Ian McDougall is the General Counsel for LexisNexis, as well as the President of LexisNexis’ Rule of Law Foundation. According to the Foundation, The Rule of Law is made up of four parts:
1. Equality Under the Law
2. Transparency of Law
3. Independent Judiciary
4. Accessible Legal Remedy
For there to be a true existence of Rule of Law, all four parts must be present in the governments which rule the people. McDougall says that no country has mastered the Rule of Law, and that ideals like democracy and justice can cause significant barriers to the Rule of Law. Without the Rule of Law, there is no true access to justice. Without the Rule of Law, commerce doesn’t flow. McDougall is working with partners, including the United Nations, NGOs and corporate operations to establish stable environments, for people, as well as commerce.
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Information Inspirations:
We live in an age of massive data, analytics, business intelligence tools which allow industry leaders to gain insights on their organizations, industry, and competition. With all these resources, data, analytics, and insights at their fingertips, Deloitte’s recent survey of over 1,000 industry leaders exposes that a majority of these leaders still desire the simplicity of spreadsheets. To borrow from Henry Ford, they desire a faster horse.
Perhaps, like Greg, you are not a fan of cockroaches. Science, however, is making cockroaches useful, and may even save lives during disasters. But even insects aren’t immune from technology. Eventually, those roaches with electronic backpacks may still be outsources by their eventual robot replacements.
Patrick McKenna’s book excerpt, The Rise of the Legal COO, isn’t just for COOs who find themselves reporting to a new Managing Partner. There’s a number of questions, and adjustments which McKenna suggests, which will work for practically anyone who finds themselves with a new boss.
While Gen X’ers should be in the prime of their professional careers, Harvard Business Review’s recent report may show that companies, and maybe law firms, are going to find themselves with a Gen X problem. Boomers are staying, and Millennials are advancing faster. It’s a squeeze on both ends of the generational tube.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Greg Lambert: A lot to, you know, a lot to de, what’s the word I’m looking for?
[00:00:04] Marlene Gebauer: Unwrap? Unpackage?
[00:00:06] Greg Lambert: Yeah.
[00:00:07] Marlene Gebauer: Okay, okay, let me stop laughing.
[00:00:09] Greg Lambert: So there’s a lot to deconstruct, right? So there’s a lot to unpack there. My goodness.
[00:00:16] Marlene Gebauer: Welcome to The Geek in Review, the podcast designed to cover the legal information profession with a slant toward technology and management. I’m Marlene Gebauer.
[00:00:31] Greg Lambert: And I’m Greg Lambert. So this week, Marlene, we bring in Ian McDougall. He’s the general counsel for LexisNexis and he’s also the president of Lexis’ Rule of Law Foundation, a nonprofit organization with the goal of advancing the rule of law around the world. So Ian comes in and discusses what the Rule of Law Foundation does and how it interacts with things like the United Nations efforts around the rule of law and why the rule of law isn’t just good for people, but it’s also good for business.
[00:01:01] Marlene Gebauer: Yes, Ian will be speaking to us about the rule of law and its core importance to the pro bono work the Foundation performs. He’ll be sharing how the rule of law creates economic and social stability and some of the interesting projects the Foundation’s been involved in. And now, Greg, for this week’s Information Inspirations.
[00:01:24] Greg Lambert: Marlene, my first information inspiration comes from Deloitte. So Deloitte surveyed over 1,000 business executives and found that most are not really confident in how they are leveraging data to gain insight into their organizations, their industry, or their competition. So we live in an era of very large accessible data analytics, which are supposed to give us insight on how we need to position ourselves for success. And we build these data and insight tools to guide the leadership. We have these portals for partners. We have portals for clients. We bring in data scientists and data analysts to crank out those reports. But Marlene, you know what a majority of the business leaders, and by that I’m also assuming law firm leaders, you know what they want?
[00:02:13] Marlene Gebauer: I’m afraid to ask.
[00:02:15] Greg Lambert: They want spreadsheets.
[00:02:17] Marlene Gebauer: Oh no.
[00:02:18] Greg Lambert: Oh no.
[00:02:19] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah. All my data viz discussion is just going out the door. Is that what you’re telling me?
[00:02:26] Greg Lambert: Yeah, what they want is just, you know what, maybe we can bring back Lotus 1-2-3 for them. So this kind of reminds me of that old Henry Ford saying of if he asked his customers what they wanted, they’d just say a faster horse. But you know, these aren’t just customers. These are the industry leaders we’re talking about. So Marlene, we need to do something to wean them off this fast horse that’s called a spreadsheet.
