Firm Friends 2020 20 Feb 2020 Meet Sophie Malloch

Sophie, please tell us about your role as Associate General Counsel at Facebook.

I joined Facebook as General Counsel for Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) in 2017 – I was the first in-country lawyer supporting ANZ and one of a handful of Asia Pacific (APAC) lawyers outside the regional hub of Singapore. When I started, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) digital platforms inquiry had just been announced and working on that quickly became a fixture for my days moving forward. Facebook has a global legal team and I work with lawyers in APAC and the US on all kinds of matters impacting Australia and New Zealand – from content escalations to privacy and commercial matters, new product review and regulatory engagement. I work closely with our policy and business teams to help navigate the legal issues that impact us. It's incredibly diverse and really very different from most legal roles I've had previously. It may sound trite to some, but Facebook really is a mission-driven company. Connecting people and building community underpins everything we do. This makes the role so unique as legal advice needs to take in the traditional risk and commercial objectives, but also our mission and community objectives.

Many of the legal issues we look at are new and evolving with Governments and law makers considering how the internet, more broadly, should be regulated. This means a lot of the legal work is about not only advising on the law but helping to navigate the shifting sands of the digital economy and taking into account global approaches to similar issues. I work closely with policy teams to develop our advocacy and thinking on these issues. No one day is ever the same!

Tell us about your journey from Blake Dawson to Facebook.

I started at Blake Dawson as a summer clerk and settled in the IPT team. I loved the dynamic nature of tech and was eager to learn more by working within a tech business. I moved to IBM in 2006 and worked there for around six years, doing mostly transactional services work, dispute resolution and product advisory. After having kids I moved into a part-time role at ASIC within the Commission Counsel team, working on IT procurement and privacy matters. I was at ASIC for three years and worked on some great matters – including advising on the procurement of an insider trading detection platform. It was such a satisfying role and I learned a lot in a short time working within the regulatory space. After ASIC, I moved back into the private sector, taking on a GC role at Philips where I mostly worked on health tech matters, hardware and software supply, and on the emerging "hospital-to-home" service offering. Now I'm at Facebook using a lot of the skills I've learned along the way and still garnering new ones. I’m probably a walking example that careers don't march in a straight line.

What do you enjoy about your work and what has been your most rewarding achievement? 

Working in tech is exciting and the issues are constantly changing. I think the dynamic nature of the industry plus tackling important and developing issues like privacy, cyber security and competition makes it so interesting and keeps me coming back (even on really tough days!). It's difficult to pinpoint one particular moment or matter that's been the most rewarding or a particular achievement. Instead, the most fulfilling parts of my job have come from the people I work with every day and the fact that I have been lucky enough to have had a range of really interesting and challenging roles.

What's the best career advice that you've been given?

There's a few pieces of advice that really resonate with me: first, that it’s better to think of career progression as more like a jungle gym and less like a ladder. I like this analogy because it gives greater importance to all career moves, even the ones that don’t feel like upwards progression and emphasises learning and developing new skills as key. The other piece of advice that I like, and something that appears on Facebook posters around the office, is to ask: what would you do if you weren’t afraid? I’ve had to ask myself that a number of times and it’s helped me make important and bold decisions, even those decisions that felt decidedly uncomfortable at the time.

Do you keep in touch with Blake Dawson/Ashurst colleagues?

I had an amazing and close clerkship group and I still reach out to colleagues and friends from Ashurst from time to time. The legal community is pretty small, so I often find myself bumping into colleagues from my clerkship group at events or seminars.

Work-life balance is increasingly important – what does it mean to you?

Finding the time to fit in things that make life worthwhile is incredibly important, and balancing work with all the other things in life is clearly part of that. For me, that means constantly prioritising and over-communicating – with my colleagues and with my family and trying to focus on the big picture. I’ve come to the view that it’s better to be upfront when you’re prioritising other things like family or exercise, and accepting that may mean some compromises elsewhere, like picking up work in the evenings. The acceptance of flexible working certainly helps. I also try and give my family a heads-up when I have a big work trip coming up and try and prioritise my time with them in the time leading up to travel or afterwards. Also, taking the time to switch off completely is critical. I get better at recognising when I’m at saturation point and need to recharge, so I’m certainly not the person accruing annual leave! Part of the balance is realising that “to do” list is never complete and some days are just more productive than others.

What's your favourite thing to do on the weekend?

I have two kids in primary school so weekends usually involve watching kids play sport (currently baseball) and following up with breakfast or lunch afterwards (yes, some games are painfully early!). I also love bushwalking, catching up with friends, finding the latest Netflix series to watch and planning for the next holiday.