My legal life: Brenda Albert, KONE plc

When I was younger, I was fascinated by courtroom dramas on TV. I enjoyed the intellectual to-ing and fro-ing. At school, I did work experience at Canterbury Crown Court and, again, I was fascinated by what I saw. I spent time speaking to judges, clerks, solicitors and barristers. The more I learned about the profession, the more I wanted to be in it. 

For my LPC, I was working four days a week as a bank adviser and studying one day a week. This meant that I completed the LPC in two years rather than one. I am certain that my experience during this time helped when it was time to apply for training contracts. I faced a lot of rejections before I was finally accepted by a local firm. The experience of working for a smaller firm meant I had real hands-on experience in all my seats and actual client time. We were treated like fee-earners.

After around five years in private practice, I realised partnership was not something I necessarily wanted. I wanted to try out other areas of law and that cannot be done so easily (if at all) in private practice.

The transition from private practice to in-house was interesting, albeit complicated. There was a steep learning curve in moving from advising external clients to having internal stakeholder clients. One minute you were deep in a contract review and the next you were answering the phone to HR on a matter. I had an amazing local general counsel who believed in me and, importantly, gave me the freedom to become a generalist. I enjoyed the business-facing bit and the technical side of really learning the business so you could ‘talk the talk’.

'An in-house team can look forward and create documents, processes and ways of working to try and help the business speed up

I was fortunate to be made chair of the diversity committee at Foster Wheeler Energy Ltd. We did some wonderful work, which included increasing awareness for women in the business through talks. These talks included international colleagues and were watched around the world. We also held a D&I evening and had great speakers including key female members of the engineering world. The beauty of the committee was that our graduates were fully involved and engaged in the events, be that assisting, steering and planning.

I joined KONE plc in 2018. My role has changed in my seven years there. My initial core responsibilities were heavily contractually focused – reviewing and advising on contracts. My role evolved with the business and the changing landscape in construction – it is more litigious than before. My role has always encompassed multiple areas of law but I am also a strategic business partner. In addition to providing legal advice, training internal stakeholders and creating policies and procedures, I have co-created a contract management app. I believe a legal team should partner with the business (within the confines of the internal rules and governance), so my team and I work closely with all our stakeholders, from our quantity surveyors to our finance teams.

I have seen in each of my in-house roles the value an in-house legal team can bring. The first obvious one is cost saving. The second is having an individual who knows the business and therefore can understand and advise according to not just the risk appetite but the business realities. An in-house team can look forward and create documents, processes and ways of working to try and help the business speed up. These may be via partnering agreements or bespoke contract amendments. The in-house team can flex with the business and add value by finding ways to help the business succeed in a legal and ethical way. My team’s interactions with clients mean they are better able in some circumstances to build those relationships by finding collaborative ways to work, such as by using framework agreements. This benefits the client and the business by providing the legal protection that enables faster commercial transactions.

It is imperative for the legal lead to have a seat at whichever table makes the decisions. You cannot be a business partner without understanding the strategic or commercial direction that the business wants to take. Being at the table does not mean that legal acts as a blocker, but as a sanity check to some of the proposals.

My team and I started 2025 with a bang: we won the LexisNexis in-house legal team of the year. It was an amazing feeling to win and share that with my team. The award is a symbol of the fact that we are a real business partner to the business and is a celebration of our innovation and ways of working.