Navigating Legal Operations with Richard Robinson

Made with speech-to-text software, so a few words may be off.

0:00You're listening to the Contract Heroes Podcast, your one-stop shop for all things contract management. And now here are your hosts, Marc and Pepe. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episodes of the Contract Heroes. Uh, this time we're still at the CLOC CGI 2024. This time we're with our new guest, Richard Robinson. Richard, he's the Director of Legal Operation and Litigation Support at Toyota North America. So welcome to the show, Richard. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. So we want... I mean, we've been, we've been talking a lot ab- about GenAI, we've been talking a lot, of course, CLM is still, like, really one of the, of the main topics in this type of, uh, of events. But you touch a little bit really interesting projects that you're working right now- Right... on the intelligence and, and, and, and how to proper communicate some of the, you know, data or information.

1:00But let's, let's talk about a little bit more, uh, let, let, let's start with, with your background. Like, how- Sure... what are you doing in, in, in Toyota lately? Yeah. So, uh, well, my background, I've been in the industry for about 25 years. I, uh, started in the technology space working for a law firm in Boston, and then moved into litigation support, e-discovery, uh, and then made the jump to, um, to corporate in-house, working e-discovery and information management for JCPenney, and then made the move to Toyota about five years ago. So I've been with Toyota for five years, and I wear two different hats there. On the one hand, I, uh, manage litigation support, the e-discovery aspects of the, the business, and then also legal operations, which is mostly technology, uh, identification, implementation, and support for the legal department. And how it all started when you started in, in Toyota, like, do you have, like, already a team or, or, or you have to build it from scratch? Yeah, no, I inherited a team. Uh, I was very luckily, lucky to, um...

2:02When Toyota made the move from Torrance, California, to, to Texas, I had been working at JCPenney. JCPenney actually, uh, sold the land to Toyota to move into the space. So I knew who the, uh, the person was in this role, and I reached out to him and invited him to have, to have lunch with me. Uh, and after about two years of Toyota being in, in Texas, uh, he let me know that he was planning on retiring, and he thought that I would be a, a great person to fill his role. So I was lucky enough to inherit a very mature program already at Toyota. Well, that's cool. And what was, like, your, one of your first initiatives when you started with the new role? Well, so I, you know, I was, I was lucky enough to have him there with me for four months before he, before he finally, uh, fully retired. So, uh, I mean, honestly, the first, uh, 90 days was all about drinking from the fire hose, just learning about the culture and, and, and what the technology was at Toyota. And then, um, when, uh, when Eric left his, left the position and, uh, moved back to California, I started with a maturity gap analysis just to see where I felt Toyota was in terms of, uh, the CLOC maturity model.

3:19Uh, but shortly after that, uh, COVID hit, so that was, uh, March 2020, and everything changed. So all of my plans, uh, were out the door right from there. And, uh, I had to, to shift pretty quickly to how do you support, uh, and, and build technology for a department that is suddenly fully remote. And how, how do you think... Well, well not, not how do you think, but how... It, it is interesting that you're, like, this maturity test that you're doing is, like, how they're close to the 12 core principles of CLOC. Yeah. So how, how long have you been involving CLOC and, like, using that a- as a reference- Yeah... to, you know, improve the, the operations inside the company? Sure. Ho- honestly, since the, since CLOC was founded, you know, I, I was at, um, like I said, I was at JCPenney, and though my role was information governance and e-discovery, um, I found myself...

4:17I joined there in 2012, so by 2014 or '15, I started finding that I was redefining my role as a legal ops professional. I was touching all the technology. I was touching vendor management. I was touching firm management. I, so, uh, my hands were getting into all these spaces, and I was realizing this is, I'm in a legal ops space. So I started reaching out and kind of finding what the resources were in the industry. Um, and you know, I, I love CLOC. It's not the only resource, right? ACC Legal Operations. I was using all of those, uh, those, uh, maturity models to help me figure out what, what does a mature organization look like. Because the truth is that, you know, even at a company like Toyota, where, where I inherited a mature legal ops department, we don't own all of the 12 core competencies, right? Um, certain aspects of that lie within different areas of the organization. They might not be in legal at all. So, um, so you have to kind of fit the model to the organization that you're in, the culture that you're in.

