Meeting the Needs of General Counsel: Beyond the Basics of Legal Advice with Alexander Lima, Vice President and Associate General Counsel of Wesco International

In this episode of On Record PR, Jennifer Simpson Carr goes on record with Alexander Lima, Vice President and Associate General Counsel of Wesco International, to discuss the importance of understanding clients’ business needs and building trust. Wesco International is a Fortune 200 company with revenues of over $22 billion. Alex is a global business executive with over 25 years of experience in leading corporate legal functions for medium and large matrix public organizations. At Wesco, Alex leads the global commercial legal practice and is the general counsel for Westco’s CSS Division and Latin America operations.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: I want to start by congratulating you and Wesco on the recent announcement of its ranking #183 on the 70th annual Fortune 500 list. What an incredible accomplishment.

Alexander Lima: It definitely is. To see the company being recognized that way, it truly is an honor, and I must say that it is a team effort by all 20,000 employees in the company. It definitely takes a village to accomplish an honor like that.

Can you give our listeners an overview of the legal department and your role?

Our legal department consists of over 50 legal professionals located all around the world. I am VP and Associate General Counsel, and I have a pretty versatile role. I lead the global commercial legal practice team, which consists of approximately 30 lawyers around the world, all supporting those $22 billion in revenue, most of the general counsel for the CSS Global Strategic business unit as well as the Latin American operations.

So, what does this mean? What do I do on a daily basis? I spend most of my days putting out fires, removing roadblocks, coaching our lawyers, advising the C-Suite and other senior business leaders on risk issues, regulatory trends, and operational workflow that supports the company’s strategic objectives and financial goals. I’m also highly involved in the company’s business resource groups (BRG). I co-led the people of color BRG for two years, and I’m also a member of the Global Inclusion and Diversity Steering Committee.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: Wow, that is a lot of work. I think your title is deceiving, because it sounds like it’s very broad and all-encompassing. Something you said is great foreshadowing for a couple of questions I have for you later, which is giving business advice to the executives. That’s an interesting dynamic between the legal advice and how it impacts the business.

What are some of the biggest challenges you face leading the legal department of a Fortune 200 company?

A couple come to mind. One of them is advising the C-Suite and other executives. That’s the one I probably spend the most time on, and that’s navigating and advising our leaders and the business through the different shades of grey that we live in these days. Everything we do contains some level of risk, but not everyone has the same risk tolerance or risk philosophy. As business lawyers, we need to understand our clients’ risk tolerance and their perspective. What do we do as a business and support them finding a balance in this grey world?

You don’t want to advise them to go way too dark and start assuming excessive, unnecessary risk, but at the same time, conversely, you don’t want to lead them to this area where they’re avoiding even marginal risk. It’s about taking a holistic view of the matter and finding the appropriate balance in all this greyness.

Another challenge I see is something I spent quite a bit of time here at Wesco on. We’ve been lucky to overcome it. It’s challenging and dispelling that perception that many legal departments unfortunately suffer from, and that’s being labeled as the “department of no” or “the deal killers” or “the black hole.” That’s a very common misperception legal teams have. As a leader, changing that perception has been one of my key objectives, and as a business lawyer, just being a good technical lawyer is not enough these days. You really need to do more.

As a business lawyer, you must develop a deep understanding of the business you support and provide practical and pragmatic business counsel while focusing on real risk, not just paper risk. With paper risks, sometimes it could appear like the sky is falling, but when you take a holistic view of the situation, you find out the risk is actually pretty low.

I think that is something that is so critical as business lawyers – that we truly understand what we do as a company and embed ourselves in the business. That’s the only way to be a true business partner.

With technology and AI evolving so rapidly, how do you manage the need to balance risk while still fostering a culture of innovation within your team?

We’ve actually placed a great deal of emphasis on being a tech-enabled department and leveraging technology, whether it be AI or other tools. This has helped us manage an increase in workload as well as push some administrative and lower-value, lower-risk matters off to some of these tools that were taking the time away from our lawyers. They get to focus on more strategic and more complicated matters supporting the business.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: That’s fantastic, and certainly we continue to hear efficiency as one of the biggest benefits. It sounds like it’s true for you as well.

