Alice England on owning your own value

In this episode of Lessons I Learned in Law Scott Brown speaks to Alice England. Alice is General Counsel for a London and Toronto listed natural resources royalty and streaming company, Anglo Pacific Group PLC, where she heads up the legal team and also takes a lead role on the business' environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) agenda. Alice is also a Non-Executive Director at Be Confident Group, comprising of Cycle Confident and BikeRight. Alice shares the three lessons she has learned in law including: 

• Build a strong support network of like-minded people that can help and support you along the path of your career.
• As a lawyer, always try to be a facilitator rather than a blocker.
• Demonstrate your worth, show that you are a valuable asset to the company and make sure other people understand the value you bring.

Alice also reveals why she thinks time measuring stop clocks are counter productive in the legal profession and should be confined to Room 101.

Presented by Scott Brown of Heriot Brown Legal Recruitment.

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Transcript

 Scott Brown (00:00):

Hello, my name's Scott Brown and welcome to another episode of Lessons I Learned in Law. This is a podcast where I get to sit down with guests who are lawyers or in some way, connected to the legal profession and to talk through the lessons that they've learned from working in law or with law. On each episode you get to hear my conversations as they break down those lessons and with any luck you'll leave feeling inspired and more confident in your own career and working along that career path. My guest today is Alice England. Hi Alice.

Alice England (00:39):

Hi Scott.

Scott Brown (00:40):

Thank you for are joining. Alice is general counsel at Anglo Pacific group which is a mining royalties business. Alice will tell us a bit more about Anglo Pacific and the work that they do shortly. But with each guest, we also like to find out a bit more about what makes them them as well as people and, and as well as a legal career. So what we had to hear about Alice's love of sports her creative mindset as well, and creative storytelling that she does in her spare time. And a bit more about her role in a non-executive position. But we'll jump right in Alice. If you could share lesson number one, your first lesson with us.

Alice England (01:19):

Hi Scott. Nice to be here. My first lesson is that - and I remember when I first had my, my first child, Chloe someone said to me, it takes a village to bring up a child, which is definitely true. More hands the merrier I say, for bringing up children. But I think it also applies to being a good lawyer because I think everyone, every good lawyer, especially in house needs a good tribe of people around them and a strong support network. And I certainly believe this to be really true - when I first started at Anglo Pacific, I was the sole general council there, and I really did rely on having good external counsel. Good, good recruiter, like yourself, and sort of a good team around like a commercial team, good technical team, like basically just a good support network like-minded people and people that can help support you in, in the work you're doing. And it's definitely, yeah, that's my first lesson.

Scott Brown (02:24):

Awesome. Good that it's a real life lesson added into law, or vice vice-versa, but  did you go about with that approach early on in your career as well in, in private practice before moving in house? Is it something that you've held for a long time?

Alice England (02:43):

Yeah, definitely. I think being a lawyer, you always need to bounce ideas off of other people. And I always thought having a good support network from being a junior lawyer, having trainees that can bounce ideas off, other graduates, other people within the jobs. And as I grew up while moving in house, keeping my contacts from private practice, building those relationships. And really I think from when you are in house, your private practice team becomes an extension of you. And so you don't want to be working with an law firm that doesn't sort of sort of fit culturally or isn't like commercial minded, doesn't understand the business that you are doing. It's really important that they are an extension of you and that they support you in the right way. And I've really learned that moving in house when I was at an oil and gas company before Anglo Pacific, and now I'm at Anglo Pacific, I rely very heavily on having good external counsel.

Scott Brown (03:42):

Cool. And, and you, you strike me as being someone who enjoys networking as well, and keeping, keeping in touch with people. Were there other networks or, or forums that you've used since being a sole council that do you, do you connect with others that are in the similar position?

Alice England (04:00):

Yeah, definitely. I was at Anglo Pacific for nine months before I went to maternity. And when I came back, I came back into a new world of lockdown, which everyone sort of kind got used to and that kind of networking slayed. But since then, I've really like built up my network joined like women in mining. Obviously your recent burns night was a great networking for GCs and really building my network through that, through the mining space, but also going on beyond that, actually, I don't think it should just be about networking within your industry. I've got friends that are QCs of media companies working sports companies and and also taking on this new med position, it's all widening a network and meeting people, which has just been great for me to learn from.