5:23Right. And I think that's also, like, a common mistake, right? Because when companies start approaching to legal operations, they always think about technology. Exactly. And then they don't think about the rest of the 11 principles. That's right. So 12, 12 principles- Yeah... with, uh, with technology. And, uh, and, uh, usually it's a mistake because they want to jump straight to technology, but they don't have the data. Right. And, you know, structured data or they don't have a knowledge management, uh, policy, or they don't have strategic planning or, or the other principles. Right. So, um, I'm interested, like... Well, you told me, like, you've been, you've been talking a lot on one of two principles, right? It was the- Well, so I, I, um, I did, uh, Legal Ops 101- Yes... on the first day of, uh, CGI, uh, which is a wonderful program for, for newbies, people who are new to the, to the legal op space or to, to CLOC. And, um, during that four-hour session, we break down all 12 of the core competencies.

6:26Uh, and during that four-hour session, I owned or, or spoke on two specific ones, and those were technology and business intelligence, uh, which, you know, has good synergy, right? It's... The two of them really work, work well together. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, and can you give us like, just like a little bit on, on, on what would you were talking about and, and how do you recommend people to start approaching to those two principles? Yeah, sure. I think that, um, you know, one of the keys, uh, obviously all of the CLOC core competencies work together, right? Yeah. You... So you're touching, no matter what your role is, you're kind of touching parts of, of each of them. Um, and strategy is a, is an important one. Um, I think that when I approach technology, I have to think of it from a strategy first standpoint. And, um, you know, when, when you're talking about legal operations, you're talking really about, um, the three pillars, which are people, process, and technology. Yeah. Right? So the...

7:29A mistake that a lot of organizations make is that they think that they can buy maturity by buying technology. That's a good approach. But you need a strategy first, right? You need to have an idea of... Listen, uh, legal operations is about the operationalization of the practice of law within a corporation. So the idea is that you have to align your strategies with the business. You know, if your business is to sell widgets, you have to be thinking about your legal strategy in terms of how can your lawyers facilitate the manufacture and/or sale of those widgets, right? It's about business. Uh, it's about revenue expansion and revenue protection. And so the technology that you're implementing needs to be something that facilitates that process. So when you are approaching a, uh, a, a problem, right?

8:32'Cause that's what it comes down to. I have this problem that I need to solve. You need to not be thinking technology first. You need to be thinking strategy first. What am I going to s- how am I gonna solve this problem? Why you need it. Why you need it, right? The... You always start with why, and then you address the, the people, process, and technology. Do I have the right people in place? Is our process right? Do I need to get or, or change my technology to sustain that process, right? Make it a little bit better, a little bit faster, right? Or do I need to disrupt it and tear the whole thing down and replace it with new technology and potentially new people or new processes to make it better? Yeah, and I, I mean, I, I think it's, you know, it's interesting where, you know, obviously process becomes, comes before technology. Um, but in y- when you've been working on, you know, we talked about a couple of projects, h- how are you making sure that you've got the right stakeholders involved in those conversations to, to, you know- Yeah, that-... to kick those things off? Yeah, that's hugely, hugely important, right? Um, obviously you wanna make sure that your strategy from a technology standpoint, from a project management standpoint is in line with what your general counsel wants.

9:48And you need to make sure that you understand their why, right? Um, because they may be feeling pressure from the chief financial officer or the CEO for some initiative that doesn't necessarily jive with what you're potentially thinking from a legal ops standpoint. Because you're just thinking, I don't know, whatever the, the legal issue is at hand that you're, the problem that you're trying to solve. So you need to make sure that, that your strategy is right and you have the general counsel's best interests in mind. But then you've gotta start thinking about, uh, internal and external stakeholders. Who are the users of the application or the technology that you're trying, trying to implement, and who are those affected by it, right? Uh, especially out in the business. You know, David Cowan always says, uh, "Never eat alone." And I always tell people, "If you have the opportunity, schedule lunch with the IT people that you're gonna be working with, the project managers, the Scrum Masters.

