Castrén & Snellman GC Powerlist’s Country Partner in Finland

The nomination process is now running and will be open until the end of May 2016. In November, we will have the great pleasure of hosting local corporate counsel at a cocktail reception at our Helsinki office to celebrate the counsel who make the final list.

We are looking forward to seeing many talented lawyers on the GC Powerlist Finland 2016!

For further information, please contact:
Pauliina Tenhunen and Carola Lindholm

Greetings from David Burgess, the Publishing Director of The Legal 500:

Dear all Finnish in-house lawyers

Since launching the GC Powerlist series, we have been pleasantly surprised at the level of engagement from GCs across the globe. In-house lawyers are very aware of The Legal 500, regularly using the independent editorial and research to help them select which law firms to use. But since we turned our attention to the GCs, we have noticed a key difference between private practice and in-house.

For nearly 30 years, private practice lawyers have been incredibly upfront about the capabilities of the firm, the practice and themselves, as they know that engaging with our research team leads to better information, which leads to more accurate rankings. The in-house community, however, is much more modest. Sometimes it can be the culture of the company, sometimes it comes down to the personality and modesty of the GC, but what is noticeable is how reluctant in-house lawyers are to shout about their achievements. In private conversations, most GCS will say that what they have done for their companies far outstrips the often “conveyer belt” type work they did when they started out in private practice. Yet, for a multitude of reasons, they “don’t like to talk about it”.

The Legal 500 is about to launch the nomination process for the GC Powerlist: Nordics teams. Our research is Finland is supported by Castren & Snellman, and we look forward to launching the results in November in Helsinki. However, we can’t do it without you, so I’m writing this to urge you to nominate in-house teams, either your own or others you admire.

The process could not be simpler, simply fill in your details here and tell us in under 500 words why the team should be considered.

What are we looking for? Well, to be honest, there is no rigid formula, we are interested in hearing your story as to what makes your in-house team so valuable to the business. It could be the way you interact with your business, or the way you have partnered with your internal stakeholders to add value. In some cases, we have even seen the in-house department be classed as a revenue generator and be rewarded on that front. But it could be about how you have structured your in-house department, the diversity initiatives and training that you provide. It could be related to restructuring or mergers. As you can see, there are a host of reasons for why an in-house team is good, but we need to hear from you.

Our research team will gather all nominations and will conduct interviews to ascertain the leading teams. Want another reason to nominate? Hiding from the light won’t allow you to grow in your role, but many of the GCs or in-house teams that we have recommended have told us that it has made a material difference within their organisations. Either the business has suddenly recognised that they have a world-class legal function, or it has empowered the legal teams to interact at a deeper and more rewarding level with their internal stakeholders.

If you have any questions, please contact me at corporatecounsel@legal500.com.

What are you waiting for? Get nominating!

David Burgess
Publishing Director
www.legal500.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-burgess/6/881/23b
https://twitter.com/thelegal500