MC1 Leading Your Team

People are the lifeblood of a successful business, and without the right people in your team, you'll find it challenging to meet the demands of the business.

But getting the right people on board is only part of the picture. You've then got to manage and lead them in a way that keeps them motivated, engaged and productive. This is why leading a team can be both the most rewarding and frustrating aspect of being in a senior position.

MC2 - Connect and influence through the power of your story

This masterclass will assist you to build your professional brand. You will develop a clear and compelling narrative about yourself and your team, and how it ties in with your organisation’s brand. You will learn how to communicate this to your internal and external clients. There is also the opportunity to build meaningful connections with other participants as you learn more about each other and your individual strengths.

MC3 Financial & Commercial Acumen

Understanding financial statements is crucial to understanding your business. This workshop aims to provide you with the basic tools to understand the framework of financial statements and how to identify commercial and financial issues.

Women in the house (WITH) Breakfast – 100 Years women in Law

2018 marks the centenary of women being allowed to practise law in NSW, and the other Australian states and territories have either past the 100-year mark or will soon do so. In celebration of the achievement of women lawyers in Australia broadly in the last 100 years, this presentation takes a journey into history. It will explore how women came to practice law around the turn of the 20th century, look at the issues they have faced over the decades, highlight the stories of some particular Australian women lawyers, and finally examine what we can learn from the struggles of women in the past to make progress on the key issues facing women in law today.

The presentation will run for 20 minutes and will feature historical pictures of Australia and women lawyers from the past.

Rachel Scanlon

Founder
First 100 Years Australia – Women in Law

Conference Opening

Michael Pascoe

Master of Ceremonies

Karen Grumley

ACC Australia National President

The Modern GC – More Than A Lawyer

The last few years have brought an unprecedented wave of change and uncertainty in the corporate legal market. The modern General Counsel is no longer just a lawyer. They are business partners that help manage risk, ensure compliance and identify commercial opportunities.

If in-house lawyers behave like a cost centre rather than a business partner, resources will only get tighter and work will get more complex.

Whilst things are certainly changing, it's a very exciting time to be an in-house lawyer. General Counsel has a genuine opportunity to be chief counsel to the CEO and Board on much more than just legal matters. Today’s General Counsel plays a key role in shaping an entire organisation's strategy.

In this opening session, Professor Richard Susskind OBE FRSE will be streaming live discussing 'The Modern GC – More Than A Lawyer' and will set the tone for the rest of the conference.

• What's next for our profession?
• How can we best prepare for the constant state of change and flux in our industries?
• What skills do we need to acquire or develop to ensure we get a seat at the table?
• Given our unique experiences, how can we identify where we can best add value?

So, what's next for our profession? How can in-house counsel best prepare for the next phases of evolutionary change? What breadth of skills do we need to achieve success?

Professor Richard Susskind

OBE FRSE

Should In-house Counsel be the moral compass of the organisation

As general counsel, we often sit at the right hand of our CEOs.

We play a strong, necessary and independent role, often like a moral compass guiding the business towards ethical behaviour and value creation for shareholders or the public.

However, as the role of a modern in-house legal team evolves beyond purely legal function, it begs a few questions:

• Is it appropriate that the responsibility of being the organisation’s moral compass falls to us?
• Should we be expected to determine more than legality of an action, but also ethical outcome in the wider community?

If not us, then who in the organisation should have this responsibility?
In this session, we will debate the pros and cons of should In-house Counsel be the moral compass of the organisation.

Emeritus Professor Gillian Triggs

Former President of Human Rights Commission

A1 #SquadGoals - An Agile Approach to Working Collaboratively with Internal Stakeholders

Corporate counsel are (or have the potential to be) enablers of value and progress for their organisations.

Frustratingly, some clients view their in-house legal team as a hurdle or roadblock to getting things done. As a result, lawyers only get asked for their advice at the last minute, or once something has gone wrong.

