybe employee 81 or 121 and that even is sometimes early for a business. What was that process like? Were you having to do a bit of educating and advocating to even get hired or did they know like we want a GC? We need one.
00:24:35
Speaker
So I was outside counsel for Foursquare. So I was involved in their, their series A financing and then became their primary outside counsel. And I think a lot of it had to do with just the amount of work that we were dealing with. As I noted, there was a lot of scrutiny from the privacy regulators and newspapers. And I just know it was a lot of distraction for the actual team, which was a very lean team.
00:24:59
Speaker
And they probably did a cost benefit analysis as well, is that we can pay Brian to be here. That'll be a lot cheaper than us paying Brian at Gunderson. To be the firm. I think that had a lot to do with it. But it was interesting because it wasn't really an interview because I'd worked with them.
00:25:15
Speaker
I'd been with them the whole time and I was actually down there for a meeting and just went to lunch with the COO at the time when he popped the question and said, hey, do you want to come work here? I was like, whoa, this is weird.
00:25:30
Speaker
And that's another example sort of in your career of not having to really interview for or go out and search for a job. I think one of the themes across a good number of episodes on, on the abstract, on the podcast is the importance of your own personal network. Tell us a little bit about that, including the jump to, you know, a private equity owned business. Not many folks would think naturally after a company like Foursquare, the next thing is going to a PE owned company. So just tell us a little bit about how your network has influenced your career.
00:26:01
Speaker
Yeah. So I interviewed for my first job, which was at Tessa Hurwitz and TiVo, a firm in Boston, Massachusetts, which was a great firm that due to the world at the time blew up. And I fortunately was able to jump with a lifeboat to Goodwin Proctor. But I had actually met when I was at Tessa Hurwitz and TiVo, a few individuals that threw actually their service group. So an individual who was in on the
00:26:30
Speaker
the corporate transaction side, we did a lot of public service with youth in the Boston area. And he heard rumblings that I wasn't too happy with my move to Goodwin. And so he was the one who introduced me to the technology transactions partner at Gundersen. I had one meeting with him and moved on. And then as I said, when I was at Gundersen and then at Gundersen, I moved to Foursquare and then at Foursquare.
00:26:55
Speaker
As I said, I did, I got, it got to a point. I'd been there for a while then it was like, Hey, it's time for a transition. And I had a mentor who said, Hey, I know this company's service channel. You want to take the meeting? And the meeting was, Hey, let's go get breakfast. It's a breakfast. Okay. You want a job? So it's like, okay. So.
00:27:15
Speaker
I don't think I've had to dust off my resume for quite a while. But I definitely do feel strongly in the networking. When I started at Foursquare, I had the great opportunity to meet a wonderful attorney, David Pashman, who at the time was at Meetup. And he and I, he and I started, we were both USB attorneys at the time. And we then met Sarah Feingold and it started just to grow and grow.
00:27:44
Speaker
We started to have with a small group of individuals in New York, we'd have regular lunches, regular dinners. And we then started to like get CLE credit. We started to get people reaching out to us. And one of those individuals is an individual named Kieran Lingam, who is now known as one of the founders of TechGC. And here we come to our things.
TechGC's Growth and Networking Impact
00:28:08
Speaker
And one day he asks, he just mentions to
00:28:12
Speaker
David and I, who are more of the coordinators, are like, hey, do you mind if I coordinate one of these? We're like, sure. Like, go ahead. You can coordinate it. So he coordinated it. And I think there were like 150 people that showed up to it. So we were like eight or 10 minutes. So he was like, yeah, let me coordinate. And he, with those skills that he has, took it from that little thing to the great organization that TechGC is now.
00:28:35
Speaker
It used to be that at the TechGC meetings, I was on the panels every single time because it was small. Now, I just get to be a lucky participant who goes and attends. But I do attend because you never know who you're going to meet, who's going to open the door, or who's going to have a relationship that opens the future door. So I am definitely a big proponent of increasing your network as best you can.
00:29:00
Speaker
This was not scripted. I mean, I was lucky to spend five years helping Karen and Greg in a small way, part-time grow tech GC in LA and through webinars and the listserv. And at Spotify, we remain huge supporters and sponsors. And it's fun to be on this side of the table now, getting to host those dinners or attend the conferences. I did not expect that I would get, you know, the origin story of tech GC from you today. That's very cool to hear.
