Barclays Brings in Law Dept Costcutter

British banking behemoth Barclays (I’m feeling positively alliterative today) has appointed Sue Brooks to the new position of chief of staff to GC Mark Harding.  Brooks was most recently Chief Operating Officer of the Barclaycard division.  Her mandate is to cut costs

“There’s an ongoing ­activity around our cost base and we’re expected to ­manage our cost. When we look at the cost base we do look at external suppliers – it’s a natural part of what we do,” said Brooks. “This year we have a panel review and part of the discussion will be around the price point.”

According to LegalWeek,

Barclays traditionally operates a number of panels around its core areas of legal work including structured capital markets, lending and finance and wealth advisory. In addition, the bank operates a general advisory roster which includes Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance and DLA Piper.

Prior to the COO role at Barclaycard, she was “Head of IT” for Barclaycard Barclay Business.  In our experience, most chiefs of staff in law departments are lawyers, even if they aren’t practicing.  No word on Brooks’s qualification in that regard.

Interestingly, her boss Harding (Jesus College, Cambridge AB, has also taken on more of an operations role recently with the departure of Barclays’ COO.  Harding joined Barclays in 2003 from Clifford Chance and has also previously worked at UBS.

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