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This month’s Corporate Counsel features the magazine’s annual review of top legal departments.  The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. earned top honors this year for its impressive accomplishments on the precipice of a financial industry meltdown and for its highly-developed internal efforts to promote success within the legal department.  

Building a great team, of course, requires hiring great people, but Hartford Financial demonstrates how to push a legal department to truly excel.  And having a legal department that excels has never been more critical than it is now in times of tightening budgets and increased scrutiny on legal expenses.

Key lessons your legal department can learn:

• Hire not just talented staff, but talented staff with complementary strengths.  Each hire should strengthen the overall team and equip the department to be more agile in the face of changes to the business.
• Systematically implement mentoring and training programs.  These are long-term investments that will pay off in recruiting, retention, and productivity.
• Train lawyers within the legal department to hire and manage the relationship with outside counsel.  Legal departments of all sizes need their lawyers to take a consistent, strategic approach to working with outside lawyers, particularly in times of tight budgets.  Even though most in-house counsel previously worked as outside counsel, many would benefit from training to get the most from outside lawyers.   
• Take a hands-on approach to legal work.  Keeping in-house counsel actively involved in the matters they manage encourages a better result.
• Encourage innovation.  Lawyers are not natural innovators, and change often comes slowly.  However, a culture that encourages experimenting with new methods, new approaches, and new perspectives will yield more successes than failures.

You can learn more about Hartford Financial’s successes here:  http://www.law.com/jsp/ihc/PubArticleIHC.jsp?id=1202430800136.

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The economic slump has caused demand for most transactions lawyers to come to a screeching halt. Deal flow is stagnant, credit is scarce, and many attorneys who specialize in real estate and structured finance are looking for jobs.  

Areas that continue to experience growth – and hiring -- include:

• Renewable energy project development. Attorneys with experience in power project development, especially wind projects, are in high demand. 
• International trade & global compliance. FCPA violations, import/export issues and customs audits keep GCs awake at night. These are mission-critical positions within legal departments.
• E-discovery managers. For many companies that experience a high volume of litigation, these positions are starting to become more prevalent.    Recessions tend to increase litigation, so this position will likely play an important role on corporate legal teams.
• Regulatory practices. Demand is increasing for regulatory lawyers, including those who specialize in energy, environmental, securities and now banking.

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Finding the right candidate seems like the most difficult part of the recruiting process, but it’s frequently the offer negotiation that proves to be the challenge. 

A successful negotiation, of course, results in a hire. Ideally, the employer extends the offer and (usually after some consideration), the candidate accepts. Both sides are thrilled and eager to begin a future together.  However, the script doesn’t always read that way. Back and forth salary negotiations put the “new job honeymoon” at risk. 

Coming out with a low-ball offer that eventually is accepted by the candidate is not necessarily successful.  Even a low offer that is later accepted risks leaving both sides with less-than-stellar attitudes. Candidates view the offer as a measure of their value to the company.   They are not thinking – at least on the front end -- about legal department budgets, future raises and incentives, and benefits.   

The best outcome can be reached by understanding the candidate’s motivations and priorities. More vacation time might be worth less salary.  Sign-on bonuses are effective and often can be compelling, even if the salary is lower.  

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Large energy company located in Houston seeks a 5+ year transactions lawyer to provide operational support for one of its divisions. The role provides a great career platform at a company with a history of promoting internally. In addition, the salary is competitive and the company offers a generous short and long-term incentive plan.

Responsibilities include:

• Providing transactional and regulatory support for new product development and new market entry.
• Handling transactions related to energy commodities and services.
• Providing operational support in connection with billing, customer support and with automating documentation processes.
• Managing outside vendors, outside counsel and contract compliance.
• Managing litigation relating to energy commodities and services.

A prior in-house background is a plus. Also, candidates with a solid understanding of energy markets are preferred.

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For an industry that runs on natural resources, it’s the human component that is becoming its newest challenge. The energy sector of the economy is more active than at any other time in the last 20 years. However, the industry has not only failed to attract new graduates, but it has lost seasoned professionals. 

Despite periodic spectacular earnings over the last 20 years, the oil and gas attorney workforce has been declining steadily for almost 20 years. The industry slump of the 1980’s was unusually severe and left long-lasting scars. Moreover, the “dirty industry” image has not done much in the past to attract people to the profession. Many recall the oil-soaked birds and dead otters on the beach following the Exxon-Valdez spill. Others simply viewed the industry as a slow-growth, old economy behemoth. 

Like other oil and gas professionals, lawyers left the industry for less cyclical sectors of the economy. However, unlike other industries affected by the economic downturn, the energy industry recovery did not bring these professionals back, nor were they replaced with new talent.  And the high tech boom of the late 1990’s provided refuge for the best and brightest. 

Adding to the problem, the average age in the oil and gas industry workforce is 49 – among the oldest of any sector in the U.S. economy. According to Martindale Hubbell, 85% of the lawyers who specialize in oil and gas law have more than 10 years of experience. In addition, a Labor Department study found that more than 65% of workers in the oil and gas industry are between the ages of 35 and 54, while only a “small” percentage are in their twenties. 

With the retirement wave approaching and global demand at record levels, energy industry legal departments are headed for a human resource crisis.  

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