[00:02:52] Marlene Gebauer: Yes. Maybe some of our listeners can call in and give some advice on that.
[00:02:58] Greg Lambert: Yeah.
[00:02:59] Marlene Gebauer: So Greg, what do you think about cockroaches?
[00:03:02] Greg Lambert: I’m not a big fan.
[00:03:03] Marlene Gebauer: Well, what if I told you they could save your life?
[00:03:05] Greg Lambert: Yeah. I don’t care. I don’t. I’m still not a big fan.
[00:03:09] Marlene Gebauer: Literally as a first responder in a catastrophic event?
[00:03:11] Greg Lambert: All right.
[00:03:12] Marlene Gebauer: I don’t know. Roach is saying, yeah, how you like me now, right? There are U.S. research teams training cockroaches, this is great, using remote control backpacks.
[00:03:23] Greg Lambert: Okay.
[00:03:24] Marlene Gebauer: That’s like, I’m getting this image, you know, this great image of a cockroach with a little school backpack running down the road.
[00:03:31] Greg Lambert: That’s the same image I just came up with.
[00:03:34] Marlene Gebauer: So actually they’re chips, but scientists can control their movements through these chips. And the idea is that someday they can be used to locate people under rubble with pinpoint precision because they obviously can get into places that we can’t get into. Now this research has been going on for a while and robot tech is catching up, but the robots are still learning from the movement from the cockroaches. But as the tech gets better, I think the roaches are going to resume their vermin status.
[00:04:06] Greg Lambert: All right, Marlene. My second information inspiration comes, it’s actually from Daniel Smallwood of the Art Group, but it is an excerpt from Patrick McKenna’s book called The Rise of the Legal COO. And in this, McKenna discusses the first 100 days of a new law firm COO’s tenure. First of all, I was happy to see something that referred to baby boomers actually giving up some power and having a succession plan and giving it to our Gen Xers because…
[00:04:40] Marlene Gebauer: You’re getting ahead.
[00:04:44] Greg Lambert: But McKenna mentioned that it wasn’t out of the norm for COOs to find what he referred to as new opportunities when a new managing partner took over the law firm. But he’s saying that this isn’t necessarily the case these days and that in the first 100 days, there’s a getting-to-know-you phase where COOs are asking themselves about the priorities that the new managing partner has, the level of trust, has the new managing partner been tested under stress before, is he or she an ideas person or are they an action person, what’s going to be the interpersonal situation between the COO and the MP, is the new leadership one that motivates people and builds a team environment or not, how does the managing partner deal with the politics involved with the other partners, and can the COO be flexible enough to fit the needs of the new managing partner. So I know this talks about COOs, but I think a lot of these questions can apply to other leaders within a law firm who may find themselves with a new boss.
[00:05:54] Marlene Gebauer: I was just thinking that, yeah.
[00:05:57] Greg Lambert: I know this won’t come as a shock to anyone, but law firms haven’t been known for really being that good at mentoring or guiding or assisting up-and-coming leaders to take over. So I think McKenna’s excerpt has a number of suggestions on how you can adjust and react to new leadership and changes that inevitably come with that change.
[00:06:20] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, that sounds like a really good book. Go out and get that, everybody. So my next inspiration is something that you actually posted on LinkedIn, Greg, about how companies may be about to have a Gen X retention problem. Yeah, us slackers, go figure.
[00:06:36] Greg Lambert: Yeah. Too much MTV when we were teenagers.
[00:06:39] Marlene Gebauer: That’s right, that’s right. But seriously, while Gen X should be at the peak of their careers, they aren’t moving as quickly as expected. 66% of Gen X leaders surveyed by Harvard Business Review, Ernst & Young, and the Conference Board had received only one or no promotions in the past five years, compared to millennial counterparts, which were at 52%, and baby boomer counterparts, which were at 58%. So some considerations the article raises is that baby boomers are staying in the workforce longer, and millennials are trying to make up for lost time after a slow start to career advancement due to the financial crisis. So Gen X is getting squeezed. What else is new? Why? They bear most of the workload, having more direct reports than other generations, and they’re loyal. The article notes millennials are much more likely to leave and that Gen Xers play a very important role in retaining company knowledge. But most importantly, and I have said this a lot over the years, is that Gen X can bridge the digital divide between baby boomers and millennials. Because we’ve experienced both sides. So Gen X can be key candidates for those storyteller and translator roles that we’ve discussed.
