Emma German always wanted to be a journalist. Instead, she ended up a lawyer — and has spent the past decade showing there’s no single blueprint for what an in-house career can look like.

After starting out at King & Wood Mallesons, Emma moved in-house earlier than most — first to Fuji Xerox, then to Stan and Paramount, immersing herself in the media industry she’d always been drawn to.

Today, she’s Executive General Manager of Corporate Affairs and People at the GWS Giants, where she was originally hired as the club’s first-ever lawyer and now also runs its people & culture and media teams.

We sat down with Emma to talk about her path from wanting to be a journalist to running legal, people and media for an AFL club — and why there’s no one blueprint for an in-house career.

It was completely serendipitous. As I was growing up, I always wanted to be a journalist — that was my passion. Studying law was an absolute last-minute decision, made on the spot at university enrolment day.

My first-ever legal job was as a paralegal at Nine MSN — Channel Nine’s online digital arm at the time, which doesn’t exist anymore in that form. That was a beautiful way to combine my passions: providing legal advice in the media space. I think that planted the seed early on that I was probably more suited to an in-house career.

I still went off and did some law firm time, which was absolutely essential. But it was that early in-house experience that set me on my long-term path — and it helped me build relationships in that industry which, years down the track, opened doors for me in media.

I followed what’s considered a typical pathway for many young lawyers. I did the clerkship, then the grad program, and rotated around a few areas. I settled in a hybrid M&A and banking and finance team, with a strong focus on project financing (such as wind farm development). 

I was there for a few years. You get trained so thoroughly, working with great lawyers at a really high-calibre law firm. It’s a huge privilege, and that base sets you up for success wherever your career goes.

Once you get into the rhythm of law firm life, you figure out pretty quickly whether you fall into one of two camps: either this is for me, I’m drawn to the long-term partnership trajectory, or this isn’t for me long-term, and you start looking at where else to go.

While I appreciated my time there, I had the yearning quite early on to return to a creative in-house environment. I also loathed filling timesheets out. I was terrible at it — I think I was always named and shamed on those lists.

But beyond that, there wasn’t anything specific I disliked about law firm life. I just didn’t get that same spark of excitement I’d experienced ever so briefly when I was younger at Nine. I wasn’t feeling the passion for the end result or the passion for the deal. That was what I was chasing — wanting to be personally invested in the outcomes and the product.

It was very much opportunistic — the role came up, and the quality of the team at Fuji Xerox is what made me feel confident taking that leap. I was still a young lawyer and cognisant that I had a lot to learn. But the Fuji Xerox team was a team of highly skilled lawyers, with a standout general counsel – I knew I’d still be surrounded by people who can teach me and who I can keep learning from.

For other lawyers considering a move to in-house early, the legal team around you will matter. At that stage of your career, you might want to be cautious of taking a sole legal counsel role or joining a small in-house team. Make sure you have really skilled lawyers around you so you keep growing. 

And I still think the transition is trickier than people might think. I certainly had an adjustment period when I started in-house.

The main adjustment is that you’re suddenly on the front line with your client. You’re seeing the beginning, the middle and the end of everything you do. You’re not just sending out advice in isolation and stepping back. You’re with your client the whole way through, which means you become more personally invested in the outcomes.

Speed and delivery as well. When you’re within a business, you’re delivering advice in real time. There’s a huge focus across the legal industry on plain English, real-world advice, but that becomes really apparent when you move in-house. You’re not spending your days talking to other lawyers; you’re talking to different pockets of the business.

Law firms are very responsive to clients’ needs. And external clients paying you want to see your consideration and see your workings. But it’s different when you’re providing advice on the go to someone who walks up to your desk and needs an answer right then. You might need to distil a really complex idea down into one sentence. You might be talking to someone who doesn’t care for, or need, your reasoning or the background. You just need to say, my advice is press ahead, or don’t, and here’s the key risk or what it means for the business.

I think it does change industry to industry.

