Part II. Follow along in this four-part blog series featuring a timely and provocative look inside Hewlett-Packard Company’s innovative new legal talent development program. This blog takes a look at the training program from the perspective of an HP staff member, Susan Goodhue. Susan is Vice President and Associate General Counsel, IP Transactions in HP’s IP and IP Licensing Group. She leads a team of thirty IP transactional attorneys in the US, Europe and Asia. The voice, views and stories expressed by the authors below are their own and not ACC’s.To read the first installment of this series, click here.
Part II: Integrating into the HP Legal Team
Rewind to September 1, 2010. Two weeks earlier I joined Hewlett-Packard to lead a team of Intellectual Property transactional attorneys who provide IP counsel to HP’s businesses. My team is one of the practice groups in the larger IP Group at HP. Joining my team in HP’s inaugural New Attorney Graduate Program was Gail Su, a newly minted attorney right out of Harvard Law School.
I had, in the past, mentored and developed many new attorneys in both private practice and in-house. With Gail, I had been entrusted with both a tremendous responsibility to nurture an obviously smart and nascent talent, as well as an opportunity to develop an attorney who could learn to appreciate the critical nexus of law and business, while providing practical, solution focused legal counsel.
At HP, Gail benefitted from what previous companies had not afforded me—the framework and support of a new attorney program. New attorneys receive training about the company, including: what Investor Relations does; how HP analyzes its competition; the structure of the legal department (who does what); and about substantive legal areas, such as antitrust and privacy. In addition, the program includes training in contract drafting; negotiation, speaking and presentation skills; and solution-focused counseling.
Because the new attorney program took care of much of Gail’s foundational training in her early days at HP, it enabled her to hit the ground running; it also freed me and my team to focus on integrating her into our group. Included in the annual goals of each attorney on my team was a requirement to work with Gail on at least one project. This served two purposes. First, Gail became acquainted with the team members. Second, she observed the practice and negotiation styles of different attorneys––developing a personal legal style consistent with his or her personality is critical for any new attorney. Therefore, observing other attorneys and “trying on” different approaches helps.
The program also requires that new attorneys receive practical experience in research and writing, contract drafting, M&A due diligence and executive presentation. Within the first six months of joining our practice group Gail had completed all requirements. In addition, because Gail expressed an early interest in patent prosecution and is a member of the patent bar, she was able to spend a portion of her time learning to write patent applications.
Fast forward to June 2011: Gail is now a fully integrated, key contributor on my team and a member of a sub team that provides IP counsel to the Personal Systems Group (PSG). PSG develops and markets business and consumer computers and mobile computing devices, including Palm® products. Supporting PSG provides Gail direct contact with business clients and their real world issues where she can, with the ongoing support of my team and I, continue to develop as a pragmatic, business-oriented attorney. Gail is off to a great start to what we hope will be a long career with the HP Legal department.