[00:08:01] Greg Lambert: Oh yeah.
[00:08:01] Marlene Gebauer: So think about it, corporate America.
[00:08:04] Greg Lambert: All right, Marlene. Well, that’s a wrap for this week’s Information Inspirations. So Marlene, we discussed the topic of access to justice and the rule of law a lot on this show. A few months ago, you and I were in Arizona. People may remember the What Advice You Would Give Summer Associates that we did by the pool in Scottsdale. pool in Scottsdale. So that was a fun one. Well, while we were there, we met Ian McDougall, who is heading up Lexus’s Rule of Law Foundation. And Ian gave a presentation there of what they are trying to accomplish around the globe. So we asked him to come on to the show and give us a little more details on the foundation.
[00:08:49] Marlene Gebauer: We are joined today by Ian McDougall, Executive Vice President and General Counsel at LexisNexis, and also President of the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation, a non-profit charitable organization established to advance the rule of law. Ian, welcome to the Geek & Review.
[00:09:12] Ian McDougall: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.
[00:09:14] Marlene Gebauer: We are delighted to have you here today. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into this line of work.
[00:09:22] Ian McDougall: Oh, well, very, very briefly, because I could bore you with an extremely long story there. I am qualified as a barrister in the UK. So for those who don’t know, the UK has a split profession, which is basically the advocates and consultants are barristers, and the solicitors are the people that the lay clients actually deal with. That’s breaking down a bit now, but that’s the traditional thing. And for those of you who’ve seen pictures of barristers, they’re the ones who wear the white wigs and the black gowns.
[00:09:54] Greg Lambert: white wigs and the black gowns.
[00:09:56] Ian McDougall: But fundamentally, my career has been as a general counsel in companies. The way I describe that is that I’ve always considered myself not to be a lawyer in commerce, but to be a commercial person who does law. And if you kind of approach things with that mindset, it does really kind of alter your perspective on how you approach things. So a number of in-house roles from time to time, telecoms, financial services, until eventually joining Lexis just over 15 years ago. as the regional general counsel, which was based in London before eventually becoming the general counsel for the whole of the business based in New York.
[00:10:42] Greg Lambert: Now you have a passion for both. both, I think, pro bono work and for the rule of law. In fact, I believe you sit on a United Nations committee on the rule of law, is that right?
[00:10:54] Ian McDougall: Yeah, that’s correct, yeah.
[00:10:55] Greg Lambert: How did you get in on that role?
[00:10:58] Ian McDougall: Well, so it really does start with the Lexis approach, which is, you know, our mission, corporate social responsibility mission, as well as being the mission of the company, is to advance the rule of law around the world. And so some years ago, in fact, when I took up this role as general counsel, I was sort of given the opportunity of bringing together the strategic approach, how we approach this. And so that involved developing the rule of law definition that we’ve done, and also as an organization kicking off the Business for the Rule of Law initiative. So what happened was that we had a launch event, it was 2013, I think, in New York for the Business for the Rule of Law program. And we were fortunate enough to have Ban Ki-moon, the then General Secretary of the UN, along with Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland, to come along and kick that off. Well, the fun thing was Ban Ki-moon basically taking the view of, can we make this a joint? Lexis UN project. And so, that’s what happened. Eventually, a rule of law, business for the rule of law stream was created within the UN. And I was one of the founding members of the UN Committee on Business for the Rule of Law.
[00:12:21] Greg Lambert: So with the Rule of Law Foundation that LexisNexis has, the organization states that you believe in four key areas that form the umbrella protection of the rule of law. So you’ve got equality, under the law, transparency of law, independent judiciary, and accessible legal remedy.
[00:12:42] Ian McDougall: Correct.
[00:12:43] Greg Lambert: And so add those four together, then you have the rule of law.
[00:12:47] Ian McDougall: Yeah.
[00:12:47] Greg Lambert: Can you talk to us a little bit about the Rule of Law Foundation itself and how it’s promoting access to justice?
