Business Thinking in Practice for In-house Counsel: Taking Your Seat at the Table takes a practical look at key concepts from influential business theory and illustrates how these are applicable to managing or working in an in-house legal department. Topics covered include purpose, culture, talent and innovation, all of which intersect to provide the structure and framework for legal teams to create a competitive edge. Each chapter features an interview and case study with a general counsel and/or legal team to demonstrate how business concepts can be used in-house most effectively.
"[The author] shares his insights, anecdotes, strategies, and practical tips learned from his 20+ years of experience as in-house counsel, general counsel, corporate secretary, and chief compliance officer. As author of the popular blog, 'Ten things you need to know as in-house counsel, ' Miller provides quick points that you can use in your everyday practice ... Whether you are new to an in-house department or a long-term veteran, the general counsel or just a basic contract lawyer, Ten Things You Need to Know as In-House Counsel provides you with guidance on: how to be a successful in-house counsel; being more productive every day; drafting documents and emails; how to negotiate; effectively managing outside counsel fees; trade secrets and protecting your company; dealing with the Board of Directors; preparing for when bad things happen; analyzing risk; and much more."--
A concise overview of the legal needs of nonprofit organizations Good Counsel is a compact and personable overview of the legal needs of nonprofits, crafted by one of America's most astute nonprofit general counsels. The book distills the legal needs of the 1.8 million tax-exempt organizations in the United States.Written in a clear and accessible style, with plenty of humor and storytelling as well as illustrative case studies, Good Counsel explains the basics of nonprofit corporate law, governance, and the tax exemption. It then takes a department-by-department look at legal topics relevant to program, fundraising, finance, communications, human resources, operations, contracts, government relations, and more. Good Counsel is designed help organizations fulfill their missions to do the public good. Designed to impart confidence and demystify the issues, Good Counsel is a must-read for nonprofit professionals and board members as well as lawyers and law students. Using Good Counsel as their playbook, lawyers, executives, and trustees can get an overview of the most common legal, governance, and compliance issues facing their organization and together ramp up a top-notch legal function. Contains practice pointers, checklists, and assessment tools Features sample contracts, licenses, and other form documents Filled with case studies and end-of-chapter focus questions, as well as available lesson plans for easy classroom use by educators in business, management, public policy, and law schools Good Counsel is the first-of-its-kind guidebook written by the sitting General Counsel of a major nonprofit. Written by influential author, speaker, and Bar leader Lesley Rosenthal, the General Counsel of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Good Counsel shares the insights of a Harvard Law School graduate with years of in-house and business law experience as well as board service.
This innovative book proposes new theories on how the legal system can be made more comprehensible, usable and empowering for people through the use of design principles. Utilising key case studies and providing real-world examples of legal innovation, the book moves beyond discussion to action. It offers a rich set of examples, demonstrating how various design methods, including information, service, product and policy design, can be leveraged within research and practice.
In this practical "how to" guide, Bjarne P Tellmann, General Counsel draws upon more than 20 years of leading top legal organisations to provide a structured plan for upgrading your legal team in an age of disruption.The challenge: In an era of exponential change, the role of the general counsel (GC) has become one of the most complex, intense and challenging in the corporate world. GCs, must lead, unify and inspire diverse groups of people across the globe with subtlety and diplomacy. The stakes have never been higher and the consequences of getting it wrong can be existential. GCs must react to these challenges with ever-fewer resources and at a time when the legal profession itself is undergoing disruption.The response: To succeed in this "new normal", GCs must become their own chief executives. They must lead, communicate, inspire, build cultures, manage talent, formulate and execute strategies, ensure efficacy, anticipate and manage risk and manage quality control - all in addition to being top-notch lawyers. This book gives GCs the battle plan they need to get there in three parts.
As the legal landscape becomes increasingly competitive, it is clear that law firms do not always do enough to remain at the top of their game. Firms that have embraced the challenges presented by increased competition are undeniably in a better position than those that have not.This title aims to help partners understand what they can - and what they should not - do to chart the course of their firm most effectively, and covers current topics such as digitalisation and the emergence of new competitors from outside the market. Keeping abreast of market developments is an essential part of law firm management and this edition focuses on helping partners, and their teams, to develop the right strategy.The second edition of this practical title in Globe Law and Business's series on the business of law offers up new ways to think about strategy and how to explore it in the context of a partnership. It includes contributions from leading academics, consultants and law firm partners who share their insights and experience in strategy development and management.Whether you are a managing partner of a small, medium or large law firm, this book offers a variety of viewpoints in a comprehensive single volume. As well as partners and their teams, it will also prove useful for consultants and academics in developing research in this important area.
In the past two decades, the General Counsel in many companies has risen in importance, and the GC is now often involved in business strategy from the inception. Consequently, the position has become more desirable, lucrative, and competitive. Those who achieve it are required to be better versed in the same fundamental principles of business practice and leadership as other senior executives. In The Generalist Counsel: How Leading General Counsel are Shaping Tomorrow's Companies, Prashant Dubey and Eva Kripalani offer guidance for lawyers making the transition to company leadership. They describe the steps a lawyer should take to blend legal training with other business disciplines to perform a much broader and more strategic role for the organization. Further, the authors provide a view into the GC role that will enable non-lawyers to better understand how their in-house legal departments execute their role. Through research and in-depth interviews with sitting and former General Counsel and executives in the sphere of influence, the authors identify a deliberate evolution in the fabric and tenor of the role of the GC. The personal stories are not only thought-provoking, but also entertaining. The authors also discuss how this shift is leading to other innovations within the legal profession, such as the evolving relationship with outside counsel, General Counsel demands for new products and services, and models for service delivery that are similar to Information Technology and Business Process Outsourcing delivery models.
The global pandemic and simultaneous economic disruption is accelerating many challenging trends for law firms across the globe with unprecedented velocity. Law firm leaders, individual practitioners, C-level law firm executives, bankers and clients are all faced with growing uncertainty about the future and are looking for resources to help navigate rapid change. This book, edited by Peter Zeughauser of Zeughauser Group, will provide valuable insights and guidance on these trends and how best to embrace and harness them for continued success. It brings together world-renowned, skilled experts with different perspectives on the key challenges and opportunities that have arisen in the last few years, and continue to increase in importance. Key issues covered include: -Why and how to revisit your strategy plan; -Effective client relationship management during a crisis; -Wellbeing of partners and the workforce; -How to leverage social responsibility and pro bono programmes; and -Diversity and inclusion. This title will also consider the impact of remote working on the profession, including how to build a stronger culture with a remote workforce, how to reduce your real estate costs and how remote working has impacted innovation and decision making.
This book provides an empirically grounded, in-depth investigation of the ethical dimensions to in-house practice and how legal risk is defined and managed by in-house lawyers and others. The growing significance and status of the role of General Counsel has been accompanied by growth in legal risk as a phenomenon of importance. In-house lawyers are regularly exhorted to be more commercial, proactive and strategic, to be business leaders and not (mere) lawyers, but they are increasingly exposed for their roles in organisational scandals. This book poses the question: how far does going beyond being a lawyer conflict with or entail being more ethical? It explores the role of in-housers by calling on three key pieces of empirical research: two tranches of interviews with senior in-house lawyers and senior compliance staff; and an unparalleled large survey of in-house lawyers. On the basis of this evidence, the authors explore how ideas about in-house roles shape professional logics; how far professional notions such as independence play a role in those logics; and the ways in which ethical infrastructure are managed or are absent from in-house practice. It concludes with a discussion of whether and how in-house lawyers and their regulators need to take professionalism and professional ethicality more seriously.
