60 seconds with... Jennifer Malcolm

I studied law and French at Glasgow with an Erasmus stint in Aix-en-Provence.  Whilst in France, I had an interview via a payphone for a summer placement at McGrigors which I enjoyed, then had a very varied traineeship and ultimately qualified into the Corporate team.  I thoroughly enjoyed the role and stayed with the firm for several years following the merger with Pinsent Masons. One of the benefits of working in a corporate team in Scotland is that you are exposed to a wide variety of different types of deals. In my time at PM I specialised in a variety of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and capital markets transactions with a focus on the energy and technology sectors. In particular, I was lucky enough to advise on the IPOs and takeovers of many Scottish businesses at a time when capital markets transactions in Scotland were relatively thin on the ground.   Often the deals were high value and had a significant cross border aspect which I really enjoyed. 

Whilst at Pinsents I was able to undertake a few secondments:  to the Royal Bank of Scotland’s corporate group legal team, to Cenkos Securities plc’s (now Cavendish) corporate finance team and to Fidal law firm in Brussels (anti-trust).  These secondments gave me an insight into what clients really need from their external legal advisers and helped me to realise that the “legal” piece is often one piece of a much bigger pie and that there is always a wider commercial context.

Towards the end of my time at Pinsents I was principally advising on renewable energy M&A deals and the opportunity arose to join BayWa r.e., a global renewable energy firm which I had been working closely with. BayWa was establishing a new global offshore wind business and was looking for someone to join and head up the legal function.  It was a unique opportunity to make a difference in two areas which I’m passionate about – renewables and M&A – plus undertaking a global role from Glasgow was an opportunity I jumped at.

In private practice, I advised many renewable energy companies on M&A deals across a range of technologies – onshore wind, offshore wind, solar, battery storage etc.  I loved the sector – it’s new, innovative, very diverse and most of all, everyone has a shared passion for fighting climate change. 

However, the scale of offshore wind is really something else – everything is bigger, more expensive, much more challenging due working many miles off the coast but, crucially, our industry has the opportunity to deliver governments’ net zero targets.  To put an offshore wind farm in context, the projects we are developing now, which will be delivered at the end of the decade, will involve fabricating and installing anywhere between 60-100 wind turbines, each about the same size as the Eiffel Tower, in water of depths of up to 100 metres.

I work for an amazing company which has a clear, shared purpose – “for our planet” - and everyone is driven by the common goal of achieving the energy transition.  As head of legal for our offshore wind business, I have the opportunity to work on all our offshore wind development activities globally.  That has allowed me to work on projects in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Australia and Korea and more.  The work is varied and can be anything from working on auctions, M&A, joint ventures, greenfield development where we develop projects from scratch, to patent applications for new technology.  In addition, my role involves assisting our team with developing and realizing our commercial and strategic goals and it is very rewarding to combine my legal skills with strategic business advice.

Given the international nature of my role, I come into contact with a variety of legal advisers, which includes both our wider in-house legal team and external legal advisers who support us across the globe.  Day-to-day I work hand-in-hand with a close-knit team of colleagues based across Europe and APAC from our development, technical and commercial team who are passionate about what we do, committed and lots of fun!

Since becoming an in-house lawyer in January 2021, I have been hugely impressed by the enthusiasm and energy of Sheekha Saha and Vlad Valiente as co-conveners of the in-house lawyers committee and their passion for improving engagement across the in-house lawyers community led me to offer my support to them and the rest of the committee.  I was keen to make new connections across the wider in-house community and also contribute to that community in some way.

I’m looking forward to supporting the committee in delivering its strategy, in bringing new ideas where possible and in increasing engagement across the in-house lawyer network.  Being a relatively new in-house lawyer, I am particularly keen to support activities which the committee undertakes to make the transition from private practice to in-house roles less intimidating – I know from personal experience that moving from a large law firm to an in-house role can be challenging!

Additionally, I would also really like to support the committee in developing more opportunities for in-house lawyers to connect with each other by networking, sharing experiences and collaborating together to overcome challenges.  Working as an in-house lawyer is fantastic fun but if you do not have a support network it can be challenging too. 

In-house lawyers have a huge advantage in really understanding the commercial drivers of their organisation in a way which is almost impossible for external legal advisers.  This opens up an enormous opportunity for in-house lawyers to offer very relevant, practical legal advice because they understand how their advice fits into the big picture.  Lawyers are trained to be analytical and can be great decision-makers.  If in-house lawyers can combine their legal, analytical and decision-making skills with strategic acumen, they can deliver real value-add advice for their organisations.

I think macro-economic factors which affect our organisations (trade disruption, geopolitical conflicts, economic volatility, increase in interest rates) can heighten business uncertainty and, in turn, increase legal risk.  For businesses that operate internationally, there is a growing burden of cross-border compliance and a question of how to manage governance across the organisation.  Businesses are also adapting their strategies as macro-economic factors hit which can lead to many different legal risks.  However, in-house lawyers should see these changes in strategy and compliance requirements as a way to demonstrate how they can guide their organisations through new legal risks.

The idea is to build an online networking platform solely for the Scottish in-house lawyers’ community.  The purpose of the platform is to facilitate practice-based networking, sharing of good practice and peer support among members of the inhouse legal community, particularly for sole practitioners and small teams, in the first instance.

The platform will allow in-house lawyers to (i) post Q&A to a forum to share ideas and solutions, (ii) access a resource hub which will store various digital resources and articles and (iii) view job postings, volunteer opportunities and event invitations.

We have also set up the platform so that in-house lawyers can use the forum and access resources according to their areas of interest, e.g. data protection, risk management, ESG etc. which we hope will allow members to have quick access to topics relevant to them.

We really hope that the platform will be an excellent way to facilitate collaboration and networking.