00:29:28
Speaker
Well, sometimes I would love to see if Kieran agrees with my assessment. It's amazing what he and Greg have been able to do. And I would say that the attorneys that is helped and supported, which also would mean all the amazing companies that it's helped and supported. And whether or not Kieran, if you're watching this, this goes as a plug or not. I don't know if I get any swag for this. But I would say if there are some
00:29:54
Speaker
GCs out there or CFOs because they know if you're looking for a good networking opportunity, I'd recommend it. TechGC is it. And they've always got great food and pretty good wine as well at the dinner. So that's very cool.
00:30:13
Speaker
Something else I think that's, that's
Training and Empowering Non-Lawyers
00:30:15
Speaker
interesting. And this, I think, I think it's in a similar vein to the idea that you've never really had did, we'll call it go out and get or interview for a job is that you've been sort of a solo GC, both at Foursquare and here, but you've also trained people up who may not be lawyers to work with you. And they followed you. Tell us a little bit about that. I think it's, I think it's pretty cool. Yeah. I think.
00:30:40
Speaker
I don't know if it's a good sign or a bad sign. It's probably a bad sign. I apparently don't have enough negotiating abilities to get myself more budget. And so for all of you who have been able to build out large legal teams, kudos to you.
00:30:54
Speaker
I always end up in the situation where I'm seen as a cost center and where I start out with the budget at the beginning of the year to get a general counsel or an associate general counsel or a corporate attorney that they then chop it and they have to figure it out. And so when I was at Foursquare, that was the type of situation is that I was definitely overwhelmed and the one, there was just a lot of stuff going on and trademarks and just managing contracts. And so I went to hire a,
00:31:21
Speaker
a trademark contract, a trademark paralegal with contract management experience. And the story I like to get, I like to share about this is, is I was hiring people. I had a long slate of candidates and it was an interesting time. This was 2012. I got, for this job role, I got a lot of attorneys who applied for it. It was, it was really interesting. But my third interview came in.
00:31:44
Speaker
And at the end of the interview, I asked the question, I was like, hey, do you have any final questions for me? And her question was, how do you handle constructive criticism from those who report to you? That's a good question. Exactly. And I knew at that moment that I was going to end the rest of the interview process and offer her a job. We have now worked together for over a decade.
00:32:07
Speaker
And after a month of being at Foursquare, she had all the trademark stuff cleaned up and she had all the contracts organized and said, well, what else can I do? And so I said, hey, you won't dress in learning NDAs. So I taught her how to do NDAs. And then we moved to, I think it was co-promotion agreements and then to license agreements. And now she, I would say she manages 99% of our commercial contracts here. And it goes toe to toe with law firm trained or law school trained attorneys all the time.
00:32:37
Speaker
So here at service channel, I was looking for somebody to, to just help manage with the, the privacy program that we have and hired a person with that focus quickly saw that the woman that I hired had a lot more abilities than just tracking paperwork and she now manages our privacy and compliance program. So I'm very lucky that the paralegals that I've hired.
00:33:03
Speaker
have wanted to do much more than just the initial jobs. And, but I feel I've, it's been a great, it's been fun for me as well though, just to get to, to see these individuals grow and learn. And it teaches me as well, because when you're teaching something, the gaps in your understanding are become very apparent because when they ask a question and you say, I don't know, I don't know everything I think I know. So I think it also improved my abilities and things as well.
00:33:32
Speaker
How do you think about the sort of evolution of the legal profession or who's on legal teams or comprises legal teams with that in
Diverse Expertise in Evolving Legal Teams
00:33:41
Speaker
mind? I mean, I'm a little biased here in that I'm a non attorney, non lawyer. I've worked on a lot of privacy and policy issues in the past.
00:33:48
Speaker
I also see every day and many of our customers, legal operations professionals who are doing pretty incredible, oftentimes very strategic work supporting chief legal officers or GCs or commercial attorneys who also don't have a JD or Esquire after their name. I think that the JD and that experience going through a firm can be very, very valuable. And I see a lot of people who are.
00:34:13
Speaker
brilliant who have that experience. How do you think about the sort of evolution of how legal departments will be built though going forward? It's a great question. So I am a huge proponent for law school graduates to go to a law firm.