Scott Brown (04:56):

I think that's it people we, people we speak with to, or I speak with on a, on a regular basis as well. They're not just sticking to the one industry as well. So the, the people you mentioned outside in other, in other industries that there's a lot to be learned from other sectors and how things are done differently and what, what other, what the mining sector in particular could learn from elsewhere. So that's good. We’re obviously both parents, we we're living in, we're living in London with with young young families. What what sort of tribe do you have around you in London, living, living in London and raising young kids?

Alice England (05:39):

Oh my goodness. Well, I definitely have a village to help bring up our kids. We're very lucky. We've got two sets of grandparents that are very hands on, a child minder who's basically an extension of our family. She's a, she's a friend as well as obviously works to pick up our kids, a great nursery, great school. And even our neighbors. I mean, we've all, actually, again, this is sort of life after lot that we've all become so close that we share a nanny, share childminders all just help each other. And yeah, we have a lot of socials on off street now and the kids all play together. So yeah, definitely feel living in T I never thought it would have a village feel, but it certainly feels very village like, and I, I love it and it, we really have a really good community around us.

Scott Brown (06:27):

So onto lesson two.

Alice England (06:38):

So lesson two is about being a facilitator as a lawyer rather than sort of a blocker. And this is a lesson I learned from my previous experience when I was in an oil and gas exploration company. And we used to look at very high risk jurisdictions where we looked to explore for oil and gas sort of in Nigeria, even Somalia at one stage, Myanmar and I remember that as an in-house function, I remember us having a meeting and us really not wanting to progress with this deal because the counterparty was very risky and the jurisdiction. And I remember my boss at the time sort of saying no, and you know, outright, no, and it, it didn't go down well with the commercial team who then sort of wanted to push ahead anyway, and then didn't want to liaise as much with the legal team.

Alice England (07:35):

And it really made me think as well, like you need to try and facilitate more than be a blocker, but obviously if there is red lines, you also need to say no, but sort of say a smarter way than saying no. And something I've really learned is sort of setting out the risks quite clearly of why you are hesitant about moving ahead with this deal. And communicating them in such a way that it shows that you are trying to facilitate the deal, but there are hurdles that you need to get over and how you can look to get over them, how you can look to mitigate them. And one of the things I did when we were looking to invest in Myanmar is actually went to Myanmar, met the attorney general, got to understand the culture of the actual country, rather than just looking at, you know, indexes of what the company's like on the bribery and corruption scale, actually going on the ground, meeting people, understanding the risks and then feeding back and then trying to facilitate. And we actually did make an investment in Myanmar in the end, which actually was a good one at the time. And I really learned that lesson kids, if you do say no too often in house as a lawyer, it can cause friction with the commercial team, they can get frustrated and then not communicate with you. And as a lawyer, you always want to make sure that the communication channels are open with company.

Scott Brown (08:58):

How do you know when to pick your battles then, where's your red line?

Alice England (09:08):

Well, I think it's, it's quite difficult. Say it depends on what investment you are looking at, but I think what is very helpful is having actually a strategy internally that everyone sort of understands. It's not just the lawyer that picks the red line and picks when to say no, it's that the company has a very clear strategy, knows where its thresholds are and its red lines are. And as a business, as a whole, as an, you know, you know, if you've got an executive team or an investment committee that as a team, you say no, because it crosses a threshold that you're all on board with. And that's something actually that I found is much easier to play the role of the facilitator at a company that has a clear strategy and at Anglo Pacific we've really got a clear strategy now that we only invest in future facing metals that support a more sustainable world. So we invest in the cobalts and the lithiums that are used to build electric cars, to support a more  sustainable world, which is something I'm I feel quite passionate about and having that and having a robust due diligence process, meaning we only invest in projects and operators that actually have a low environmental, social governance sort of risk exposure means that as a team, we know where our deadlines are, we know where our thresholds are and we can kind of move forward on projects together.

