Q&A with Niki Sadeghnia, Legal Counsel at a leading teletech company
Tell us, in a nutshell, what does your role as Legal Counsel look like?
This is my third role as Legal Counsel now, and it’s evolved over the past years. In smaller teams, I find myself handling a multitude of responsibilities, many of which carry significant seniority. On the other hand, when part of a larger team, the role becomes more concentrated, focused, and specialised.
My current role is a healthy balance of the two: part of it entails collaborating with product managers (a product manager works closely with the product development team) to draft terms and conditions for cloud products. I am currently a product lawyer; my job is to extract their knowledge about the product, the techie stuff, and then turn it to terms and conditions. I also work on operational improvement projects, which is essentially legal operations.
Besides providing standard legal advice, I also engage with external counsel for their legal tech.
What BD or marketing activities do you appreciate from law firms, and which are you not a fan of?
Networking events can be super fun, but I must admit that I occasionally find myself growing a bit weary of the typical small talk that can dominate such gatherings. I find smaller and more intimate settings more helpful to foster genuine relationships.
For example, if a tech lawyer or if a commercial department from a law firm wants to know my view on, I don’t know, cloud products and what we’re doing in that respect, reach out to me. Let’s talk about it. Whether that’s a call or, whether it’s going to grab a coffee – you know what you’re there for and what you’re trying to achieve, it’s an exchange of ideas which is valuable.
I really appreciate insightful newsletters or webinars. That said, I can lose focus easily, so I don’t enjoy long (often very monotone) webinars; I prefer it when it’s brief and to the point and when the wider audience gets involved.
If I’m honest, I do feel sometimes that it’s the wrong people presenting – to keep the audience engaged, you really do need to have strong presentation skills – please don’t talk at us for 45 minutes straight! I’m sure other people must think that too!
What are your thoughts on LinkedIn?
I love LinkedIn. I think it’s great. Most of my jobs, have been through LinkedIn. I use it and I think it’s a great way of sharing information and keeping in touch.
It’s interesting to see how people’s personal brands are developing on there – I’m still new to that, but I have noticed more and more legal influencers around. I do think you have to be careful how you use the platform and your brand though; I do avoid anything that is personal or political, from a business perspective I feel that LinkedIn isn’t the right place for that type of thing.
What qualities do you value most in external counsel when establishing a long-term partnership?
Genuine interactions and a diverse background. As I bid farewell to one of my junior roles in private practice, one of the partners took me out for a leaving lunch, which gave us the opportunity to connect on a more personal level. This genuine interaction laid the groundwork for future collaboration. I later engaged the firm once I was in a more senior role, and I would do so again in future.
I also find it important that external counsel comes from a diverse background for a few reasons. For example, I find that a lawyer who has had an alternative career path before becoming a lawyer might be more likely to understand commercial issues or realise that in-house lawyers are not necessarily always looking for legal advice but are seeking general problem-solving.
I also think that diversity feeds into the way language is used, and the way advice is delivered, besides many other benefits. Having different perspectives makes legal services more effective and adds variety to the legal world.
In your experience, what should associates (and partners) avoid doing when working with in-house legal counsel?
One of my biggest pains is often the billing process. I really dislike receiving a generalised bill for ‘x hours worked’ with a vague description.
Budgets and legal costs are important and as an in-house lawyer, I want to know what I am paying for because ultimately, I’ll have to justify it internally. Having to dig through emails or seek clarification is a tedious process and really takes up too much time.
When it comes to itemisation and descriptions in a bill, more information really is more, and helps strengthen trust (or at least not damage trust) between external and in-house counsel!
What is the most annoying thing you have experienced when working with external counsel (without naming names of course!)?
Besides the painful billing process that I mentioned earlier, it’s frustrating when external counsel provides you with solutions, only considering the legalities and leaving out practicalities or costs.
Ultimately, as a business, you need to consider not only the lawfulness of your actions, but also things such as culture, delivery, people involved/impact on the business and costs etc.
Also, when external counsels’ advice is delivered in a way that I don’t easily understand. I find it helpful when someone delivers advice to you, using similar language, and in a manner that is easy to follow.
What do you think makes a great lawyer?
I think a diverse range of experience and a diverse background makes a great lawyer and a great legal team.
There is benefit in having worked a variety of jobs or in different industries before your legal career, as it gives you a greater understanding of how businesses operate and what their priorities may be. This, in turn, fosters a better grasp of clients’ needs.
For example, I think it’s quite normal in IP that patent lawyers were engineers beforehand. It’s so clear that they come with a very different skill set, range of knowledge and perspective.
How can firms create more great lawyers?
I think secondments are so useful. But to do them at all levels, not just junior.
Go into a business and see what the pain points are. At the end of the day, lawyers are engaged to problem-solve, and that way, you’ll have the best view of all the problems first-hand. If you want to understand your client, I think that’s the best way.
Speak to your secondees that go into the business and ask them about pain points they have experienced. What is the client struggling with? Go into the secondment with that in mind – watch out and understand what the problems are that the firm could then ultimately go in to solve.
If you want your juniors to be entrepreneurs, teach them how to look for the things that can ultimately become opportunities. For trainees, instead of just saying, ‘Right, you’re moving on to your next seat’, maybe focus on giving them an induction to what it could actually mean for them and the firm and help them gain a more holistic understanding of what the real benefits of a secondment could be.
I also think firms need to give their employees a voice because a lot of the time, you might have individuals with great ideas that can add real value, but they don’t have a platform or the support to be able to share them.
It links to an entrepreneurial mindset as well. At my company, we have an idea vault, and you can submit ideas. It’s such a great way to harness ideas because you don’t necessarily have to give people face time, but you’re giving them a way of expressing their ideas.
How do you think the legal industry is doing regarding tech? What’s your favourite software?
I don’t know if it is just the companies that I’ve been exposed to, but I think we can do so much better in legal tech. I think a lot of the legal tech that I’ve used, does the job, but is really clunky.
One bit of legal tech I find quite helpful is a contract repository we use, as it extracts some metadata, so you know when your renewals, expiries and what the main clauses such as indemnities and limitation of liability are on an overview page. So instead of just filing your documents away in folders, you have it in a place where you can have an overview of all the metadata.
I also really like Chat GPT. Obviously, you have to be quite careful how you use it, but ultimately, I think it can make life much easier – even if it’s just to help you get started on a matter or project.
I’m also currently testing Co-Pilot. It’s cool, the AI is like Chat GPT with the additional functionality of it linking to your Teams, Outlook, Word etc. I think it has a lot of potential to make our day-to-day life easier.
