Critics can assail the morality of in-house lawyers on several grounds. Here are some that occur to me but are not at all necessarily agreed to by me. Capitalism has taken its share of blows for being inherently immoral. Corporate counsel help their companies make profits and handsomely reward the…
Many posts on this blog have mentioned actions by a law department’s lawyers that risk loss of the attorney-client privilege (See my posts of April 15, 2007: lawyers who are officers and sign contracts; Jan. 21, 2008: use of IT support; Dec. 2, 2007 and Oct. 21, 2005: compliance activities…
The fact that groups consistently outperform individuals is well documented. This outcome rests on the statistical principle of the Law of Large Numbers. According to an enlightening article in Cal. Mgt. Rev., Vol. 50, Fall 2007 at 153, “This principle further states that a large group of laymen can even…
At rare intervals, hopefully, an in-house lawyer must be professionally courageous. Courage is necessary when a lawyer takes a position that is unpopular to a powerful client: “Your deal violates the antitrust laws.” Courage is important when a lawyer speaks up with a message that others do not want to…
On Dec. 20, 2007, Hercules Offshore, a marine drilling company, issued a press release which let the delighted and fascinated world of business know that it had “adopted BoardVantage to manage its board communications.” According to James Noe, Hercules Offshore’s General Counsel, “With BoardVantage, we are able to produce highly…
At The Lawyer’s Seventh Annual Summit For In-House Lawyers a month ago, the European general counsel of Tyco International made a provocative remark. As reported, he “urged in-house legal teams to hold the hands of management on critical legal issues and not bother with mundane day-to-day legal work, which can…
An ad by the law firm Dickstein Shapiro states that its client, DuPont, “created a system to review every class action settlement notice it receives to identify opportunities that could generate genuine business value.” I believe this means that the law department decides whether to seek payment of DuPont’s share…
From information compiled by the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe and shown in a map in InsideCounsel, Nov. 2007 at 38, eight EU countries grant the privilege (Ireland, UK, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Romania). The other 16 member states do not privilege in-house counsel communications.…
Ron Friedman, host of Prism Legal, minces no words in his November 5 post. He considers whether law firms should operate in-house significant e-discovery capabilities and concludes that they should not. “Personally, I would avoid the risk of mistakes and challenge of keeping up with ever-changing technology.” That reasoning applies…
The movie, “Michael Clayton,” intertwines a morality story around the absolute immorality of a general counsel. Far beyond merely defending a multi-year “$3 billion class action,” the general counsel (played tensely, minutely and wonderfully by Tilda Swinton), takes the law into her own hands, horrifically. No movies portray far-sighted, benevolent…