Scott Brown (10:33):

Got you. Yeah.   I think it's why it's so important to have legal represented on like the highest leadership function that, that they should be whether it's the C-suite or, or not, I guess depends on a company and how leading that team looks like, but having representation of some sort so that that strategy can be communicated down through the, the, the right channels and the risk appetite of the business can be met and managed through, through legal

Alice England (11:03):

Definitely. And I think that's right. I think a lot of, sort of talking about the environmental, social governance, ESG bracket, a lot of GCs end up spearheading that, and I'm certainly pushing that forward at Anglo Pacific along with the other Team members. And it is really important to have someone representing at that le vel because the, the  G in the ESG, the governance point is extremely important. You know, you have to be able to have good governance and actually have that built into your culture to actually then be advertising that you are, you, you believe in those principles.

Scott Brown (11:37):

Yeah. A huge growing area across all sectors. So what sort of responsibilities fall on you within ESG?

Alice England (11:50):

Well, all of the policies we put in place in terms of a corporate, how we try and how, how we have good governance, good policies how we are culturally as well. And on the social side, we are looking to do a lot more community investments as a corporate and on the environmental side, we're looking to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible as well, looking at our commute, reducing flights, where we can and just be sort of focusing on that. And in terms of a wider  outlook, in terms of our business, I really feed into the due diligence processes of all our investments to make sure that from an ESG perspective, that they fit within our robust criteria and that we don't invest in something that exposes our shareholders to a greater risk than they expect to. So I really filter in through the due diligence processes and very much involved in all the deals that we do.

Scott Brown (12:51):

 Sounds like it's taking the right steps and pushing it having legal, pushing it along and making the, making the business accountable - obviously a critical part of that. 

Onto stuff outside of, of law, Alice,  we were talking before we started recording about about fitness and and CrossFit. So since I've, I've known you, you were you've been a keen runner. How important has fitness become over the last couple of years with lockdown and, and kids, I guess as well?

Alice England (13:27):

Yeah. I mean, I got into running really after having children, because it's the easiest way to get outta the house, get both, you know, 20 minutes or an hour to yourself. In fact, I'm training for  a half marathon at the moment, which is in two weeks time and I get two hours out of the house now, cause now I've gotta get my, get my kilometers in. So it's quite good.

Scott Brown (13:49):

Two coffees in as well.

Alice England (13:51):

Yeah. Yeah. You've gotta, you've gotta warm down. You've gotta warm, even though you've gotta have a coffee afterwards, have a good stretch, basically like half a day gone. But yeah, no, exercise's become really important to me and actually running, I I've always done, I played hockey at university and at school been a big hockey player. And sports been been throughout my family. My mom and dad are very sporty. My cousin actually is an ex Olympian. She was a 1500 meter runner. Oh, wow. Hannah England. So I've watched her do a lot of running over the time she run a silver medal in the world championship. So yeah, it's all we've been in our, our family, but yeah, I I've really found a bit of a love now for something to help with my running is CrossFit. Cause I actually didn't really do any strength training. Didn't really thought CrossFit competitive gym was a bit weird. But now I'm hooked and I love it and I go twice a week. I know you are a CrossFit fan.

Scott Brown (15:01):

I'm a, yeah, I'm a fan. I'm a fan probably reluctantly like yourself. I don't buy in. I, don't not a huge fan of the people. Sometimes think it's a bit of a cult or something, something like that, but it's it's good. It's good. Fun, good bit of competition. And yeah, I just find it's important for me almost like a non-negotiable actually, but exercising just once a day, just doing almost like meditation or something, it just resets my head in the morning and then get all on, get on with the day. But yeah, when the, when the gyms were shut and stuff, it was, it was hard going in during, during lockdown, but glad it's glad we're back, back up and running.

Alice England (15:42):

And I agree. I think that's a really good point. I'm taking exactly the same attitude as you. I exercise for me is non-negotiable. I always carve out some time in my day, in my diary to make sure I get training in. Cuz it just makes you reset, close your head, step away from your computer for a few minutes. It's just, yeah, I agree. It's really important to make time for that.

Scott Brown (16:04):

Yeah. And would you describe yourself as competitive?