Theo Kapodistrias, in-house lawyer at the University of Tasmania, will walk you through a methodology for how his team has taken an 'agile' approach to working more collaboratively with other departments of the business.

With a few simple adjustments to one's mindset and communication approach, you'll be equipped to get buy-in from managers sooner and spend less time "fighting fires". That's clearly good for business - and will undoubtedly improve your relationships at work. Turn your entire department into a truly cohesive "squad" with these techniques.

Theo Kapodistrias

Lawyer
University of Tasmania

A2 Boost Your LegalTech ROI: How to Build a Legal Technology Roadmap for Your Department

Almost 70% of legal operations professionals say that their current technology doesn't meet their department's needs, according to a 2018 survey by The Consero Group. In fact, "legal technology management" was identified as the number one legal operations priority, outranking cost control, cybersecurity and even litigation management.

Meanwhile, more than half of legal departments plan to spend more on technology in 2018 than 2017.

It's time to get it right. For those of us who identify with either sentiment - your current systems aren't working, or you plan to invest in legal tech this year - it’s imperative to start with a plan.

Jodie Baker, Deputy Chair of the Australia Legal Technology Association, will lead this interactive session. She will show you how to build a technology roadmap for legal departments of any size. You'll learn best practices for software selection, how to get buy-in from the business and a practical guide on roadmap implementation.

All participants will receive a roadmap template to use within their organisations.

Jodie Baker

Deputy Chair 
Australia Legal Technology Association

A3 Implementing Legal Training Programs for the Business: Stories from the Trenches

Like all of us, business managers 'don't know what they don't know.'

Training from corporate counsel equips managers to ask the right questions - not remove lawyers from the process. It's a true win-win.

Training is still the most scalable way for you to impart your expertise to managers so that they proactively consider the legal implications of their ideas and actions - rather than retrospectively ‘correcting’ issues after the fact.

Julie Ryan, former General Counsel at Accolade Wines and Adrian Goss, General Counsel at Bauer Media, will lead you in a practical, real-world discussion about how to implement legal training programs for business teams.

Julie and Adrian will address:

• theory in relation to implementing training as part of a compliance program,
• their practical experience in implementation; what has worked and what hasn't, and
• the merits of online training versus in-person training.

Following this session, you’ll be able to run practical legal and compliance training for your managers that contextually meets your organisation and industry requirements.

Julie Ryan

Former General Counsel
Accolade Wines

Adrian Goss

General Counsel
Bauer Media

ACC CLO Club

Open only to the organisation's chief legal officer, the CLO Club comprises interactive roundtable discussions. A fellow CLO will facilitate the discussion, providing you with the opportunity to benchmark and network with your peers at leading companies. Roundtables are highly interactive small group discussions enabling CLOs to share their company's best practices and strategies together on today's most challenging corporate issues.

Roundtable #1 General Counsel as the Chief Executive of the Legal Department

As the leader of the legal department, general counsel are tasked with building, expanding, and motivating their team. How have you approached the task of assembling your team?

• What factors do you take into account when deciding to expand legal and non-legal staff?
• What are some of the most effective measures you have taken to motivate and inspire your current team?

Join fellow general counsel in exploring strategies to be an effective corporate leader of your team.

Facilitator

Teresa Cleary

General Counsel
AICD

B1 Good to great – how to improve legal department performance and law firm relationships

Legal department modernisation is increasingly tied to business performance metrics. This has a cascading effect from the ‘people, process and technology’ decisions made internally, to how we view and measure our relationships with the law firms. The panel will discuss this move towards Legal department ‘performance’ and how this evolves and changes the value of the law firm relationship.

Covering topics such as:
-Measuring the performance of the legal department, where are we going?
-What does great look like regarding delivering a business aligned strategy?
-How technology is changing the modern legal department and it’s impact on how performance is measured.
-How the role of the law firm is changing and why we should be thinking differently.
-Moving to ‘data-driven’ law firm relationships and panel management.
-How law firms are responding and driving their own innovation value.