[00:12:55] Ian McDougall: Sure. Well, first things first, I think it’s worth spending a moment just on that definition. Please do. You know, there are many definitions. Indeed, the UN is not short of definitions itself. But what we did was to look at and really study how the rule of law was spoken about and originated in different societies, different cultures, historically around the world, and try to draw out the consistent themes that we could describe as universal. Really to try and move away from this idea that the rule of law is some Western concept and that, you know, it’s the West telling the rest how to behave. What we wanted to show was that this was a genuinely global thing. And so those four themes came out consistently from historical assessments of the rule of law all around the world. And another advantage that I think they have is that to a very, very great extent, they are therefore not political. They are basic and fundamental. They can be applied to pretty much anywhere, almost regardless of the political system that’s in place. And so that enables us to have conversations with practically any government around the world for this important reason, that one thing that we have done is to emphasize the link between the rule of law and economic prosperity. The direct connection between the rule of law and per capita GDP.
[00:14:30] Greg Lambert: Why is that important?
[00:14:32] Ian McDougall: Well, it’s important for a couple of reasons. One is that many people already accept that the rule of law is the right thing to do. It’s a kind of, you know, the morally right thing to do. But for many people, it can seem very much of an academic subject, spoken about in academic circles and not really having much relation to the real world and impact on the real world. And so what we wanted to do was to show how it directly affects the real world and prosperity and how it’s in everyone’s literally their self-interest to be concerned with the rule of law because it has this direct impact. And that’s just as important when we want to talk to the business community. So we’re able to go and say to the business community, this directly impacts the success and the ability to do business. And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with being self- interested if it helps to advance the rule of law. So that’s why it’s really important to tie these back to various socioeconomic measures, per capita GDP, infant mortality rates, corruption rates, you know, life expectancy, all of these kind of things just to show people that this is not some academic subject that’s discussed by professors, that it basically meaningfully impacts people’s lives. Sorry, the second part of your question was about the Rule of Law Foundation. So the Rule of Law Foundation, what we discovered was that one, it would be very good to have a vehicle, a vehicle through which we could concentrate our efforts to do this. The second thing is that sometimes people, for their own reasons, are hesitant about working with a commercial organization and there could be a hundred different reasons why that’s the case. And so the combination of having a vehicle through which we could engage and focus our rule of law efforts, making that vehicle charitable, you know, a not-for- profit organization leads to all kinds of avenues that really are closed, regrettably closed to the business or a commercial organization as such.
[00:16:42] Marlene Gebauer: Ian, you were talking a little bit about sort of the direct impact that the rule of law has on people’s lives. And Greg and I have had the pleasure of seeing you present on some of the projects that the foundation has done that do, in fact, have a direct impact on people’s lives. And also the projects, I should note, use, you know, some advanced technology. Can you share a few examples of those?
[00:17:12] Ian McDougall: Yeah. Well, so that’s another kind of important principle. It’s worth, I think, talking about for a second, which is, you know, when we were kind of focusing our efforts and the strategy on the rule of law, one of the important things that we felt was to answer the question that we have this, you know, great company. Lexis operates in 100 countries around the world, and we have over 10,000 people working for us with a huge range of technical skill. So how could we change the world? If you have that kind of great resource, how can you change the world for the better? Was the question. It seems very grand, but, you know, I like thinking in grand terms. So let’s, you know, start at the top and see how we go. And so the answer to that became very much focusing on deploying our core skills, taking what we’re already good at. and deploying them in a project or with other people in projects where they can bring something to the table that we can’t to directly advance the rule of law. So that’s the strategy. And it was very, very much about finding ways to deploy a core skill that you’re already good at in a project that can advance the rule of law. If we take an example of that, one of the, I suppose, proudest achievements was exactly that implementation, working with the IBA on developing something called the Eyewitness to Atrocities app. This is an app which sits on a smartphone or some other kind of similar type gadget. And it basically enables people to take video of things like war crimes and crimes against humanity and things like this for consideration as to whether they can be submitted to the International Criminal Court. Because the problem was that although YouTube is replete with videos of all kinds, they are not to a sufficient standard or set of requirements that enable them to be produced in a court as evidence. So this technology allows the particular video to be sent to a Lexis server where it’s stored secure repository. It has various technological tricks which enable you to know that it’s not been altered. It is time stamped and location stamped on the gadget that you’ve used it on. And then it’s reviewed by a panel of lawyers appointed by the IBA to consider whether it can be submitted as evidence to the International Criminal Court. Now, the really fabulous thing about the Eyewitness app is that it can leave no trace on the user’s phone that it was ever used, which is fantastic. I’m very pleased to say that last year, two prosecutions were successful as a result of the eyewitness evidence, eyewitness to atrocities evidence that was produced. So there’s an example, I think, of taking core skills, technology skills, legal process skills, working with a partner like the IBA and doing something that’s really kind of enhancing the international justice system. We’ve done various other things as well, like helping countries to consolidate their laws in order to make them available. We’ve done judge training, done judge training in Africa. We’ve done even constitutional awareness courses. So we, in one particular country, we helped the members of parliament there where there was no real history of a democratic system of parliamentary government. We kind of brought in parliamentarians from different countries around the world and literally ran sessions on how to be a member of parliament. If you think about it, in a transitional country where there’s no real experience of dealing with that, suddenly you’ve got a member of parliament with no real experience or even culture of that democratic tradition. And suddenly, I don’t know what, they’ve been slapped with a 200 page telecoms bill, you know, on their desk. What the hell do they do with it? Good luck. Yeah, that’s right.