Alice England (16:09):

Yeah, I am. I definitely not as competitive as my husband, but yeah, I'm, I'm up there on the competitive scale. Yeah, I've started, I've become super competitive in fantasy football. That's been my, my, well, it's not been a new thing I've been like into, I used to be a huge football fan. I supported man United for many years. I still support Man U. But yeah, now I'm like a fantasy football fan, so, you know, if you're not performing M an United you're out my team, you know, I don't take,

Scott Brown (16:46):

You don't take prisoners. Fair enough.

Alice England (16:50):

You're not performing it out. So Ronaldo’s currently back in my team at the moment hoping for a good double game week this week. Yeah. I think come a bit of a queen of fantasy football. And we used to have a really interesting league at my old company called the dinner league where the bottom, if you finished in the bot tom three, you'd have to take the top four. So the European qualifiers out for dinner and it was all expenses paid for dinner where the bottom three would have to pay. And it was a lot of fun and I yeah, finished in the top three, I think it was three years in a row which made four did fun night from me.

Scott Brown (17:35):

Yeah. It'd have been popular. Tell me a little bit about the, the, the Ned role that you have with with, with psycho confidence. So this, this is something you've taken on relatively recently.

Alice England (17:52):

Yeah. I took it on in November and the company is, is called Cycle Confident and its vision is to empower as many people as possible to feel comfortable using the bicycle in everyday activities. And really it often is the training and infrastructure for adults to go and like commute and work. So offering them how to like cycle safely and like change a tire, you know, bike maintenance and things like that. But it also offers children lessons when their first bike balanced bikes, learning to ride learning, ride on the roads, so bicycle proficiency as well. And an extension of cycle confidence always also drive confident where they teach lo drivers, how to drive safely on the rates to keep cyclists safe. And yeah, I've only been doing it for a couple of months now, but I really enjoy the company. I'm enjoying the board meetings.

Alice England (18:51):

It's something it's not legal. So it's great to be sort of extending out that and learning about being on a board and advising and advising on strategy. But it also combines my love of sport. I actually own a Brompton and try to cycle in twice a week into work when it's not raining. Yeah. And also helps with sort of my interest in sustainability sort of, you know, keeping my carbon footprint down itself by actually getting on a bike and cycling in. So I'm really, I'm really enjoying it. And I like the company's vision and yeah, it's really, really interesting.

Scott Brown (19:32):

Yeah, it's something a lot of, a lot of people or a lot of lawyers that we speak to as well at a general counsel level and they're looking to elevate their position internally onto our leaders and position and, or taking, taking things to that next level within an executive capacity in their, in their legal career. And a lot of the time having that experience in a, in a non-executive directorships, obviously a great thing and adds, add something to it. But, but like you said, it's something to explore a passion or something outside of the, the day to day work as well. So it sounds like that's giving you giving you access to that. Yeah, I, I can, Sorry.

Alice England (20:23):

I think as well, it's quite when you are as a GC on a board and working with a board quite closely, it's quite a good experience for me as well to actually be a Ned. And sit on the other side and understand what sort of it is to be a Ned and what kind of role you need to play. And it supports the GC role helps me to be a better Ned and vice versa.

Scott Brown (20:47):

Okay. That's yeah, that's, I'd never thought about it as that actually. That's a good point seeing it from the other, the other side of the other side of the fence. 

So, - people looking for advice out there, how did, did you go about getting that Ned position? And do you have any advice for people that are in a similar book?

Alice England (22:17):

Yes. I am interested in taking on a position. And I spoke to actually a Ned at my previous company and asked her her views on her I to go about it actually, I was advised to join up to women on board which is a really good membership. I'd really recommend it. And it basically has loads of seminars on board and networking events, but also actually has jobs available. So you can have non-paid charity jobs and there's loads of jobs there for people that have never been a Ned before. So I put an application through quite a few applications through there and kept an eye on that. But actually this job came around because I started doing some free advice, like just legal advice ad hoc for a couple years, just a couple of like confidentiality agreements and things here and terms, cushions, and looking at a few things just very occasionally just about six years ago, kept up the relationship with the founder of cycle confident.