Adam Martin

Interim General Counsel & Company Secretary
ME Bank

Denise Doyle

Legal Transformation Lead
Telstra

Mick Sheehy

PwC Partner, New Law 

B2 More than a one-trick pony - why practising across industries is good for your career and great for business

There are many positive aspects to building specialist industry expertise. Experience helps you acquire an intimate understanding of the issues that face the industry. That tacit knowledge is invaluable to organisations.

But what if a unique perspective from a different set of experiences can provide unexpected but favourable outcomes?

For many of us, experiencing a diverse range of industries over the course of an in-house career is an exciting prospect. For some of us, it’s a key reason we became in-house lawyers in the first place!

Corporate and government inhouse departments benefit from cross-industry experience and the associated diversity of perspectives. The success of alternative legal service providers and the ability of their lawyers to seamlessly transfer between diverse clients is arguably a by-product of this.

If you are thinking of growing your team in 2019, this session is a must-attend. It will open your eyes to a much bigger talent pool than you may have originally thought about.

Matthew Lamb

Special Counsel
Aurizon

Annette Musolino

Chief Legal Officer
Department of Human Services

Joanne Moss

General Counsel
Pizza Hut

B3 Fake news, real impact – trial by social media

Since our last conference in 2017, the phenomena of ‘trial by social media' has gripped political, financial and entertainment sectors.

Trump's Tweets, the impact of the "Me Too" movement, the Facebook data breaches and the live broadcasting of the Banking Royal Commission have led to instant, unprecedented publicity and allegations being levelled against high profile individuals, companies and organisations.

Unproven and untested accusations on social media have rapidly damaged brands, destroyed careers and wiped millions off company market capitalisations.

Corporate counsel are trained to respond to traditional civil and criminal litigation. But how should we respond to trial by social media?

In this session, barristers from the New South Wales Bar Association will share stories from the courtroom and their advice on how to best handle reputational damage en masse.

David Thomas SC

NSW Bar Association

 

Zoe Hillman

NSW Bar Association


Marion Hemphill
General Counsel
Red Cross Blood Service

B4 Will you #BeTheOne to start a mental health movement in your workplace?

After experiencing the heartbreak of losing a close workmate to depression and suicide, Grant has become a staunch advocate for workplace mental health and a champion for change in this area. In 2017, Grant took up an informal role spearheading Spark New Zealand's vision and strategy for workplace mental health - developing a grassroots mental health movement that has evolved into a company-wide mental health initiative, aimed at delivering better mental health outcomes for people across the organisation.

In this must-see session, Grant will share his experiences in the area of workplace mental health, the story behind Spark’s workplace mental health programme, plus practical ideas and strategies for creating a thriving mental health movement in your workplace and the unique role that in-house lawyers can play in this area. Key areas covered include:

• Strategy & vision
• Organisation
• Leadership
• Policy & process
• Prioritisation & implementation
• Engagement & community
• Support & promotion
• Application & opportunities for inhouse counsel

Grant Pritchard

Sourcing Manager, Strategic Sourcing,
Mental Health Advocate
Spark NZ

The Hon Alexander Downer AC

Alexander examines in detail the World’s affairs in the 21st Century and their impact on Australia politically, economically and culturally.

Diversity and Inclusion Within the In-House Profession

Greater diversity provides all of us with more perspectives, skills, ideas and energy. So it makes good business sense that a legal department must attract and retain lawyers from a wide talent pool.

This panel session will give you detailed insights into how companies and organisations are creating diverse and inclusive in-house legal teams.

During the session, you will learn how to best implement a modern and pragmatic diversity and inclusion program into your corporate counsel team. And importantly, how to apply this across the entire organisation to the benefit of individual teams and the business at large.

Bill Gallagher

Legal Executive
Telstra InfraCo and Networks & IT

Nick Willetts

General Manager Legal & Contracts
Thales Australia

Teresa Cleary

General Counsel
Australian Institute of Company Directors

Lori Middlehurst

Senior Director, Global Employment Law 
VMware

The unbalanced work/life balance – what are you going to do about it?