10:46Uh, schedule time to have lunch with the people in procurement who are running your RFPs for you, if you have an organization that does that." So getting the right, right stakeholders to the table is incredibly important. Sometimes it's an iterative process though, right? You start with who you think the stakeholders are, and then as the process expands and you start, uh, gathering requirements from the users, you realize, oh, there's an entirely different group that I didn't even know about that was involved in this whole thing, that tax is involved, or that, uh, that procurement's involved, or that this other IT function is involved that you didn't even think of in the beginning. And there's a lot of emotional intelligence there, right? Because it's not just, like, talking to them, but also, like, how you communicate to them- Yeah... so you can all follow the same goal. Uh- Yeah... I'm, I'm guessing, right? Because change management is... We w- so we were just talking yesterday, uh, uh, with he, he, he was the former head of legal operations at, um, A- AstraZeneca. Oh, yeah. And- Josh Kramer...

11:55with Josh Kramer, yeah. And when, when COVID hit, it was like, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't chaos. It was good for business, of course. Yeah. For, for them. But, uh, eh, but the thing is that- How do you talk to everybody in a situation like that when everything needs to be, like, so fast? Yeah. Right? And so they can focus and, not because you're changing something, does it, it's going to be a problem for people. So you, how, how can you communicate that in the proper way so they can all get, like, incentivized to change? Yeah. Yeah, this is one of the things that's really, uh, really important to me right now that I, you know, I've been talking about it on LinkedIn, and I've been, I've been thinking about it a lot, are the, the soft skills, but you know, what I, what I call the power skills of this industry, and those are, um, you know, collaboration, emotional intelligence, um, uh, ingenuity or, or, you know, problem-solving skills, um, communication, leadership. And they all kind of work together. Um, it's important to, to, uh, truly listen. Uh, it's not a skill that a lot of, uh, people in our industry are, are great at.

13:10Um, especially those of us who came up through the IT space. Um, you know, it's a s- it's a struggle to, to, to not... Uh, you know, we're, we're natural problem solvers. Um, we're solution oriented, so a lot of times, um, you know, you're, you identify what you believe is the fix, right? So you're just gonna go fix the problem. Uh, but really you need to listen and understand, because sometimes the problem that was communicated to you is not the true root cause of the issue at hand. So you've gotta be able to, to engage, uh, get the right stakeholders at the table, a- ask the right place, questions, and then listen to the answers. Understand what they're trying to tell you, where their pain points are, and then develop with them, right, a collaborative process, an iterative process to figure out what the solution is. Again, whether it's just a simple change to a process or engaging another person, right? Getting the right people involved to make sure that the, that it goes smoothly, or maybe it is new technology.

14:15It sounds really logical, but how you do it? Like, how, how do you teach that? Yeah. Well, that's a good question, right? Teaching it is, uh... I mean, there are, there aren't a lot of, um, skills programs out in the industry for, for teaching emotional intelligence, right? There's, there's lots of, uh, fantastic, um, podcasts in the industry. There's self-help books and, uh, you know, I, I, I like to listen to Pete McKinnon's, and, uh, How to Be Awesome at Your Job gets n- a lot into that sort of emotional intelligence. I heard of that one, but I, but I haven't listened to it. Oh, it's fantastic. It's great. Uh, Simon Sinek, um- Yeah... Brene Brown- Start With Why... Adam Grant. With a Y. Yes. With a Y. Start With Why, right? So, um, I go to, I go back to that all the time just to, you know, reset myself and think about what is the, what's the why here? Why are we trying to do this? Um, it just, it kind of level sets the, the project. I never thought about it, but yeah, that's, that, that's a good approach. Well, Richard, it's been great talking to you. Oh, pleasure. It's really awesome to...

15:19Uh, thanks a lot for sharing your experience, and if folks would like to connect with you or maybe l- uh, learn a little bit more fr- uh, from you, where, what, what's like the best place? Yeah, I, you know, I am, uh, a huge proponent of, uh, building up others in the industry. Um, I, or believe strongly in mentorship and giving back. So LinkedIn is a great way to reach out to me, connect with me there, and, and, uh, happy to set up time to talk to anybody who wants to continue the conversation. Well, fantastic. Well, Richard, thanks so much for joining us, and thanks everybody for listening to another episode of Contract Heroes. Thanks for having me. If you'd like to learn more about Koho, visit their website at k-o-h-o consulting dot com.