[00:21:38] Marlene Gebauer: Always screaming.
[00:21:39] Ian McDougall: Indeed. So, you know, that all of these kind of things through the lens of the four principles of the rule of law, you basically look at it through the idea of saying, these are the four categories of the rule of law. Okay, let’s deploy core skills and work with partners in those respective categories on projects which will help to advance the rule of law.
[00:22:04] Greg Lambert: I wanted to back up just a second to the Eyewitness to Atrocities phone app. So I read on your website that you have an estimate of somewhere around 5 billion people on earth are outside this umbrella of the rule of law.
[00:22:21] Ian McDougall: That’s the UN’s estimate, by the way.
[00:22:23] Greg Lambert: I was just curious, I know that a lot of those 5 billion people have cell phone access, some type of smartphone access. How well known, how do you distribute these types of things? Do you work with certain groups within countries so that you get this information? How does someone that may be the victim of an atrocity or witness to an atrocity know to use this app?
[00:22:50] Ian McDougall: Yes, so obviously the IBA, as well as ourselves, operates all around the world. And both we and the IBA have very good connections with various NGOs that operate around the world. So the main kind of spreading the word activities happens through the various partners, people working in the region, and people who can really effectively get the message to the front line.
[00:23:17] Greg Lambert: And do you have an estimate of how many times your app has been downloaded?
[00:23:22] Ian McDougall: Yes, approximately 10,000 so far, and that’s a number that I had from a couple of months ago. So obviously it’s going up all the time, but yeah, as the word is spreading, so is the app.
[00:23:38] Marlene Gebauer: Okay. So Ian, I know you were talking, you were talking about you like to think and speak on a grand scale, and we’ve been talking about on a broad scale how involvements in these types of projects benefit us as a people, both in an economic and perhaps a moral standard. If we want to get a little more granular, how does involvement in these projects benefit, you know, say law firms or companies from a business perspective?
[00:24:11] Ian McDougall: The first thing is that stability, rule of law stability, enables economic growth. The simple answer to that question is in a situation where the rule of law is weak, what tends to happen is that ordinary protections, which you or I might take for granted, simply don’t happen. For example, a contract, yeah, a contract. If you can’t get a contract enforced, yeah, why would you bother to contract? If you can’t get your intellectual property protected, yeah, then where is the incentive to develop anything? Where is the incentive to go into that market? Some years ago, Hogan Lovells produced a survey, and they had surveyed a load of chief executives. I can’t remember how many it was now, but it was a big number. And they asked them, when you are thinking of investing in a new territory, what are your top three considerations? By far, the majority in the top three, some way or another, was the rule of law. It may have been expressed in different ways, but that was basically what they were saying. And the reason is because if you are a law firm, and you are trying to advise a client in a situation where the rule of law is weak, it’s practically impossible for you to give any kind of meaningful advice. It doesn’t really matter what the advice is. It’s practically irrelevant. So for the legal profession, for the business community, and for the people that both of those groups are serving, this is why the rule of law matters, because everything else depends on it. And so we have the 17 or so social development goals of the UN. Number 16 is the Peace, Justice, and Inclusive Society, one which I call the rule of law SDG. What I’ve been saying to the UN and to anyone else who would listen, number 16 is the foundation for all the other ones. If you don’t have the rule of law, you don’t have an environment policy. It’s a piece of paper. You don’t have intellectual property protection. You don’t have anything at all. Nothing can happen if you don’t have the basis of the rule of law. It’s one of those situations that sparked the Arab Spring, for example, the uprising in Tunisia that started simply with a man who was so desperate because of his exclusion from the rule of law, and those things that enabled his business to work, that he committed public suicide and caused a snowball effect around the region. That’s really the significance of it. As far as lawyers are concerned, it is great to have an environment protection policy. Of course, we’ll support that. It is great to have other kinds of different policies and things that you are interested in advancing. But, if you don’t have the rule of law to underpin it, nothing happens.