In-house counsel needs to constantly look at ways to balance out their work/life, this session will provide guidance on how in-house counsel can get out of the way of low value legal work, empower the business and ensure sophisticated risk taking.

Andrew McMaugh

Executive Manager - Corporate Legal
Suncorp Group Limited

Jemima Harris

Principal & General Manager, QLD
Lexvoco

Justin Moses

Special Counsel Legal Operations
Lexvoco

Amanda Fajerman

Head of Legal Technology & Design
Lexvoco

C1 Mediation skills for the modern general counsel – settling disputes in-house

The modern general counsel is a well-rounded individual or team that wears many different hats: legal officer, business partner, risk manager and strategic adviser. More than a lawyer.

Performing each role effectively requires a diverse set of skills and experience.

This session introduces the skills required to be a successful mediator and explains why the modern general counsel should add the "mediator hat" to their toolkit.

Disputes are always going to occur! And they're not isolated to any particular industry or organisation size either. In fact, they’re common outside of the professional world as well!

Being able to mediate and act as an independent and neutral negotiator is a vital skill for every modern in-house lawyer.

Cecily Zhu, Managing Director of The Accord Group in NSW, will teach you techniques to:

• facilitate discussions between parties in dispute by identifying and clarifying issues, and
• help parties negotiate a resolution by exploring alternatives and looking for solutions.

Mediator skills are extremely useful in a wide range of commercial contexts, including stakeholder engagement, external negotiations, corporate governance and dispute resolution.

Cecily Zhu

Managing Director
The Accord Group, NSW

C2 Governance, culture and accountability beyond 2018

In 2018, we saw a number of changes in:

• The Financial Services Royal Commission
• The Banking Executive Accountability Regime
• APRA's CBA Prudential Inquiry Report
• Proposed changes to the ASX Listing Rules

Why did this all snowball in just a year?

Jennifer Darbyshire, General Counsel Governance at NAB, will share insights from an industry that's been challenged with governance, culture and accountability issues on a grand scale.

Jennifer will help you answer the following questions:

• How do we unpack a governance, culture and/or accountability issues?
• What does maintaining trust really involve?
• How are views about 'better practice' and other emerging trends in the financial services sector relevant and to business more generally?

If governance is a pressing issue in your organisation, this session will answer many of your CEO, CFO and Board's questions - and provide you with direction for 2019 and beyond.

Jennifer Darbyshire

General Counsel Governance
National Australia Bank Limited

C3 Locked up: your termination rights aren't what they used to be

Once upon a time contracts used relatively standard language to allow you to terminate them if an insolvency appointment was made to your counterparty.

Then along came amendments to the Corporations Act which commenced on 1 July this year. The so-called "ipso facto" reforms change the assumption that these standard termination clauses will work "by the very fact" of a formal insolvency appointment. So:

• why make this change to the law?
• how are termination and other contractual rights actually impacted?
• can you get around these changes and enforce rights under a contract with a counterparty working through an insolvency appointment?

Ian Innes, Special Counsel at Baker McKenzie, will guide you through the complexities of these recent reforms, and explain the developing trends in how to respond to the new restrictions on rights triggered by insolvency appointments.

The session will work through some examples of how the ipso facto reforms can be expected to operate in practice, and approaches to drafting which address commercial concerns about these fundamental changes to contract law.

D1 Change management and innovation within in-house legal teams

Innovation can only work effectively in an environment that is capable and ready to change.

How do you identify when to innovate, successfully implement change and most importantly - make it stick?

This session will provide you with the framework to:

• Identify when to innovate,
• Recognise what needs to change,
• Take an innovation from idea to a business case, and
• Manage relationships to ensure everyone is comfortable with the new change or innovation.

