Panel discussion

Along with computer-based training and continuing professional development, the panel discussion — jammed between workshops at an all-day conference as cheap filler, like one of those dreary Inside Africa fillers that run on a loop on CNN international and is watched only by business travelers captive of the Airport Hilton in Bucharest — is one of the great blights of a modern corporate life quite overwhelmed with them. This is not to say the keynote sessions running either side are a whole lot better, but the idea of hearing an assemblage of aspiring junior partners, industry association inhouse counsel and random change management consultants mumble disinterestedly about the impact on market stability of transa —

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In any case case in as we move into this glorious millennium's second decade a whole new genre of career has hoved into view through the oily midwifery of LinkedIn: the panel discusser. There are people who who, by all appearances, spend the majority of their working lives attending, or speaking on, panel discussions. No topic is too arcane, no facet of the regulatory landscape too dreary, no selfie with fellow-panel members too prostrating of one’s self-esteem, to be beyond the siren call of temptation to these men and women.

Now, if you're a junior partner in an offshore law firm you might rationalise this as a quick way of burnishing credentials and building a profile amongst that electric community of corporate agency and trust services professionals.

But for the middling executive director in an in-house legal function — let alone part of the Legal COO team — it's harder to understand who let them out and why.

The panel selfie

Just what possesses people to post images to LinkedIn of themselves sitting awkwardly on a low stage in front of thirty bored associate directors, with “great panel discussion today about the EMIR refit!”

What do they have in mind? Do they imagine their network to be flooded with envy, or jealousy, or remorse at the sparkling debate it now discovers it has missed?

Panel discussion

The panel selfie

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