Building internal processes for working with the legal group is among his proudest accomplishments
After graduating with a bachelor of commerce degree, David Forsayeth, general counsel at Flipp Corp., always imagined himself in a business role.
Law school intervened, as did four years as a private mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP’S Toronto office. But the pace of private practice became quite challenging as the birth of his first child approached, so when the opportunity arose to join the legal department at Flipp, a Toronto-based technology platform that North American retailers and brands use to create, curate and distribute savings content to millions of shoppers, Forsayeth threw his hat in the ring.
“I wasn’t entirely planning to leave private practice at that stage, but when Flipp offered me the job, the timing sort of worked out,” says Forsayeth, who joined the company in 2016 as the then-GC’s first hire.
And the lifestyle pace at his new job?
“There’s just as much work to do in-house, but the pace is less challenging because I have more control over the work and how it gets done, which gives me the flexibility to structure my time,” Forsayeth says. “I’m much less likely to be at the beck and call of clients and the surprise Friday emails that destroy weekend plans.”
At the outset, customer and vendor contracts comprised 80 percent of Forsayeth’s workload.
“But because there were just two of us, there were always other matters – like employment, privacy and marketing issues – that took up the rest of my time,” he says.
In 2019, the GC moved on, and Forsayeth became head of legal, formally assuming the GC title some two years later. He now leads a three-lawyer department.
“I took on more of a strategic role advising the executive team, as well as managing our most complex and important contracts from beginning to end,” he says. “I also took on more corporate work, including some M&A, governance and board management functions.”
It also wasn’t long before Forsayeth had to deal with COVID-19.
“The hardest period of the pandemic was in the immediate aftermath because neither the retailers, who were our biggest customers, or anyone else knew what was happening, and that trickled down to the legal department,” Forsayeth says. “We had to ensure that the right procedures and policies were in place regarding coming to the office, attending meetings and conferences, vaccines, and other health rules, as well as dealing with the contractual implications, including the impact of force majeure clauses.”
Fortunately, and like many tech companies, Flipp already had remote work processes.
But remote work presented challenges in an organization that’s grown from 120 to 400 employees in the six years Forsayeth has been there.
“The toughest part of my job was getting on top of all the cross-functional teams that interact with legal because you don’t just run into people in the office nearly as frequently anymore,” he says. “When there’s so much going on, and people are working remotely, you have to be intentional and hard.”
As it turned out, Forsayeth cites building the internal processes for how people relate to the legal team as among his proudest accomplishments.
“We worked hard to make ourselves efficient, including creating a really extensive internet page that gave people templates and tools that allowed them to cope with legal issues on their own,” Forsayeth says. “We’ve seen massive uptake in the use of those tools without having to add legal personnel to manage it.”
The key to success has been giving management and employees visibility into the workings of the legal department.
“What makes things so difficult sometimes for in-house lawyers, and what’s so different from private practice, is that no one else knows what you’re doing all day,” Forsayeth says. “But if you give people insight into all the things that fall under our ambit and how we’re prioritizing the issues, the conversation becomes a lot easier.”
Growth also demanded that the legal department help build discipline and process in the organization without impinging on its culture.
“Flipp has done a good job of maintaining its ‘team-first’ cultural values,” Forsayeth says. “The biggest shift came from a maturity perspective where everyone had to follow established processes as the company grew.”
Forsayeth is also proud of how the legal department has modernized contract processes.
“We deal with the Walmarts and the Loblaws, the biggest people in the room, and getting them onto paper in the fast-moving tech world can be a challenge,” he says. “Because our products and business move faster than legal paper does, making sure you bring customers along on that journey is really important.”
Top of mind for 2023, then, is continuing the modernization and process improvement.
“Our goal is to continue optimizing, starting with the procurement process and in combination with the finance team, with the goal of making their processes more efficient,” Forsayeth says.
Privacy issues are the other item atop the current list, partly because Flipp operates across North America.
“The piecemeal approach to privacy that’s happening in the US is incredibly challenging for tech companies, and at the same time, we’re still waiting to see what the federal government here in Canada has in mind,” Forsayeth says. “Even though Flipp doesn’t collect consumers’ sensitive information, the issues still affect us and our customers, and we want to promote confidence in our approach.”
To that end, the legal team will continue its audit of US legislative frameworks and work to implement compliance programs that can manage them.
Forsayeth wanted back into business. His wish has come true in spades.
