A Day in the Life of a Chief Legal Officer at BioMarin Pharmaceutical
A Chief Legal Officer's workday is "incredibly varied," both in terms of tasks and location, requiring extensive travel and intellectual agility to navigate diverse legal landscapes. Eric's approach relies on collaboration with experts, focusing on asking "the right questions" to leverage their specialized knowledge rather than possessing encyclopedic legal expertise across all jurisdictions.
Executive/Leadership, Travel, Intellectual Diversity, Problem-Solving, Teamwork
Advizer Information
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Eric Davis
Chief Legal Officer
BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc.
U.C. Berkeley
University of San Francisco, Juris Doctorate
Political Science, American Studies
Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical
Legal
Took Out Loans, Worked 20+ Hours in School, Greek Life Member, Student Athlete
Video Highlights
1. The day-to-day activities of a Chief Legal Officer are incredibly varied, encompassing diverse topics, hours, and locations.
2. The role requires extensive travel, both domestically and internationally, often to various locations for short durations.
3. A significant aspect of the job involves collaboration with experts and posing the right questions to leverage their knowledge, rather than possessing expertise in every legal jurisdiction.
Transcript
What does a day in the life of a chief legal officer look like?
The most fun thing about it is that I can't tell you. The days are incredibly varied. They're varied both in topics, hours, and where I am and what I'm doing.
The days can start at any hour, depending on the time zone I need to be working with. It also means I get to travel a lot, close to a hundred days a year. I get to go to some very cool places, some that take a really long time to get to and I don't get to stay very long.
But the best part about it is that it's intellectually diverse. You really are thinking about new things every day. People ask how I can be knowledgeable about the laws in all the jurisdictions I work in.
There's absolutely no way I can be. So what I'm doing is using the knowledge I have to work with really smart people, work with great experts, and try to know the right questions to ask so I can get the right answers from those experts.