[00:27:28] Greg Lambert: Ian, let me, and I’m going to try not to go dark here. Oh, uh-oh. So, a couple of questions. When we talk about the rule of law, is that based on the local norms of the society, or are we trying to put a westernized ideal on countries that may not have westernized culture?
[00:27:59] Ian McDougall: Sure. So, the point that I think has to be made here is that there is a difference between laws and the rule of law. So, what we don’t want to do, certainly at Lexis anyway, is to make a judgment about any particular law.
[00:28:18] Greg Lambert: What we’re talking about here is a framework under which or over which, whichever way around you want to think about it, those kinds of debates can happen.
[00:28:28] Ian McDougall: Because those kinds of debates are perfectly legitimate ones to have. Does this law work better than that law, et cetera?
[00:28:34] Greg Lambert: But, what we’re talking about is a framework within which those kinds of discussions can happen. happen.
[00:28:40] Ian McDougall: Gotcha. Gotcha.
[00:28:42] Greg Lambert: And that kind of tied in, I think you answered my next one, which is, I’ve heard Bryan Stevenson say, and I think this fits with the difference between laws and the rule of law, is that the marchers on the bridge at Selma and the police department on the other side of the bridge, one was trying to enforce what they figured was the rule of law, and one side was looking for justice. But I think the justice and the rule of law, in your definition, kind of intertwine. I don’t think they’re exactly the same thing, but it’s very similar.
[00:29:19] Ian McDougall: No, that’s right. Exactly. They’re not exactly the same thing. And the way I would describe it is that the rule of law is the foundation that can deliver justice. justice. Yeah. You can’t have it the other way around.
[00:29:30] Greg Lambert: Gotcha. Gotcha. That’s a pretty good way of putting it.
[00:29:35] Ian McDougall: Yeah, that’s the way to look at it. The other way as well is that there is a difference between the rule of law and rule with laws or rule by law. because it is perfectly possible for a country to have lots and lots of laws and not to have the rule of law. And one need only think of Nazi Germany, for example, to imagine a scenario where they were not short of laws. But at least one of the four principles that I’ve outlined weren’t present in there. So you have a difference between a society that operates under the rule of law and a society that simply operates under a collection of laws.
[00:30:17] Greg Lambert: Gotcha.
[00:30:18] Marlene Gebauer: It’s kind of like the basis necessary for you to actually apply laws. The way they’re supposed to be.
[00:30:28] Greg Lambert: One more dark question and then I’m done. I saw a, I think it was on Twitter, you had posted the results of a survey, and that was, let’s say you have a charitable organization that’s doing good things, and the question was close to, well, I’ll let you state the question.
[00:30:54] Ian McDougall: I thought of an interesting kind of moral dilemma type question, which is that we have a charity which is established and wants to and is doing good things, but what happens when someone, and I don’t have anyone in mind here, I really don’t, but someone who has a dubious reputation or even, I don’t know, you could make up any kind of scenario, but someone where the money is, say, not clean, and let’s put it that way, or not without, what’s the word, controversy.
[00:31:26] Greg Lambert: Right. Well, and I think there’s a real world example going on right now, and that is the, the name of the family is escaping me, but the opioid crisis in the US, there’s a family that has donated millions of dollars to institutions like art museums, things like that, and now they’re having to decide, do we keep this money, or do we give it back, so.
[00:31:51] Ian McDougall: Well, yeah, I thought it would be interesting just to kind of do a survey and see what people thought about the idea of converting bad money into good causes, shall we say, and overwhelmingly, I personally was quite surprised, I thought it would be closer, but 87% said that the charity should not accept the money from the dubious source. I didn’t think it would be that overwhelming, but, but it is, people have very strong views. out there that a charity should actually be prepared to say, no, I’m not, no matter, no matter the good that I can do with this money, I’m not going to accept it from this dubious source.
[00:32:29] Greg Lambert: Well, I’ll put you on the spot, which side did you vote on?
[00:32:33] Ian McDougall: Oh, no, I didn’t vote in it, no.
[00:32:36] Greg Lambert: Smart man, smart man.
