Effective strategies for General Counsel in preparing and responding to a crisis

How to ensure the legal function adds maximum value

On 12 November 2024, Blake Morgan was delighted to host two roundtable discussions at “The Lawyer In-house Counsel as Business Partner” conference led by partners Oliver Storey-Harris and Natalie Coates. The roundtables brought together GCs and senior legal counsel from a wide range of businesses, public sector organisations and sectors to share views and experiences on crisis management.

There was much thought-provoking discussion around defining a crisis and when it becomes a legal matter, identifying risk and effective crisis management strategies. We have set out the key themes of our discussions below:

• 1. Ensure the right stakeholders can communicate with each other effectively and respond to the crisis
  • a. This requires a clear governance structure and reporting lines in the crisis management plan
  • b. A simple plan, which stakeholders have easily to hand and understand is better than a large handbook trying to deal with every issue
  • c. It is important to ensure that key stakeholders have the right information and contact details on paper to deal with e.g. cyber attacks
• 2. Prioritise the right steps at the right time
  • a. Identify immediately urgent issues which need to be addressed vs second order issues
  • b. Need to think critically about strategy vs delivery – addressing key issues quickly and effectively followed a short period of planning is best to avoid decision paralysis and being overtaken by events
  • c. Once the immediate crisis period has passed, it is important to move beyond crisis management and back to ‘business as usual’
• 3. Ensure stakeholders are able to contact the right individuals to provide support quickly and efficiently (whether internal or external)
  • a. Legal advisers
  • b. PR / media advisers
  • c. Insurers
  • d. Regulators
• 4. Crisis management is a stressful time for those responding, as well as those dealing with ‘business as usual’ while the crisis is dealt with – supporting the team is crucial
  • a. Regular and relevant training is key, including crisis simulations / war gaming
  • b. An effective “lessons learned” process – for the current crisis and crisis management generally – is important and allows the team to improve its performance for next time
  • c. A “no blame” culture allows team members to react effectively in fast moving situations without the concern of being criticised for unavoidable errors

Thank you to all of the roundtable attendees for contributing to such an interesting and dynamic discussion.

If you would like to contact Oliver or Natalie concerning anything raised during the roundtable, or are looking for any financing, restructuring or wider in-house legal support, they would be very pleased to hear from you.

Oliver is a partner in our Banking & Finance team, whose key expertise involves advising corporate borrowers on significant financing and refinancing transactions as well as restructuring matters.

Natalie is a partner in our Banking & Finance team who specialises in asset finance and receivables financing, including operating and finance leases, asset-backed loans and stocking facilities.

You can also sign up to mailings for our Counsel+ forum here to receive learning resources and invitations to events and networking opportunities.