Former pensions lawyer Jamie Henderson swapped private practice for in-house work in 2020 when she took up a deputy general counsel role at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, becoming GC two years later. Now she is building out University College London Hospital’s legal team as its first GC. Global Legal Post spoke with Jamie about her role, the challenges of creating a legal department from scratch and the qualities needed for in-house counsel in the NHS.
What are your key responsibilities as GC at UCL Hospital?
It’s quite broad because I’m the first GC at UCLH so I was brought in to establish the commercial, non-medical-negligence side of things. I joined two years ago and so the goal was for me to build a team to deal with all things commercial, and all the emerging issues in the NHS. So far, I’ve managed to get two team members, but I’m currently recruiting and we’re still in growth stage and dealing with new things. The concept of the GC is still quite new in the NHS, so it is about familiarising everyone with what that is. But there are other different things that I’m trying to do: projects, efficiency, the things that probably a lot of PLCs and other companies do, but it’s taking some time.
What was the driver for UCLH to hire a GC?
There were several drivers. One was the legal spend, which was high. Another driver was consistency; if people had an issue, they would go to a firm they knew. Bringing in a GC also meant the organisation could receive advice from someone that understood the organisation, who would consider and ask things such as: actually that’s not how we did it last year, or would ask those probing questions about how any advice would land in the organisation.
There was a realisation that [the organisation] needed this and someone who will challenge and say, “Do you need to go external?”, or “Actually, that’s not legal advice – you need an accountant”, or something like that. Obviously some people are not used to instructing lawyers, though some people might be, but they’ll have different preferences. Or if they’ve worked in the Big Four, they’re used to using Magic Circle firms, but it’s not really appropriate for the NHS to be appointing a Magic Circe firm. The organisation needed someone to establish a function that would accommodate different experiences and perspectives.
What situations would you seek for outside counsel?
We’ve done a number of things to try and help with the legal function, and one of them is implementing an SOP (standard operating procedure), which makes it very clear when you should come to us and then we work out if it’s something where we need to go external. Previously people might have gone external where they didn’t need to. The legal team goes to external counsel for matters that cannot be done in-house and or where the matters are high value and external support is needed.
How do you ideally want your legal department to be structured once you’ve finished building it out?
At the moment, I’ve only got a trainee and another lawyer, but I’m looking to recruit a senior lawyer. I’m hoping we’ll always have a trainee and then potentially a paralegal, so they can do a lot of the research-type tasks, and then have more senior individuals who can take on the more complex matters. At the moment, although the people in the team are very good, there are certain matters that only I can do, which then means when I’m asked to do a bit more of the strategic work, I don’t always have the headspace for it because I’m trying to fight fires.
So it’s about building capacity, but also strength. We’ve purposely taken a long time to build the team because I’m keen that we have the right individuals to have a strong, capable department. I would hope in two or three years, I will have a team full of very capable people.
What qualities do good in-house counsel need in the healthcare sector?
For me it’s flexibility. I joined the NHS around the end of 2020. I came from private practice as a pensions lawyer, so no NHS experience. When they hired me, they said I was the only one who didn’t have any NHS experience, but they went for me because they thought I’d just get stuck in. I had the transferable skills, and I think that’s key in the NHS. A lot of people see it as you’re just going to be doing medical negligence, which is the one thing I don’t do. But it does require individuals to just get stuck in, and there are going to be areas that you’re not familiar with.
So it takes individuals with a curious mind to delve into the legislation and figure things out, and then also equally be sympathetic. If we’re dealing with a treatment dispute, you can understand why a family is very upset, but then we might be in court, so it’s a fine line: you need someone who’s quite flexible who understands the law but can be empathetic while protecting the organisation and our patients. If you have individuals that say, “Well, I’m a commercial lawyer and I can’t do employment”, they are not going to work very well in my team as the work we do is so wide ranging and no day is the same.
What made you swap pensions law for healthcare?
I liked pensions because it’s quite technical, but I left private practice when I was about 10 years PQE, and at the time I knew I wanted to go in-house, but pensions was quite niche. I knew I was going to have to be a bit more open to other ideas, so I was interviewing for a range of roles; I wasn’t looking specifically for healthcare. But when I saw the ad [for the role at Moorfields Eye Hospital], it had a mix of everything – data protection, commercial, IP, employment. I was attracted to it because it is quite rare to see roles have that much variety, it tends to be “We’re looking for a senior property lawyer”, or “We’re looking for a senior M&A lawyer”, it’s not often that it’s “We want someone who’s happy to dip in and out of different areas”, and I quite liked that.
What are the key legal issues impacting the UK healthcare sector at the moment?
Being a hospital, the legislation on deprivation of liberty is incredibly important, and the test for that has completely changed. You may have heard of the case that spoke about biological sex – that was really important for hospitals because it has implications for patient care and staff experience. And then it’s treatment disputes. How do we respond to a parent that is refusing essential treatment for their child, what do we do if it’s a 16-year-old who’s refusing treatment, or if it’s an adult? How do we deal with that?
As a GC in the NHS, you have to come to grips with people being entitled to make certain decisions, as long as they have capacity, even if you think it’s an unwise decision. It’s getting used to that fact and being told someone said they’re happy to die – how does the law work with that? Having spent most of my career in the City, that takes some getting used to.
What advice would you give to junior in-house counsel who would like to become a GC one day?
One of the things someone always said to me when I was a junior lawyer in the City is it is very important to maintain your network with lawyers of similar levels: go to networking events, because those lawyers or business partners will become more senior as you go through the years. A lot of people I dealt with years ago, they’re also partners now and we have developed strong relationships. So it’s important to value networking and build relationships. I always say to my trainee, make sure you join the young lawyers group and things like that so that you’re abreast of what’s going on and you have peers that you can talk to.
What is the best thing about being based in London?
There’s just so much to do, though I am quite biased because I was born and raised in London. So I love London, there’s always something going on whenever anyone visits. I nearly moved to New York once but I missed London too much.
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