00:34:30
Speaker
I feel that my foundational experiences, the foundation that I have from my law firm days has assisted me in becoming the attorney that I am. So I generally would push people and say, hey, don't just go be the first general counsel at a startup, like go get that training. That said, there are individuals who are not law firm trained that will have skill sets that we can use, in particular in the world today where we're using so many different legal tools, different processes,
00:34:59
Speaker
there may be those who a legal minded person won't understand how to use that legal tool or to set up the back end of the rules and the workflows and those things, but somebody who is not a lawyer may. And I've been lucky to find individuals who are like that. I hired an individual just this past winter who I hired to be a vendor compliance associate. So his role was specifically to confirm that
00:35:26
Speaker
these contractors, these plumbers, electricians, those who come into our network to be used by our customers, that they have the proper certificates of insurance, proper licenses, et cetera. And that was the role I had for him. But we ended up having a situation where we needed a standard work put together. And I didn't have time, and my other two paralegals didn't have time. And I said, hey, will you put this together?
00:35:51
Speaker
And one of the cleanest, most detailed, structured standards work I've ever seen. So now I keep on having him do that. Just because he has a skill set. And yes, he still has to do that other stuff because that's what he's hired for. But had I not hired him, I would have never found this person who is like a standard work machine, like a process machine. And so I think you've got to be creative. And there may be people in other groups who may be working with somebody in SalesOps who
00:36:22
Speaker
is a little bit more interested. Maybe they want to help with initial creation of drafts of agreements because initial draft creation doesn't need really a lawyer if you're using your forms. So yeah, especially if you're running lean like I am, if I find anybody who is interested, they're going to get grabbed. I'm going to find something for them to do.
00:36:45
Speaker
Maybe it's just efficiency. There's also some, there's some creativity in that too, right? Finding, finding folks who want to do the work, who are qualified to do the work, even if it means dispersing it even outside of your own team or department. Yep.
00:36:58
Speaker
As we start to wrap up a couple of last questions for you, Brian, and I appreciate that you're willing to take on this first one too.
Building Strong Relationships with Board Members
00:37:07
Speaker
What's a failure that you've experienced that you think a lot of folks are headed for and you would warn them about or tell them to keep an eye out for? So my biggest failure, I would say was my relationship with board members. While with management, I've always worked really well and shown my value.
00:37:29
Speaker
I would feel that when I was in the board situation, I would fall back into corporate secretary. So when I look back, and I wouldn't say I regret anything, but still there's great board members that would take my call. I don't think I showed them like my full skillset because I think I held back. And yes, of course, like the lawyer isn't out there. The management has to do stuff, but you know, I've heard other, you know, other GCs, they would go to lunch regularly with like board members.
00:37:59
Speaker
have out of board meeting relationships with them. And so I think that's one area where I could have done better. And I think had I done so, I think future opportunities may be easier. So I think that's probably one.
00:38:15
Speaker
We will be having a guest on later this season who's going to talk all about how to navigate your relationships with boards, even go out and find roles on private or public company boards, what that experience is like. So keep an eye out for that. And if you're a guest, that's really funny that that like fits like right in there.
00:38:36
Speaker
Yeah. And if you're one of Brian's former board members, maybe reach out to him and take him to lunch.
Envisioning an Integrated Legal Tool
00:38:44
Speaker
One last question for you. I think this one's kind of fun. If you could wish into existence, any app or type of software that would solve your biggest problem right now, what would it be? For some reason, the song from the Coca-Cola commercial where it was singing in harmony, where they're all singing on the Hill.
00:39:04
Speaker
Yeah. You're not going to do this song for us here. But there are a lot of good legal tools out there that do certain things really well. And so, but none of them do it all well yet. And, and I am I, and my director of legal services, who I've worked with for a decade, we actually, every year we're willing to, and we talk to
00:39:34
Speaker
almost like we talked to five, six, seven legal tech companies. Well, yeah, my dream would be that like all the contract would just unify themselves. I know you have finances and you can't just do that, but that would be a tool with workflow management, contract management,
00:39:59
Speaker
and repository management that pugs into an ERM, so like a Salesforce correctly, like those would be right.
00:40:07
Speaker
So you're leaving me with some homework, I guess. Go to our product team and also go to our CEO and ask him to raise some money so we can help bring some businesses together. I have my homework, I guess. Brian, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate the time that you took to prep for this with me and to share your stories and insights with all of our listeners.
00:40:31
Speaker
And to all of our listeners out there, thanks so much for joining us and we'll see you next time on The Abstract. Thanks for tuning in today. Don't forget to subscribe so you can get notified as soon as we post a new episode. And if you liked this one, I'd really love to hear your thoughts. So please leave a rating or a comment. If you'd like to reach out to me or our guest, our LinkedIn profiles are in the description. See you all next week.