The Legal department forms an important group wide resource for the company. Our lawyers work closely with the Editorial, Contracts, Commercial and Digital departments and also directly with members of the executive team and the board.
The work carried out broadly falls into two categories – publication issues and corporate/commercial. On the publishing side, work includes vetting books legally pre-publication, advising on intellectual property, dealing with disputes, and proactively protecting rights and those of the authors. On the corporate and commercial side, work ranges from dealing with new acquisitions for the group through a broad range of new commercial ventures, particularly in the growing digital area, to author and other publishing contracts. Whether on the publishing or commercial side, in addition to high level legal expertise, the lawyers must have excellent communication and negotiation skills, good time management and organisational skills and an ability to remain calm whilst under pressure. A sense of humour can also be useful!
I qualified as a solicitor in 1995 and worked in the media litigation department of city law firm Denton Hall (now Denton Wilde Sapte) for six years post qualification. There I advised a broad selection of clients across the media industry, including book, magazine and newspaper publishers, sports organisations and individuals, television and film companies and politicians. I was often involved in high profile litigation, perhaps most memorably acting for the late politician and diarist, Alan Clark, in an action against the Evening Standard – memorable partly because the Evening Standard’s spoof diary had Mr Clark during the trial supposedly sifting through the evidence and at a loss as to who was more fascinating – the 'lovely and quite brilliant' junior counsel or me his assistant solicitor whom he found 'strict' but ' I like that'!
After a six month secondment from Dentons at Marks & Spencer advising on brand protection and advertising, I decided to work as an in-house lawyer on a permanent basis having enjoyed the close business involvement and focus of the in-house lawyer role. I joined the advertising and consumer affairs legal team at British Sky Broadcasting where I worked for three years gaining further invaluable business experience. At Sky I also regularly advised Sky News on contentious news items and investigative reports. As I particularly enjoyed the challenge of helping to get important stories before the public, when the position arose at Random House to do this as the principal part of my job, I jumped at it! Having worked with top journalists at Sky, I am privileged to find myself now working with the top authors published by Random House.
As the senior publishing lawyer at Random House, my typical day involves advising on a whole host of pre-publication queries covering libel, copyright, privacy, confidence and contempt of court. I also find myself once again using my litigation and dispute resolution expertise as I am responsible for the conduct of any claims against the company and our authors.
My favourite part of the job is working with authors ranging from our modern day celebrities to great fiction writers like John Grisham whose page-turners I have enjoyed reading for many years. I see my role with authors and editors as part of the creative process and not simply as a censor! Therefore I will strive to find a way to enable a story to be told if at all possible!
Going forward, I look forward to continuing to work on a wide range of books with interesting and inspiring authors and editors.