[00:32:38] Ian McDougall: Well, you know, I mean, one of the things that interests me is that, you know, since we established the foundation, and part of, you know, the remit of the foundation is to try to raise money for, for doing good works, it kind of occurred to me, well, you know, I think I’ll ask the question, well, how would people feel if, if the, if the Lexis Rule of Law Foundation took money from a, from a, you know, somewhere with a terrible reputation or whatever it may be? And I thought it would be interesting to ask the question, but I certainly didn’t expect the answer to be that overwhelming.
[00:33:14] Greg Lambert: So how, how do you think that law firms or attorneys can get involved in your type of project here, and what information can you point them to, to, to get started? So here’s the thing that I would say.
[00:33:30] Ian McDougall: People can misunderstand the principle I started with, which is, which is deploying core skills, and very often they mistake that for just being narrow- minded about what their organization does. So of course, the legal profession has a long history of pro bono work, and that is the most obvious example of deploying core skills. But I would like the legal profession to think more broadly than that. There are a range of skills that come with being a lawyer or a law firm that don’t just simply involve purely doing your day job for free. Yeah. So for example, we, as I said, ran some courses, judge training courses. Now there’s a great example where some lawyers can be teachers for the day to kind of, you know, talk about the experiences of the legal system that they experience and that they’re talking about with other judges. They can be teachers doing the constitutional awareness course. We have done projects where we’re consolidating the laws of a country, and sometimes that involves having to actually understand what the, how the law actually is. And that’s not always the easiest thing to do, depending upon where in the world this is. So there’s editorial work that could be done, there’s literally writing suggestions, gaps. in the law, for example. Another example that I gave is, it’s actually on the UN’s website as well, which is like take a motorbike company. And people would say to me, well, how on earth can a motorbike company help advance the rule of law? Well, what this particular motorbike company did was to donate some motorbikes to enable lawyers to get to remote villages in difficult to reach places in order to deliver pro bono advice. And so, you know, if you kind of have a bit of lateral thinking, if you kind of, you know, have a bit of imagination, there’s a whole range of activities that you can actually take part in that still involve you taking what you’re already good at and deploying them in some project in some way or another.
[00:35:38] Marlene Gebauer: Have you have examples of maybe where firms and company partners or client partners have worked together on projects like this?
[00:35:45] Ian McDougall: Yeah. As I say, there’s about a list of a hundred of them on the UN website. So I’d encourage anyone to go to the UN rule of law website and have a look at that. But as I say, in the projects that we have done, in the ones that I’ve already listed to you, there’s a huge range of skills that are required there. So if you take, for example, the eyewitness app, that didn’t just involve, you know, some clever computer programmers sitting down and tapping on a keyboard. It involved talking to the ICC, understanding what the legal process was, what the rules are regarding the admission of evidence, what was required there, having a legal understanding of that so that you could work with the app developers in order to develop a useful system. So, you know, there are all kinds of different ways that you can imagine with a little bit of, as I say, imagination, that you can deploy a skill, perhaps not in the conventional way, but working on a project in this kind of a way.
[00:36:51] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah. I mean, I think people would be very interested to do that, you know, stretch their muscles in a slightly different way.
[00:36:58] Ian McDougall: That’s right. Well, you know, the fascinating thing is that when we set up the foundation, we’ve been absolutely inundated with people offering their support and offering their help. To the extent that I haven’t been able to cope with it.
[00:37:13] Marlene Gebauer: That’s a good problem to have, right?
[00:37:17] Ian McDougall: Well, yeah, but, you know, it’s frustrating in a way because we created this wonderful buzz and now we’re in a position of having to try and say to people, look, yes, we will get to you, honestly, but, you know, there’s only a few of us working on this, the foundation. set up at the moment. And as we develop and as we kind of develop more projects and as we move forward, obviously the begging bowl will go out for those kind of offers of help. But it surprised me. It surprised me how overwhelming it was. And the good thing about that is I think that there is a tremendous pent-up demand, both amongst the legal profession and amongst the business community generally, a real understanding and wanting to support the idea of the rule of law. Way back when we first started the Business for the Rule of Law program, I thought that I would have to spend most of my time talking about why this is important, why people should actually get this idea. Actually, people get it pretty quickly and we move very, very quickly onto the question you’ve just asked. Okay, so what can we do about it? And that surprised me. It pleasantly surprised me that people got what we were saying very, very quickly. And that’s good. And I think around the world, in all kinds of different regions, there’s really been a realization of its importance because of the pressure that the rule of law is currently under in different parts of the world and for all number of different reasons. under in different parts of the world for a number of different reasons.
