Atlanta-based PulteGroup Inc. has seen a lot of leadership changes lately. Last September, the homebuilding company named a new CEO, and a new general counsel joined the team in March. One constant in the legal department over the past 13 years, however, is vice president and deputy GC Ellen Padesky Maturen. In a wide-ranging interview with Corporate Counsel, the Michigan native and self-described enthusiast about in-house/outside counsel relations discusses everything from her path to the No. 2 legal role at one of the nation's largest homebuilders to her participation in the GC Thought Leaders Experiment.

The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Corporate Counsel: How did you end up in your current position?

Ellen Maturen: I graduated from Michigan State University College of Law in 1994 and started as a products liability and antitrust defense attorney at a big firm in Detroit until I made the move in-house to practice for an RV company in Indiana. A few years later, I was recruited to Pulte, and I've been working in the new-home building business since 2004. [Maturen joined the company as associate GC, became VP and associate GC in 2009 and promoted to her current position in January 2016. The company relocated its corporate offices from Michigan to Atlanta in 2014.] When people are spending their lives' savings to buy your product, it's an important responsibility. And the legal issues that accompany the homebuilding business are endless, which makes the job exciting and challenging.

CC: Can you talk a little bit about those issues?

EM: We build new homes in 50 markets located throughout 26 states and also have mortgage banking operations. We have close to 5,000 employees, and over our history, we've delivered close to 680,000 homes. So for our in-house team, it's everything that goes along with the purchase of a piece of property. Each hour could be different. We could have a sales and marketing and advertising issue, an IP issue or employment, compliance, job-site safety, regulatory or environmental matters.

CC: What is your role in all of that?

EM: My responsibilities include employment matters, as well as ethics and compliance and our enterprise risk management program. Employee benefits also fall under my umbrella.

The way our team is structured we have five lawyers in Atlanta and eight other attorneys spread out across the country.

CC: What do you keep in-house and how much do you send out?

EM: A significant amount of our work is kept in-house. A lot of our attorneys spread out over the country handle everything that goes along with the locating and purchase of land, as well as the building process. They also sit with the business and are there to handle matters internally. We do outsource some of our corporate work to Sidley Austin. We also outsource our litigation to various firms across the country because there are a lot of local issues that go along with home building such as zoning and licensing.

CC: What are some of the in-house legal department's challenges?

EM: I would say speed. The business is always moving so quickly, and the law department needs to stay at or ahead of the speed of our business. My colleagues and I are trying to see around the corner to keep our business partners compliant while at the same time providing legal advice that is practical and cost-effective. Ultimately we're trying to find the right balance to make sure that the law department is not a speed barrier to the business.

CC: How have you cut costs, particularly in terms of outside counsel management?

EM: We figured out a long time ago that if you can be your outside law firm's favorite client, you get the best results, so we spend a lot of time educating our outside lawyers on our business, the hot issues and what issues keep us up at night. Something I brought from my last company is our Outside Counsel Summit, where we get our lawyers all across the country together with all of our business leaders. This gives our outside law firms a chance to learn more about us, and they can do information-sharing, too. For example, what may have been a win or success in one part of the country may work somewhere else. It's an opportunity for constant information-sharing. We've done 10 of those, and we try to do them every year.

CC: How did you get involved in the GC Thought Leaders Experiment?

EM: Some people are passionate about travel or sports, and this sounds a little crazy, but I am passionate about the way firms and in-house teams work together. I've been an in-house lawyer for 17 years now and have learned a lot about outside counsel relationships. Things do change in our industry, but one thing that has been constant is how in-house attorneys want efficiency and predictability from outside firms. I started testing different ways of working with law firms, and what I found was that in-house lawyers have a different definition of value and success than their outside law firms.

So I jumped at this chance. Our firms understand that we're not trying to get free legal work, but we do know there's a better way to do business together, but first we need the data. So for close to six months now, we've been providing data on our different matters. And we combining forces with other great companies will really drive discussion in our industry. At the end of the project, are we going to have all of the answers? Probably not, but at least we'll have better questions.