Stan and Paramount were some of the best years of my career, and the work was very varied.

At Stan, we were in the startup phase when I joined — I was one of two lawyers. So I had to wear all the legal hats. It was exciting and incredibly rewarding, and I live and breathe media and content, so I was passionate about the product. There’s always a buzz going home at night and seeing something you’ve worked on come to life on screen.

At Paramount, I specialised to some degree — I went down the IP path and did a lot of content production, content acquisition and talent engagement. Although I had a strong area of specialisation, I was still exposed to many different areas of work.

Some industries lend themselves to a generalist type of role. Other industries — construction, finance, banking perhaps — are such that you might join large corporations with large in-house teams that almost mimic private practice. You can find yourself in a very specialised role within that team. So the differences are industry-specific in part, but also organisation-specific.

After spending almost a decade in media, it was a huge shift. I’d never had a sole counsel role, and up until that point, I didn’t feel ready to take that leap. But I felt ready when I started at the Giants. It was the first time I was operating entirely solo with no team of lawyers around me.

Building a legal function from the ground up starts with a real discovery process of what’s missing, what isn’t being done, what documents do we need, what systems do we need to create. That was really challenging, but equally motivating. I was essentially given a blank canvas to create a legal function.

I felt ready to take on a solo role because I had so many years of working with and for fantastic lawyers. I’d developed confidence in my decision-making and giving advice. And more importantly, I’m well attuned to know when I don’t know something, and when I need to seek input from subject matter experts.

I’m now on the executive team, still responsible for all of the club’s legal work, but I also manage our people and culture function, and our media, comms and content team.

On the legal side, a lot of my day-to-day revolves around sponsorship agreements, employment agreements and general commercial arrangements. We recently completed construction of a new aquatic facility, so there’s all the contracting and risk management that comes with projects like that. There are layers of integrity work, being a football club. On the odd occasion we find ourselves in the AFL tribunal. And then there’s general advising, disputes and complaints - the variability of things that come across my desk continues to surprise and engage me every day.

In the people and culture area, we’re a team of two. We look after the whole employee life cycle — recruitment, onboarding, professional development, welfare, remuneration and so on. I find work in this space incredibly interesting and rewarding, particularly because we have such a diverse workforce. Half our building is business administration — including a consumer team, a finance team, a media team, a commercial team. The other side is a high-performance environment — including elite athletes, medical specialists, physios, dietitians and coaches.

I get an enormous amount of joy and satisfaction out of the media side of my role. The AFL industry never sleeps and is constantly in the headlines. Giants are the league’s youngest club, headquartered in an emerging and culturally diverse market that has traditionally been dominated by NRL and soccer. We need to do things differently and push creative boundaries to ensure our voice is heard through this clutter. We run multiple social media accounts, manage key broadcast relationships, optimise PR opportunities and, more recently, worked with Endemol Shine to produce a long-form documentary.

I find the shift quite natural, and enjoy stretching both sides of my brain. 

If I have to go into lawyer mode to review a contract, I sit there and go, “Okay, Emma, you’re wearing your legal hat right now”. Whereas if I’m going into a creative session with the media team, I’m thinking, “which boundaries can we push, how big can we go?” In the people space, I’m often thinking through legal repercussions while also putting the person first – empathy has proven to be a valuable skill.  

That being said, once you’ve studied law, I think it’s forever a part of your DNA. You’re never going to stop thinking like a lawyer. But that’s a strength — it’s a lens you can bring to everything.

I’ve never mapped out or planned my career — it’s been built along the way through a mix of curiosity and hard work.

My focus has always been on being good at my job and good at my craft. That’s my advice: focus on what you’re doing, doing it well, and soaking up information. It’s the best way to position yourself for opportunities as they come up.

There’s a tendency, certainly when people are young, to want the next title, to always be climbing towards ”the next destination” on the organisation chart. Sometimes there’s benefit in taking a breath, being really good at what you do, and letting your reputation speak for itself.

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.