Interview with ASDA's in-house counsel, Ellie Doohan
28/10/2008
Just what is the link between ABBA, Jane Austin and ASDA? Tony Seymour manages to corner the elusive Ellie Doohan just long enough to find out.
It's not easy to pin down ASDA's in-house counsel, Ellie Doohan. Hardly surprising when much of her time is spent managing her extensive responsibilities as Head of Legal and Company Secretary of the UK's second largest supermarket. It is a demanding role which sees her tripping over the Atlantic to the States to attend meetings at Wal-Mart, ASDA's parent company since 1999. However, today she does have a little time to spare, time enough for a coffee anyway.
It's half past two when I reach the Restaurant Bar and Grill in Leeds City Centre. The sky is an implacable grey and the Mancunian drizzle appears to have followed me over the Pennines making the coffee even more welcome. I am kept waiting fifteen minutes until my companion arrives fashionably late although admittedly she did let me know her work was keeping her overdue. Not that I grumble. Like most in-house lawyers Ellie's day is a long one.
By 7.30 am she is already in the office. Breakfast is taken around nine, followed by the usual barrage of phone calls, updates and enquiries from various sources around the business. Not surprisingly working as part of the largest supermarket group in the world, there is little time to sit around, but the pace of the business is one of its main attractions. When asked to comment on the best part of her role, the answer comes immediately: "The variety. Retail is a fast paced environment. The legal team and the business are always looking for ways to reduce operating costs as well as the cost of living for our customers. With over 340 shops, 20 million customers a week and 175,000 colleagues there is always something new happening and combined with the ultra competitive market in which we operate it makes for a constantly stimulating job."
The team advises on a variety of different issues within the business including company secretarial, legal, trading standards, environmental health, licensing, risk management and technical standards relating to the products ASDA sells. But their work is by no means purely office orientated. Like other in-house counsel, the lawyers at ASDA realise the crucial importance of escaping the legal ivory tower to understand how the business operates. However, perhaps they are a little more hands-on than most. It is in fact it a requirement of the role for team members to be on the shop floor at least once a quarter. "We can't advise the business properly if we don't understand how it really works and see and hear what is happening on the ground," Ellie points out. It may seem a rather quaint idea, but it appears to help engender a closer working relationship between individual members of the team as well as delivering genuine economic results. Only last month, the team identified that they could absorb £1 million of operating costs across the store network. In any event something seems to be paying off. In 2007 ASDA won the ‘Legal Week' award for In-House Legal Team of the Year as well as the AOB Plain English Award.
So what drives the lawyer who originally practiced at Hammonds before joining the retail giant in 1998? In truth, Ellie draws her inspiration from just about anyone who achieves great things against all odds. The real life story of Erin Brockovich is one example she cites. That and the hard edged tale of courage and determination as depicted by one of her favourite Hollywood blockbusters, ‘Legally Blonde'! However, if pushed to pin her inspiration on one individual she would have to say it was her father: "his inexhaustible work ethic and approach to life encouraged me to believe that anything is possible," she says. This would certainly seem to be borne out by her career so far. Perhaps her proudest memory was assisting the legal team in achieving a change in the law following a challenge against a number of drugs companies who sought to maintain the price of various medicines against the interests of the paying consumer. A proud moment indeed, though if I'm honest I found Ellie's success in a local fund raising event far more intriguing. With the support of a group of friends and a little Dutch courage, they were runners up when they performed ABBA's ‘Waterloo' dressed in cat suits before a crowd of five hundred - "very nerve racking," she laughs "but great fun!"
However, Ellie does not, by any means, spend all her free time parading around on stage. Given the choice, she prefers active pursuits whether skiing, abseiling or hill walking, but finds that a stimulating novel is also way to unwind. However, as I found, she does not like to be without her creature comforts. The thought of being stranded on a peaceful desert island is certainly not her cup of tea. Unless, that is, she could take her collection of Jane Austen with her, together with her solar powered sat. phone with built in IPod along with her corkscrew. "I'm a big ‘Girls Aloud' fan" she admits. And the corkscrew? Ellie sighs. "Well the island will have at least one excellent vineyard won't it?" Naturally.