Alexander Lima: It really has been, and it’s been a game changer. At times, some folks are a little reluctant to adopt it. They’re skeptical. And of course, it makes sense. We create some use cases, and we work with them so that they start to adopt it and see the benefits of it. Once they do, they get it, and they become champions of the tools.

We’ve heard over the past several years of an increased demand for in-house to reduce department budgets or do more with less. Is this a trend you’re seeing, and if so, what are some of the practices in-house counsel are using to manage this challenge?

We are absolutely hearing it, seeing it, and living it every day, and that seems to be the general expectation based on conversations with colleagues at other companies. I get it, but this entails a delicate dance because you have to manage a material increase in workload that’s tied to a quicker turnaround with less feedback while at the same time trying to mitigate risk and protect margin and profit degradation.

Mind you, you’re also dealing with customers, suppliers, and others who are way savvier than they were in the past. They have a stronger understanding of risk and are demanding more from you. Let’s not forget this dance occurs with the backdrop of trying to keep your team highly motivated and engaged, being supportive of a respectful work-life balance, and also trying to be proactive in what feels like a highly reactive environment. I spend quite a bit of time multitasking on this topic and trying to make sure all this choreography is as smooth and seamless as possible.

What metrics do you use to evaluate the success of your legal team?

I try to take a holistic view of it. It’s not just focused on one person. I look at the overall team, so I look beyond just volume numbers or response or turnaround time. I think one of the best things to do is just look at client engagement and get client feedback. How are we collaborating with our internal clients? I think that’s key. Are we being invited to participate in staff calls? Are we part of the strategy and planning conversations? Do we have a seat at the table? I think that’s something that’s very telling of how well we’re doing.

I personally also like to just watch our lawyers – how they provide advice, how they conduct themselves with our clients, and how they provide presentations to the business. That’s one of the things that I spend quite a bit of time on. These presentations should be conversations. Don’t get up there with a PowerPoint that is full of text. You have a couple bullets, you get up there, and you have a conversation. It makes it engaging and collaborative, and you start building those relationships and trust with the business.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: In hearing you respond to that question, it sounds like you take a very collaborative and integrated approach with all departments. Is that part of your strategy?

Alexander Lima: Absolutely it is.

What is something you wish outside counsel knew or better understood about your role?

Although we’re both lawyers and our main function is to advise and mitigate risk, I’m also a businessperson, and I require to have more than a discussion on what the law is. Talk to me about how it realistically applies to me and my business.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: We hear that so often. ALM reported earlier this year on the top five things in-house counsel would appreciate outside counsel understanding more – that business perspective, and how does this legal issue impact my business? It’s interesting that that is your take on what they could do better or know more about.

What are the important criteria you consider when you’re selecting outside counsel for legal matters?

You have the obvious ones. It’s rates, reputation, expertise, customer service, and response time.

The most important thing for me is their willingness to truly understand our business and how the law applies to it. That entails being able to have meaningful discussions on how this is going to impact me and our business. What does that mean, to break it down a little bit more? How can you help us generate and keep revenue? Have an actual understanding of our culture and our risk tolerance. When I say know our business, I mean it. Get to know us. That allows outside counsel to have a meaningful and engaging conversation and provide real and effective counsel in turn.

I dislike getting on calls with outside counsel and then having to explain to them what we do. It’s kind of a turn-off, and it feels a bit disrespectful at times.

How do reputation and previous track record impact your decision, particularly in the context of how well a firm may or may not understand your business?

Reputation is definitely an important factor. However, their ability to explore and understand my needs is key. Everything else is just marketing and fluff. Be good at understanding our needs – not just our legal needs, but our business needs. These decisions are not emotional. It’s about trust. It’s about taking good care of me and my company.

As you mentioned earlier, we’re being asked to do more with less, and we’re just too busy to have firms show us diplomas and rankings from XYZ. Again, it becomes critical to understand my business. I’m going to say something that’s not popular amongst most of my colleagues, but I personally don’t place this huge material emphasis on just reputation. Just because you’re a big-name law firm doesn’t mean that by default, I’m going to work with you. I’ve personally found a great deal of success working with small- to medium-sized boutique firms that specialize in a particular subject matter. They tend to go the extra mile and make more of a substantive effort to better understand our business and needs. They also generally offer better rates, but you end up getting more bang for your buck. I sincerely challenge the bigger firms to do more of that, as it’s a game changer.