[00:38:50] Greg Lambert: All right, I have a bonus question. So depending on the answer, this may or may not make it into the show. When we think of issues surrounding the rule of law, places where one or more of the four pieces of the rule of law are not in effect, we tend to think of countries in Africa, in Asia, in South America. Are there issues within the more Western or so, is there anything you can give us an example of that you might be working on that is in these countries rather than in these smaller countries?
[00:39:32] Ian McDougall: Well, the general starting point that we have is that there is almost no country in the world that has mastered the rule of law. And what we’re talking about here is trying to make progress everywhere rather than kind of say, right, well, that’s done. Let’s move on to the next subject. I’m not entirely sure we’re ever going to get to that position. Sometimes it is a kind of, you know, two steps forward and one step back kind of thing. But there are different pressures all around the world and here’s the interesting thing, I think, and this is very difficult sometimes for a U.S. audience to hear, which is the pressure on the rule of law that democracy can sometimes place. And, you know, in very many Western kind of debates, eventually there was a position where kind of democracy and the rule of law became interchangeable expressions. And they’re not and they’re very different. And the reason why democracy doesn’t show up in our definition of the rule of law is for a logical reason. You can’t have something in the definition that is actually harmful to the thing that you are defining. And there are some situations around the world where democracy has been positively or the outcomes of democratic decisions, shall we say, have been positively harmful. I would rather not pick on a particular country, but I think everyone is aware in the newspapers of how what has recently been referred to as populism can be something that doesn’t aid the rule of law. And the reason why I say some people call it that is because I thought all politicians wanted to be popular.
[00:41:14] Greg Lambert: All right. Well, Ian, thank you very much for joining us and talking about the Rule of Law Foundation from LexisNexis. And I will make sure that we put a link out to the Rule of Law Foundation as well as the U.N. Rule of Law on the show notes. Thank you very much.
[00:41:33] Marlene Gebauer: Thank you, Ian. This has been really fascinating. I’m glad you’re getting to share this, hopefully more broadly.
[00:41:41] Ian McDougall: Indeed. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time.
[00:41:49] Greg Lambert: I wanted to list the four parts of the definition used for the rule of law once more. So you had equality under the law, transparency of law, an independent judiciary and accessible legal remedy. I like this as a starting point for the discussion because it does help to realize that you cannot have the rule of law if any one of these four pieces are not present in your governmental system. I also appreciate that Ian made it clear that the rule of law is not the same as rule by laws and that you cannot truly seek justice if the rule of law is not present. So there’s a lot to unpack there.
[00:42:31] Marlene Gebauer: I agree. It is an important and perhaps not obvious distinction. I also very much enjoyed some of the creative ways the foundation found to help promote the rule of law from legal and technical experts working together on an app to motor biking attorneys. So there’s plenty of ways lawyers can help other than the traditional route.
[00:42:52] Greg Lambert: So one of the things that Ian mentioned, which I think a lot of people may shy away from, is the fact that sometimes you have to bring in some things like commerce and its effect in order to draw in some of the players that need to be involved in rule of law issues. So although we might normally think of commerce as separate from these types of good works. From good works, yeah. I think you’re spot on there.
[00:43:27] Marlene Gebauer: I know what you’re saying.
[00:43:28] Greg Lambert: But sometimes you have to dangle a carrot out there in order to get some of the people that really need to be involved in these types of activities to get them involved.
[00:43:39] Marlene Gebauer: It’s a very practical approach, and we talk about in other situations how we have to incentivize people, and this is a way to incentivize people. And if the help is coming, then it’s working.
[00:43:57] Greg Lambert: Amen. And I wish them the best of luck. I hope that they and the UN and other organizations who are working on the rule of law across the world do good works.
[00:44:08] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:44:10] Greg Lambert: All right, Marlene, that brings us to the end of this episode. So thanks again to Ian McDougall for joining us.
[00:44:16] Marlene Gebauer: Yes, thank you, Ian. If you like what you hear on The Geek & Review, do us a favor and subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Rate and review us as well. If you have comments or suggestions, you can reach us on Twitter at at GayBauerM or at Glambert, or you can call the Geek & Review hotline at 713-487-7270. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeSica. Thank you, Jerry.
[00:44:48] Greg Lambert: All right. Thanks, Marlene. I’ll talk to you later.
[00:44:51] Marlene Gebauer: Bye-bye.
[00:45:12] Ian McDougall: The devil’s back, homeboy. The devil’s back, homeboy. And the devil’s back, homeboy.