Alice England (23:18):

And then we had a discussion one day when I said that I'm looking for to get a non-executive director position in sports and leisure, cause it's something I'm really passionate about. And he said, why don't you come and be, and on executive director of cycle confident, because we'd really like somebody with your expertise on our board and it just came about there, but I certainly did a lot of work and sort of hunting beforehand. But yeah, basically networking as well. And keeping the discussions and being open about what you're looki ng for is sort of stuck in the right direction.

Scott Brown (23:52):

Cool.  We'll share a, share a link to, to women, women on board. That sounds like a great, great great forum for that. And place place to so just back to lesson, so we'll, we'll lesson number three. We'll move on to, to that. Could you share that with us please?

Alice England (24:14):

My lesson number three is sort of value creation. Just really important as an in-house lawyer to really demonstrate how you create value. I think this is quite a good point because it's not as easy for lawyers I'm gonna use like my natural resources sort of medical here, but it's not as easy to demonstrate value by sort of digging a hole in the ground and finding cobalt and like the technical team of mining company can and sort of really showing how you create value. But I think as a lawyer you really do create value. And it's important to just demonstrate this. I think often you can be seen as a bit of a cost center because you have to use external council for specific advice in particular areas or jurisdictions. And if a deal falls through often, you know, the lawyers are the ones that you still have to pay because the deal is not gonna go ahead, but you still obviously spend legal money.

Alice England (25:15):

So it's always that balancing act. And, but I think as an in house lawyer, there's, you do create a lot of value. First of all, they spend, you spend lot on you spend less on external council fees. If you've got a good in our team, it's really important that as a team, you sort of demonstrate that you've got sector experience especially for Anglo Pacific, which is a royalty and streaming company, you know, it's quite niche. And myself and my legal council we actually did predominantly a deal in house just before Christmas, where we spent very little on legal fees. And that was great because we've, you know, we've got the expertise now to run deals with it and save the company a lot of money. But also it's important as you say, on the sort of the the executive committee meetings really to demonstrate how you create value elsewhere by having robust protections in your contracts.

Alice England (26:16):

So that there's gonna be less likely to be disputes, or if there are disputes, they can be solved without having to go to court. That you've got good policies so that you really can say externally that you believe in supporting a more sustainable world and your actual culture and policies that stem from that support a more sustainable world. And that's sort of really driven by the legal team.  And also I think I find, as well as a general council, I'm sure lots of other general, and I know they have from your podcasts before that GCs always are more far reaching than just being a lawyer. They tend to step into a bit of an HR function as well around people also around spearheading governance and ESG that we've talked about and also have much more commercial reach than you would do if you were a private practice lawyer. So I think it's just showing that you are valuable and sort of making sure other people understand the value you bring.

Scott Brown (27:18):

Has  there been any time in your career where you've had to convinced someone or you've felt that legal wasn't valued and you've had to you've come against, come up against that as a hurdle?

Alice England (27:33):

Yeah, definitely. I have. I've found especially with sort of asset managers, who've run their business in different jurisdictions again, when I was in the oil and gas company, you know, they ran their own countries, they were asset managers, they had their own local councils as well. And I often found that they didn't want to come back to the commercial legal function cause they found that we wouldn't understand their questions here. We didn't understand their jurisdiction properly. I did find that that relationship was quite hard to bring in, especially I think when you've got a corporate head office and then a local office and they, they think there's a mismatch between how you think. And they think I found that a bit of a struggle at the beginning, but I really built that relationship. Like I completely underst I, I actually agreed there was a mismatch.

Alice England (28:26):

We didn't understand the issues that they were grappling with every day. And so I actually, again when they were in London, I made time to go for lunch. Them really understand the issues they were facing. And then if I was able to travel over there to go and see them and understand as well and actually get a feel of what it was to work in, say Ghana or, Kenya, and actually find out what the issues were. And then I could be more helpful. And then they were more likely to pick up the phone to me because they were like, well, Alice actually understands the issues that we're facing. And so I think it is important to make sure the corporate, understands the local, if you've got like local offices as well to make sure that you don't just sort of come in with a heavy hand and be like, ‘but this is how we do things. This is what the corporate does’ actually take a step back. Yeah. And try and be a bit more helpful. So

Scott Brown (29:21):

Yeah. Putting yourself in their shoes. 

Alice England (29:24):

Yeah, exactly.

