Member in the Spotlight: Shannon Landers

1. Tell us about your current role.
I am the Group Legal Manager for the Cotton On Group, a global fast fashion retailer with 7 trading brands in 19 countries including Cotton On, Cotton On Kids, Cotton On Body, Typo, Rubi, Supre and Factorie. We have approximately 1,500 stores and a global e-commerce platform and around 25,000 staff. The global legal teams consists of myself as Head of Legal and our Graduate Lawyer, Roxanna Tabari who will shortly be admitted to practice. We look after all legal matters globally. We outsource some work, and also empower our teams by upskilling them through the delivery of legal training and implementing processes for them to follow so that we can focus on the high level strategic commercial legal work. 
I also manage lease administration globally which involves a more operational role within the business, specifically I have a team that reports to me and is responsible for all leases in Australia, New Zealand, USA, UK and Brazil.  

2. What do you believe is the most important skill an in-house lawyer needs?  
Commercial acumen combined with a great ability to build relationships. When you are involved within a business, rather than just giving advice to a business, you need to provide really pragmatic legal solutions that are not simply technical in nature. Additionally, in order to have those solutions considered you need to build really good relationships as a trusted advisor within all levels of the business.  

3. What led you to pursue an in-house legal role?
I really wanted to be a part of a business, and its full commercial operations, rather than just simply providing ad hoc technical legal advice. You get to see your advice come full circle, and be delivered into outcomes and projects, it’s very satisfying. 

4. What advice would you offer to in-house counsel in building relationships with their organisations
You need to be yourself, and you also need to be relatable, and real. In order to mitigate risks before they occur, you need to have your finger on the pulse of what is going on in the business. If your co-workers feel you are one of them, and not a superior authority, they will come to you with issues so that you can work together to execute projects properly. The last thing you want is for people to feel intimidated to seek legal advice, and proceed with a project which then leads to an issue or dispute that you ultimately need to fix, or that has the potential to expose the business at a later date. 

5. What is the one thing a law degree doesn’t teach you about being an in-house lawyer?
A law degree doesn’t teach you how to effectively deliver legal advice to different stakeholders. You need to approach or explain legal issues very differently to different levels within the business, and also to different personalities within the business. This requires good emotional intelligence, because you often have to simplify the crux of the issue and explain it verbally and ensure the advice is being properly understood and that you can extract the right instructions, often on the fly (i.e. In a corridor conversation vs taking time to write full advice and seek formal instructions). 

6. What are the biggest changes you’ve witnessed across the legal sector since you joined the profession?
Privacy and Data protection globally has really had a massive change and impact to digital marketing and storage of client data. Additionally, the focus on modern slavery and corporate social responsibility has really been put under the microscope. 

7. Finish this sentence…. If I wasn’t a lawyer I’d be…. 
A forensic pathologist 

8. I like being a part of the ACC Australia community because ……. 
I like being part of the ACC community as it’s really great to be connected and supported with other in-house counsel, who understand your daily challenges and achievements. There’s also great events both professionally catered to in-house, and socially for networking and catching up.