I want to note that by looking at these small- and medium-sized firms, you do give opportunities to some excellent minority-owned firms out there. You give them a chance to work with some large Fortune-ranked companies.

Do you have a story that’s demonstrative of how actions by outside counsel or ways that they’ve gone above and beyond have impacted how you’ve selected or worked with outside counsel going forward?

There’s this one instance that comes to mind that occurred early in my career. It’s influenced my opinion of firms and how I work with some firms. I remember working on this very complex, multimillion-dollar litigation matter and it was outside the US with outside counsel. I was working for this large company at the time, and they were working with this large global law firm.

They assigned a two-year associate to support us. I saw this and I went, “Okay, let me try it out.” I worked with the associate, and I quickly noticed that they lacked the experience and expertise to work on the matter. I objected to the managing partner and was told, “That’s how our firm works. This is who you have to work with.” I didn’t like that answer. I dug in my heels and demanded a more experienced attorney, which they begrudgingly agreed to provide.

Well, lo and behold, the trial day comes, and guess who showed up at the hearing? The two-year associate. He did a horrible job. We lost the case. I fired the firm right then and there, and that’s just something that stuck with me – the cookie-cutter approach. “This is how it works. This is what you get.” It shouldn’t be that way. I’m paying you a significant amount of money. It’s about customer service, and you were providing me with subpar customer service.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: You said earlier that it’s about trust, and I can imagine this was such an impactful moment in your career. You trust that your business partner, in this case an outside counsel, would hear your concerns and respect that it didn’t feel like the right fit. I just go back to trust. I think that’s demonstrative of what the core piece is here. I’m hiring you as a business partner and trust you’re going to have my best interest in mind.

Alexander Lima: Exactly. It’s the same thing as when my internal clients are hiring me to be a business partner to trust me, and if I do that to them, I’m out of a job. I look at it sometimes as treat me how you want to be treated and doing that builds trust.

Is there a notable experience you can share where a lawyer or a law firm successfully built and maintained trust with you and a strong working relationship?

Definitely. You can get expertise anywhere, but it really comes back to what we mentioned before about trust and the relationship. There is this one lawyer that I’ve been working with now for over 15 years and continued the relationship even when he moved to a different firm. The initial relationship was based on advising us on labor matters.

The trust was there when it got to that firm. We started to see the other people in that firm had the same mindset of understanding the business, getting involved with the business, and taking the time to know what it is that we need and want. We expanded the relationship with this firm to cover beyond labor. They cover all legal matters for us now, even including secondments. That’s how much trust was there because even the lawyers that were working there, we’ve brought them in to help us out within the business. The reason for that is simple. It comes back to trust and making that effort to understand what we need and what we want.

What additional value beyond legal expertise and trust can outside counsel bring to your legal team?

I’m going to sound like a broken record because I’m saying it over and over again, but it’s understand me and my business. Give me practical and pragmatic advice. Focus on real risk, not just paper risk. Paper risk I can figure that out on my own, or I can get a paralegal to do it, or AI, and I save all this money. Do provide that, but also give me proactive advice – how I can generate revenue, mitigate margin degradation, or avoid potential issues. If you know that there’s a law that’s going to come into effect or there’s some talk about it, let me know about it. And work with me. How can we develop a strategy to get ready for it?

For example, we have excellent FCC counsel who does that for me. The minute he starts hearing certain rumblings or conversations happening, he picks up the phone or sends me an email and says, “Hey, listen, let’s talk,” and I value that so much.

There’s trust. That’s how you support your internal clients. It’s what I do with mine as well, so to all these firms, you do this, and I would gladly refer business to you whenever anything comes out or even give referrals once you’ve shown this to me.

Alexander Lima

Learn more about Wesco International

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander–lima/

Jennifer Simpson Carr

Website: https://www.furiarubel.com/our-team/members/jennifer-simpson-carr/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jennifersimpsoncarr

Instagram: @jsimpsoncarr