Nokia collaborates to drive D&I among law firms
Nokia and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) have launched a global law firm survey that will allow firms to assess and advance efforts that promote equity, inclusion and diversity.
The survey brings together Nokia’s own equity, inclusion and diversity survey, which it launched in early 2021, with MCCA’s 18 years of experience in assessing diversity across top US firms.
Nokia’s initiative is designed to collect both qualitative and quantitative data from panel law firms to identify areas of improvement, which the telecoms giant has worked with external counsel to improve. Nokia’s chief legal officer Nassib Abou-Khalil told The In-House Lawyer: ‘Our approach was different from other companies that launched initiatives before us because it has moved away from the carrot-and-stick approach, and is rather focused on how we work together in order to achieve better outcomes.
‘It has more teeth because essentially you can’t buy your way out. Either you are fully in, and your values match our values, or you are not and then we have to part ways and we will not be your client.’
The Nokia-MCCA survey incorporates this approach and allows law firms globally to receive bespoke analysis that can be accessed by any company looking to work with them. It covers key diversity indicators such as race and ethnicity, religious minorities, gender identity, disability status and LGBTQ+ status, as well as subjects including leadership, recruitment and management structure. The use of qualitive data also overcomes jurisdictional restrictions to sharing employees’ personal data.
This is the latest example of the role that in-house legal teams can play in driving diversity in private practice following a marked increase in companies including diversity and inclusion considerations in legal tender processes.
Abou-Khalil, who also co-developed Nokia’s OUT Leaders program, which he has also extended to external counsel, concluded: ‘There’s a realisation, including among the law firms themselves, that they need their clients to be very active in asking them to prioritise equity, inclusion and diversity because it gives them the platform to drive initiatives in that direction.’
Cripps and Gowling win spots on Landsec’s expanded panel
Commercial property developer Land Securities Group (Landsec) has unveiled its revamped property legal panel, expanding its roster from seven to nine firms as it aligns its legal service providers with its new emphasis on mixed-use urban neighbourhoods.
Cripps and Gowling WLG are new additions from its last review in 2016, while Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, CMS, DAC Beachcroft, Eversheds Sutherland, Herbert Smith Freehills, Hogan Lovells and Pinsent Masons were all reappointed for a five-year term.
The FTSE 100 real estate company, which has a £12bn portfolio of retail, leisure, workspace and residential hubs including Deutsche Bank’s London headquarters and Trinity shopping centre in Leeds, highlighted a focus on mixed-use urban neighbourhoods as the newest element to its growth strategy announced in October 2020. Its strategy also includes a continued focus on central London offices and major retail destinations.
Since then, CMS has advised Landsec on its £425.6m acquisition of a 75% interest in MediaCity, Europe’s leading digital, media and tech hub in Salford in November 2021, while Hogan Lovells and CMS both advised Landsec on the launch of Bluewater REIT in April 2022, its £172m joint venture with M&G Real Estate.
As part of the retender process, Landsec also considered value creation and alignment with the companies’ refreshed sustainability strategy launched in April 2022, which embedded ESG through its relationships with suppliers.
Head of legal Alex Peeke said: ‘We have been very pleased with the performance of our panel over the last six years and in particular during the pandemic when they helped us carry out some major transactions under very challenging circumstances. Our review has enabled us to tap into some of the additional capability that our panel has to support new focus areas for the business, such as mixed-use urban neighbourhoods.’
He added: ‘We are also delighted to welcome Cripps and Gowling to the panel and look forward to working with them. I am very confident that we have the capacity, capability and enthusiasm in our panel to help us deliver our strategy over the next five years.’
Anna Favre, partner in Cripps residential estates team, said: ‘We are delighted to have been appointed to the property legal panel and to be working closely with Landsec to achieve its objectives for growth in the mixed-use urban environment.’
As a new strategic supplier to Landsec, we are also pleased to have the opportunity to act in partnership to improve how we operate as a responsible business, such as reducing our carbon emissions and improving diversity and inclusion. With Landsec as a client partner we will share the skills, resources and knowledge to tackle these real-world problems together.’
National firms get full marks in £49m education sector tender
Eversheds Sutherland, Ward Hadaway and Weightmans are among the eight firms appointed to further education sector purchasing consortium Crescent Purchasing Consortium (CPC)’s £49m legal panel.
The new panel structure focuses on a combination of geographical and specialism-led lots. The seven lots cover human resources, pensions and people; academy conversions and post-conversion services; property issues; contracts, procurement governance and related issues; dispute resolution; general legal advice as well as one all-encompassing category covering all eventualities that could occur nationally.
Of the appointed firms Eversheds, Ward Hadaway and Weightmans won spots on all of the lots, including to its all-encompassing ‘national one-stop-shop’ lot to which Capital Law was also appointed. Forbes Solicitors, Rollits, and Shakespeare Martineau were appointed to all but the one-stop lot, while Stone King was selected for its academy conversion expertise.
The panel will last until 31 May 2025, with an option for a one-year extension.
Moves that matter
- Sky Group has recruited Niamh Grogan to succeed long term general counsel Vicky Sandry, who stepped down after 17 years in the role. Grogan joined in June from insurance broker Willis Towers Watson where she was global deputy general counsel and chief compliance officer.
- Ocado has bagged a new head of legal from Vodafone. Clare Lynch, who will join the online supermarket in September, started her career at Herbert Smith Freehills where she spent nearly four years post qualification. After two years at King & Spalding, she left private practice for Vodafone in 2015 where she most recently held the role of senior legal adviser in the tax group.
- Linklaters Tokyo partner Matthew Bland has joined multinational conglomerate Jardine Matheson in Hong Kong as GC. During his 24 years at the firm, the corporate expert worked in both London and Tokyo and was promoted to the partnership in 2008. Bland will become the third former Links partner to take on the role as he succeeds the magic circle firm’s former head of corporate Jeremy Parr, who took over the role from his former Links colleague Giles White in 2015.
- De La Rue GC Jane Hyde is set to join RWS Holdings as GC and company secretary from 1 October. Hyde has previously worked at Freshfields and Taylor Wessing, and directly before joining De La Rue she was the head of corporate and European legal at FTSE 100 company Hikma Pharmaceuticals.
- Gett’s former head of legal Chris Fletcher has joined Infinium Logistics as GC. Fletcher previously spent seven years at CMS, before occupying in house roles at Amazon, Deliveroo and publishing company Informa.
- Former Slaughter and May associate Vicky Harris has been appointed GC of Pharma Intelligence, the pharmaceutical and medtech market intelligence company recently acquired by global growth investor Warburg Pincus. Harris, who left private practice in 2009 to join Thomson Reuters, is well placed for the role, having led the legal department of Clarivate following its sale by Thomson Reuters in 2016.
- Axon has promoted Isaiah Fields to chief legal officer. Fields joined Axon in 2011 as litigation counsel, since then he has been promoted several times most recently to EVP and general counsel in January 2021 where he oversaw the legal, medical and compliance departments.
- French Connection GC Sarah Mackie has joined Unilever-owned beauty brand Elida Beauty, which was recently carved out as a separate entity. Mackie made the move in June after seven years at the fashion retailer.
- Scania’s head of legal and compliance, Sarah Holford (pictured above), is set to take on a new role in Scania’s central operations. Since taking the reins in January 2019, her team was named Most Transformative In-House Team of the Year at the 2021 Legal Business Awards. Her successor is yet to be announced.