To help clients best navigate the complex world of modern mining, lawyers need to adopt an attitude of collaboration and understand that legal risk is not the only driver, and sometimes not even the most important driver of business decisions, says Liz Snodgrass.
“It is the professional obligation of general counsel, like any lawyer, to point out potential problems and pitfalls, but that should only be the beginning of the conversation,” says Snodgrass, a partner at Three Crowns LLP and international arbitration expert who delivered a keynote address on the power of positive disruption at last year’s GC Forum in Cape Town.
Lawyers are only doing half their job, says Snodgrass, if all they do is spot risks and problems. The real job is to mitigate such risks, and to solve problems. It’s therefore vital for lawyers to have good visibility of client objectives, of what the business wants or needs.
“A key to being a positive disruptor is information and open lines of communication to business stakeholders,” she says. “Our job is to help our clients identify, evaluate and, as much as possible, quantify risk so that they can factor it into business decision-making.”
While general counsel may hold a unique position as both lawyer and client, they share commonalities with external counsel, such as “the witches’ brew of complexity” that makes advising mining and energy companies so challenging and exhilarating, says Snodgrass.
“The mining and energy sectors confront geotechnical complexity, cutting-edge engineering challenges, and constant price volatility, and that’s just on Monday before lunch,” she says. “Mining and energy operations raise environmental and local community issues that need to be effectively, proactively, and sensitively managed. The sectors [face] a constantly shifting landscape of changing regulations, licensing, litigation, incentives offered and withdrawn, and so on, and they often get caught up in the cross-currents of geopolitics.”
While mining and energy sectors aren’t the same, notes Snodgrass, their significant similarities in terms of challenges and opportunities mean General Counsel in both sectors can learn from each other. Personally, she’s “very much looking forward to” this year’s GC Forum Extractives in Cape Town on 5 February, with its theme of ‘Energy and Mining – The New Power Couple’; an ideal forum to share best practices and continue valuable dialogue.
Dialogue is vital for in-house lawyers, says Snodgrass, both among peers and external counsel where everyone can learn from each other, and within their own businesses.
“In many of the energy and mining companies I’ve been privileged to advise, the in-house legal function is well developed and thoroughly plugged into the business,” says Snodgrass. “The in-house lawyer is a business partner who brings their legal expertise to bear on solving business problems, in the same way a geologist or economist might do.”
The key factor, she adds, is not the size of the in-house legal department, but mindset.
A legal team can’t meet its full potential if it’s only brought in to solve problems, document deals already struck, or answer discrete questions. Instead, mining and energy companies must set up their counsel (and external lawyers) to be true business advisors through processes and communication that ensure lawyers have full visibility of business objectives.
For more information on the 2025 GC Forum | Extractives please visit www.gcforumextractives.com