Scott Brown (29:25):

Well, thanks for, thanks for that. Walking us through your, your three lessons.

So I've been finishing off the podcast this series by asking our guests what they would - if they had the, the opportunity to do so - chuck something in the proverbial Room 1-0-1. What would you, what would you confine I'm sure who the list is perhaps endless.

Alice England (30:18):

So, I don't know if this still applies. I'm sure it does in private practice, but my biggest pet hate when I was in private practice was time sheets and the stop clocks associated time sheets. I used to have like ticking clocks all around my screen. That would drive me slightly mad. Cause I couldn't remember which one I'd stopped and not stopped. And yeah, I mean it created quite a stressful environment, literally living by the minute and just filling in the time sheets and having to describe what you've done in your day. Yeah, I found so torturous and not that fulfilling and

Scott Brown (31:03):

No,

Alice England (31:03):

No. And I know, I know that private practice people probably saying, no, this is important, cause this is actually how we bill clients. But the, the like six minute increment charging of fees for me was something I didn't enjoy in private practice. And as soon as I left and went in and not had to do another time sheet, I was so happy. Literally

Scott Brown (31:27):

A weight lifted. Yeah, no, I can imagine it's yeah, no, they definitely still exist from people that we speak to that are desperate to leave private practice. It's something that it's maybe not the push factor, but its not something anyone enjoys in their job. Sounds like something like a of hook, the that Robin Williams film where it's like exactly

Alice England (31:48):

Where the TikTok

Scott Brown (31:49):

Clock, just all those time TikTok clocks. Yeah. and I'm su  re clients have never once read the description of what goes into a six minute unit with too much, too much discretion when, when a deal goes right. When a deal goes, right. They're never complain about the the whip, but 

Alice England (32:08):

It's when it goes wrong and

Scott Brown (32:09):

You it's when it goes wrong. Yeah. Yeah. 

Alice England (32:12):

About Scott? What would, what would you put in ream 1 0 1?

Scott Brown (32:17):

Hmm.

Scott Brown (32:22):

Actually I think the, the US law firm payment structure of associates – that is a fucking  runaway train that just total mismanagement of junior lawyers expectations as to what they should be earning and putting themselves on a bit of a pedestal.

Scott Brown (33:37):

So I think that would be it for me just now. Actually

Alice England (33:41):

I agree with that. Yeah. The, the payment structure of   private practice, us law firms is distorting the rest of the market.

Scott Brown (33:48):

Yeah. making

Alice England (33:50):

It impossible,

Scott Brown (33:52):

Making it impossible, making it it's is golden handcuffs to the people that are the people that are doing well out of it are doing well. But yeah, a law firms still making probably four times the amount that they're billing out regardless of what they're paying the, the associate. So yeah, that, I think that culture of that, that, that continued rise.  

The thing is if you're earning a lot of money, you want to have an element of control over how you're earning that money rather than just be an hour, like an increment of an hour. And just your purely time is, is you're very time, even though you're cash rich doesn't mean anything.

Alice England (34:46):

Also if you're paying nearly qualified 160,000, like starting salary, which is some of the I've heard as NQ salaries, that's, that's just mad that that feels like you'll sell your soul for that amount. You won't, you won't get much free time. You won't get much balance. And you could face burnout, I think quite early, if you're actually, I dunno, I dunno what the expectations are on that salary, but it feels very, very high for yeah. Your amount qualified.

Scott Brown (35:14):

Yeah. I, I think so burnout, imposter syndrome. Why am I being paid this? I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I have which I know junior associates think   and what am I doing to justify this other than be chain to my desk and feel that I should say yes to absolutely everything. So, yeah. 

Well, thanks Alice. Thanks for joining me today. It's been great to hear your lessons and I appreciate you taking the time and yeah, a lot of, a lot of interesting stuff going on at Anglo Pacific, which sounds sounds great.

Alice England (35:57):

Yes. Thank you. I've really enjoyed this. Thanks for having me on Scott.

Scott Brown (36:01):

Thank you for listening to lessons. I learned in law for more info and to hear from our other guests, including Alice head over to herriotbrown.com/podcast. I’m Scott Brown, see you next time.