Increasing legal’s risk appetite

The challenge, Choolun said, is that if legal is perceived as risk averse, “it’s very hard to get the business to listen to us”.

“I think the concern if we’re too risk averse is that people don’t trust us, they don’t value our opinion, and therefore, we’re really redundant as a contribution to the organisation,” she said.

“How do we shift that? I think we have to really focus on being enablers [with] our advice, looking at what are the strategic priorities for the business, what’s the operating context, what are they trying to achieve? And then looking at how we do that in a legally and ethically safe and responsible way.”

“If we set that agenda from the outset with the business that we’re here to support you in whatever you’re trying to do, then I think we engender trust, and then it’s a really happy relationship,“ she said.

Lawyers of all stripes, Choolun mused, will inherently be at least somewhat risk averse – but what has to ensure they are not overly averse to risk.

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One of the benefits of being in-house, she said, “is you’re spending a lot of time with people who don’t have that as their background. You have people [in my organisation, SBS] who are in the media, commissioning editors, producers, writers, creators, and they’re coming from a completely different perspective, where risk is not first and foremost for them. So, it’s actually really healthy to spend time with people who don’t have that as their, as their North Star”.

Having a greater appetite for risk, Choolun explained, means that legal can get things done and serve the needs of the business – balanced against actual risk, which will vary depending, for example, on whether something pertains to workplace, health and safety (“where people’s lives are at stake”) versus intellectual property (“a genuine commercial risk”).

The advent of AI, she said, recently offered her team an opportunity to showcase that it has an appetite for risk.

“The business came to us quite early on with AI, quite worried about how they could use it in a legally compliant way. And, actually, the law in respect of AI doesn’t yet put a massive handbrake on what you can do – if anything, we need more regulation in this area rather than less. So, then it’s actually almost a green light [for legal to say] ‘Go ahead, embrace AI, take the opportunities’,” she said.

For Choolun, every effort made to demonstrate that legal can be an enabler, rather than a handbrake, has meant it is better placed to get other business functions to listen to it and take its advice on board.

In-house lawyers who are looking to be less risk averse should, she advised, “spend time with people who are not lawyers and get a better, more holistic, and different perspective on the organisation and then assess what is the actual risk in this scenario”.

“Is it one that you should have a zero risk appetite for, or is it one that you need to take a more risk-averse approach to? That’s got to be a joint decision. It’s not a legal decision; it’s a decision for the business as a whole,” she said.

Other business functions, Choolun pointed out, may be inclined to simply view legal as a cost centre. But, she said, “we do offer so much more than that”.

Law departments, she said, must be more than just lawyers.

“We’re human beings that have a great strategic oversight of the business. We have a really good bird’s eye view of what’s going on in different teams, and we can be of really great added value apart from just the mere sort of legal compliance,” she said.

The transcript for this episode has been edited slightly for publishing purposes. To listen to the full episode with Nicole Choolun, click below:

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