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CCCA_V7No1_Q&AHeatherCraford-FIN_CCCA 2/12/13 5:15 PM Page 42 Feature How did you learn about the culture at Clairvest? exposure, as a lawyer you can sort it out and call people. I always You have to do your due diligence.For me that was tricky because have access to external counsel on things like litigation that I I didn’t have a predecessor. I did know lawyers who worked as wouldn’t be doing myself. external counsel at Clairvest so I was able to get impressions and speak with people who Clairvest had done deals with. More typ- What was the biggest challenge? ically, when you go in-house,you are joining a department or you Treading the path. I didn’t have a role model, even a bad role will have a predecessor so you can do your due diligence. model to say this is the way to do it. I was clearing my way and figuring it out on my own,which,in hindsight,probably allowed Describe the transition. me to grow a lot more. I was the first person to work as in-house counsel at Clairvest. I have to confess the first four, five, six months I felt quite isolat- Have you developed new legal skills? ed. I was so accustomed to an environment where there were Yes, one of those would be litigation management. Litigation is hundreds of lawyers, lots of people who thought like I did, had something you don’t wish on anybody. But it does happen when been trained like I had, and you could sort of wander the halls you are doing business. Sometimes there’s no litigation. and bounce ideas off of people. There were no lawyers here. Sometimes there’s a handful of it. There’s a skill to managing Then I realized that my colleagues from Torys and other law external counsel and to directing that process.You have to listen firms were just a phone call or email away and they were still to your external counsel and you have to create, internally, real- there to bounce ideas off of and get suggestions. Once I recog- istic expectations. Litigation can be very emotional. So people nized that, it was a much better situation for me. think they’re right or if they are committed to an issue you have to sometimes step back knowing the nasty realities of litigation. Was there a big learning curve? You have to recognize the costs associated with that, both in When you are trained as a lawyer you are going to figure out terms of legal hard costs and management attention that is how to solve an issue. I think I was, on the general corporate diverted from what they should be doing in value creation. securities matters, pretty up to speed and comfortable. In other Showing people the road map and managing expectations areas, whether it was looking at a lease or drafting an employ- is something that’s important and something important that ment agreement, where I may not have had the same level of I’ve learned. 42 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association SPRING 2013