The Right Team
International Capgemini's legal department was created in 1998 on the 30th anniversary of the Group, which employed 30,000 persons at the time. Despite being headquartered in France, the Capgemini legal department was never thought of being limited to French lawyers.
It was “born with an international DNA” from day 1, recruiting lawyers from different jurisdictions who formed the nucleus of what would later become the Capgemini global legal department with 280 team members, in December 2015.Diversity Diversity is a foundation for innovation. Beyond its international DNA, a deliberate effort is made within the legal department to bring balance to the team. At the end of 2015, the headquarters' legal department was composed of members from seven nationalities, 50 % non-French. The ambition was to equally cover all national common law and civil law as well as numerous languages. Familiarity with cultural diversity enables fluid and productive interaction with lawyers and business colleagues all around the world.
Gender It is worth noting that in many countries the legal function is largely composed of women lawyers but only some of them reach a General Counsel position. This was never the case within Capgemini. The legal department is divided into five regions plus the headquarters, and there is a perfect gender parity at this managerial level. Although perfect parity was not a specific goal, allowing talented women to take responsibilities in the legal department was always the Group General Counsel's ambition. She is also the founder and lead of “Women@Capgemini,” the Group Gender Balance Program. The underlying principle in promotion of lawyers was always to give equal opportunities to all team members, regardless of their gender or ethnicity. In addition, internal promotion is encouraged, and every time an appointment is opened, priority is given to existing talent over external hires.
Most General Counsels were appointed internally, hence allowing the promotion of talented women who had grown within the community.A few years ago, the General Counsel of a small geography moved to another position. It was decided to wait for 2 years to replace him in order to allow a talented but less experienced female lawyer to prepare for the role. During this time, a senior lawyer from another jurisdiction was appointed as interim General Counsel. This was a “win-win” situation, since it gave the interim lawyer a unique opportunity to act as a General Counsel, a role unavailable at the time in his own geography, while the future General Counsel could be trained and promoted.
Backgrounds Legal cannot any longer include exclusively lawyers but must be open to and enriched by new complementary profiles. The Capgemini legal department, which includes a contract management team, is composed of a diversity of profiles, lawyers and non-lawyers with diverse backgrounds (delivery, finance, risk management). This allows the department to provide better analyses while having an in-depth understanding of other functions and their expectations. The legal department itself benefits from the opportunity for its entire team to develop talent. Non-lawyers are being trained on legal matters and lawyers can expand their expertise. It also enhances the possibility for lawyers to evolve outside of legal functions if so motivated.
Mobility In order to foster exchanges between local legal departments and headquarters, a rotation program was created in 2003. Members from local legal departments are seconded for a few weeks or months to the Paris headquarters. This program gives them the opportunity to better understand Capgemini Group's priorities and policies. It also enables local best practices—brought by the rotation lawyer—to be rolled out through the entire legal community. Allowing local lawyers to gain a corporate perspective is an extremely valuable exposure, while it helps headquarters lawyers to keep a link with the day-to-day local operational constraints and ensure that current processes are well suited.
At the end of 2015, almost all local legal departments of Capgemini had sent lawyers in rotation to the headquarters. Beneficiaries' profile and level of experience are diverse, as not only senior lawyers, are eligible for the program. “Game changers” are highly valued across Capgemini, and the rotation lawyers' contribution is diverse and valuable. Examples of contributions range from the drafting of a “Legal Department Welcome Kit” suggested by a junior lawyer sharing her experience on the information she would have liked to receive upon joining, to contributions to the legal department strategy, subject matter expertise or methodologies. The rotation program initiated at Group level aims also to be applied between the local legal departments to enhance relationships.Financial Arbitrage Facing an increasing number of requests for legal support in a Group experiencing a strong internal and external expansion, albeit in a restrictive budgetary environment, Capgemini created the Rightshore® economic model. This model allows the legal department to provide in-depth, high-quality legal advice at limited costs. The Rightshore® economic model is a financial arbitrage defining the optimal location of resources in terms of labor costs, in each main type of legal activity adapted to our needs (contracts review, negotiation, trackers, templates, and policies drafting, etc.). Today the four Rightshore® locations: Brazil, India, Poland and Guatemala, are a unique opportunity for the headquarters legal department and most local ones to work closely with colleagues from these four countries.
Open Mind Open-mindedness is important in the search for talent, devoid of hierarchical considerations. A well-run organization must allow talent to shine, and leveraging talent globally is particularly meaningful to enhance small teams' performance. It is widely recognized that bringing together different people with various academic backgrounds and level of experience fosters innovation and helps the team to think outside of the box. It is essential as well to recognize successful initiatives taken by an individual and to give due credit for ideas and contributions of each member of the department. This mindset encourages the younger generation to speak up and propose initiatives that more experienced colleagues would not necessarily have thought of; it is the combination of all members that allows the team to push innovative projects.
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