Trudy Knockless

Cristina Diaz, who recently joined Crowell & Moring after more than a decade at UBS, discusses what her years in-house taught her about turning regulatory requirements into practical business solutions, why she returned to private practice and how she approaches leadership in an evolving financial services landscape.

"The challenge will be for in-house lawyers to lead the charge in developing the systems that will replace our old ways of working," said legal technology expert Richard Susskind.

“The presumption that I always pressure test with them is sort of that first capacity constraint reflex is to go and get outside counsel because this is a new question or a complex question,” said Rishi Varma, chief legal, compliance and corporate affairs officer and corporate secretary at Cargill.

A nearly $10 million cash payday wasn't enough to make Goldman Sachs' legal chief the highest-paid woman in this year's Corporate Counsel compensation rankings, underscoring how equity awards have become the defining factor in executive pay packages.

A stock award worth roughly $22 million propelled Adams' total compensation to $27.03 million, according to this year's Corporate Counsel compensation rankings.

“We need to continue to be fiscal stewards by really mining all of the value of the work product that we're receiving from outside counsel,” said Shopify associate general counsel Ryan Gailey.

"Build relationships. Be curious about the business. Learn how your company makes money and what your clients are trying to accomplish," Dennis Garcia said.

"Few roles inside an organization meld visibility and insight into strategy, risk and governance in the way the general counsel does" Eric Gorman, principal of legal business services at KPMG US, said in a new report.

“Skills can only be gained by judgment, and skills can be gained by doing the work. Once you learn the work, you can automate it and save time efficiently. But if you start with using the tools, if you don't know the rules, then I'm not sure they're learning the right tools,” said Hiro Oshima, deputy general counsel of SMBC.

“Skills can only be gained by judgment, and skills can be gained by doing the work. Once you learn the work, you can automate it and save time efficiently. But if you start with using the tools, if you don’t know the rules, then I’m not sure they’re learning the right tools,” said Hiro Oshima, deputy general counsel of SMBC.