Verity White

Legal Counsel & Automation Coach
Telstra

Susan Schneider

Chief Legal Officer
Virgin Australia

Dr Katherine King

Chief Operating Officer
Yarris Pty Ltd

D2 Managing reputation risk in a cyber crisis

Protecting data is tricky business. Cyberattacks have become a global epidemic and often result in the loss of the personal information of individuals. Organisations now face stricter controls around how they manage personal data – and tougher fines if they fail to comply. Under Australia's Notifiable Data Breach (NDB) scheme – introduced in early 2018 - failure to report sensitive data breaches within 30 days could mean fines of up to AU$2.1 million. The European Union's Global Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") sees an organisation face fines up to 4% of its annual turnover or €20 million in the event of cybersecurity breach that compromises EU citizens' data. Management's readiness to respond if they have suffered a data breach and skill in navigating the crisis cycle is crucial to not only contain the breach - but also protect its shareholder and brand value.

In this session, we take you through the better practice approach to managing a cyberattack and the role of in-house counsel - looking at each phase of the crisis cycle:

• IMPACT - dealing with the immediate aftermath of a crisis. How prepared is your business?
• RESPONSE Containing the operational impact to limit time, money and customers lost, and mitigate reputational damage.
• RECOVERY Quantifying and moderating financial and reputational damage in the longer term.

Geoffrey Peck

Managing Director
FTI Consulting

Rebecca Harrison

Director Strategic Communications
FTI Consulting

D3 Workplace Relations Risks: Ducks, Roosters and Rollercoasters

Rachel Drew, Partner, Holding Redlich will explore legal issues and risks impacting In-House counsel today and provide practical insights for managing employee related issues. The session will include consideration of the risks arising out of:

• Ensuring correct classification workers, including hiring casuals and the uncertainty surrounding the classification of this category of employee in the wake of Skene v Workpac as well as considering the ongoing challenges of contractors vs employees in the gig economy;
• Tips for managing unfair dismissal claims and adverse action claims and best practice advice;
• Tips for ensuring compliance with new workplace laws around industrial manslaughter, protecting vulnerable workers and labour hire licensing.

Rachel Drew

Partner
Holding Redlich

ACC CLO Club

Open only to the organisation's chief legal officer, the CLO Club comprises interactive roundtable discussions. A fellow CLO will facilitate the discussion, providing you with the opportunity to benchmark and network with your peers at leading companies. Roundtables are highly interactive small group discussions enabling CLOs to share their company's best practices and strategies together on today's most challenging corporate issues.

Roundtable #2 The Role of the CLO: Tackling Sexual Harassment from Within and Beyond

What is the CLO's and by extension the legal department's role in proactively combating sexual harassment throughout your organization?

From organization wide training to literally removing closed doors and transitioning to an open office environment, CLOs play an integral part in ensuring that the workplace is a safe space. However, is this enough?

Do CLOs have to move one step further and take measures to ensure that vendors, agents, and other third-party relationships are taking steps to combat sexual harassment?

Fix your team

Why do in-house counsel need to think about fixing teams? Toxic behaviour in a team costs the organisation an additional $15,600 USD each year (Harvard Business School, 2015), yet bad behaviour is all too common. In 2016 research by Dr Lindsay McMillan, 14% of Australian workers described their workplace as 'toxic', and 50% of Australian workers have experienced serious incidents of conflict at work. These issues often involve in-house counsel, when mid-level managers and HR are at the end of their tether or simply don't know what to do.

In this engaging and practical session, participants will:

• learn the 12 dysfunctions of teams, and how to spot them
• identify the legal risks that result from toxic individuals, issues with team functioning and organisational culture
• find out the high-impact and low-cost tools that they can use - utilising existing resources and expertise within the business - to fix the problem

Rose Bryant-Smith

Director
Worklogic Pty Ltd

How to perform at your peak

Workplace performance expert Andrew May is a Partner at KPMG Performance Clinic, a best-selling author and keynote speaker. He has spent the past 20 years helping business leaders and their teams improve performance, productivity and wellbeing.

Andrew May