Biography Christian Waida Christian Waida is the General Counsel Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for Nortel, a global telecommunication equipment supplier. Together with his team of 25 lawyers and contract managers he is responsible for all legal matters in the EMEA region. Prior to serving as the General Counsel EMEA, Mr. Waida was responsible for overseeing a team of 7 lawyers covering Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Eastern Europe, Turkey and Israel. Before joining Nortel in 1998 he worked in private practice as attorney at law (Rechtsanwalt) in Germany, advising as well as litigating cases in areas such as commercial and competition law. Mr. Waida is admitted to the Bar Association in Germany and the Law Society in England. He is a law faculty graduate of the University of Osnabrück, Germany.
902 Building Expertise in a Multinational Law Department Robert Blackert – SLI Sylvania Christian Waida – Nortel Networks Tony Wales – AOL Europe ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Agenda Introduction of the Panel Organisation Staffing Leadership Expertise
ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Introduction of the Panelists (1) Robert Blackert – SLI Sylvania Europe SLI Sylvania manufactures and supplies lighting systems and lamps. In 2006, it generated €470MM revenue with over 4000 employees worldwide. The Group was recently acquired by the Havell‘s India Group. ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Introduction of the Panelists (2) The major part of SLI Sylvania‘s current activities are located in Europe and Latin America with a strong focus on growth in Asia and the Middle East. SLI Sylvania‘s legal department consists of 2 lawyers based in Frankfurt and 2 in New York. ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Introduction of the Panelists (3) Tony Wales – AOL Europe AOL Europe is a business unit of AOL LLC, which is a world leader in interactive services, web brands, Internet technologies and e-commerce with more than 30 million customers worldwide. AOL LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Introduction of the Panelists (4) AOL Europe reaches over 10 million Internet users across Europe with portals in the UK, France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and other territories being added rapidly. The AOL Europe legal department has 7 lawyers based in London, 3 in Paris, 3 in Hamburg and one in Luxembourg. ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Introduction of the Panelists (5) Christian Waida – Nortel Networks Nortel Networks is a supplier of telecommunication products and services to enterprises and service providers across the globe. Headquartered in Canada it generates revenues of approx. 11billion US$ with ~33.000 employees globally. ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Introduction of the Panelists (6) Nortels EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) revenues account for approx 1/3rd of global revenues The EMEA legal dept consists of 26 members with offices in UK (13), France (5), Germany (4), Spain (1), Israel (1), Turkey (1), Russia (1) ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Organisation What are the advantages / disadvantages of a centralised vs. de-centralised legal dept? What communication channels are being used within your legal dept? What processes do you use to maintain quality of service within a legal dept scattered over several territories? ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Staffing What processes do you use to hire and introduce new staff to the department? How do you manage the issue of career development for individual lawyers in an inhouse structure? How do you balance the need for both specialist and generalist expertise within the dept? ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Leadership How do you generate a good team spirit within the dept, especially where the team is spread across several territories? How do you generate a feel-good factor for the individual lawyers? How do you manage issues of workload and work / life balance? ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Expertise How do you manage internal training and knowledge sharing across several territories? How do you get and retain expertise on new legal topics or new demands from the business? What skills training (separate from legal training) do you do? ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Questions and comments?
ACC Europe 2007 Annual Conference: The Growing Role of In-house Counsel: Lawyers as Business Partners
3-5 June 2007 Bayerischer Hof Hotel Munich, Germany
Robert Blackert is the General Counsel Europe of Havell’s Sylvania, a global designer and supplier of lighting systems. Having joined the company in 2003, his responsibilities include the corporate, contractual, labour- and IP-related legal affairs of the group as well as providing counsel to the business, designing and implementing the group’s compliance program and coordinating its lobbying activities in Europe. Recently the merger of the SLI Sylvania business with the Havell’s Group took up a lot of his time. Prior to joining SLI Sylvania, Mr Blackert worked for five years in private practice, focussing on corporate, contractual and insolvency law. Mr Blackert studied in Germany and France, received a doctor of laws from the FriedrichAlexander-Universität Erlangen and is a certified specialist for insolvency law.
