“At Hilton, I or another member of law department executive management team personally visited our locations with lawyers at least once every three months (or have the lawyers visit headquarters).” Tim Glassett, the former general counsel of Hilton Hotels, explains that in E. Leigh Dance, Bright Ideas: Insights from Legal…
Three functional dimensions of a multi-national law department: “general business lawyers with global responsibility, legal specialists in the core legal fields for the company’s operations, and in-house lawyers on the ground in the main jurisdictions where the company conducts its business.” This is the three-way division of in-house counsel envisioned…
In Inside Counsel, June 2009 at 54, Peter Wexler explains why he changed the decentralized structure at Schneider Electric to one where its practicing lawyers all report to him. The department has 90 lawyers, in 31 locations in 23 countries (See my post of April 25, 2009: more about Wexler.).…
Previously I collected my posts on direct reports, decentralized reporting, and reporting lines other than decentralized (See my post of May 29, 2009: direct reports to the general counsel with 12 references; Aug. 5, 2008: decentralized reporting with 7 references; and Jan. 12, 2009: reporting other than decentralized by lawyers,…
The larger the legal department, the more likely it has its own employees support at least some of its software and hardware. No data exists that I know of that tells us the tipping point, where departments typically hire their own technology talent. Most legal departments, and all smaller departments,…
Dealings between lawyers and the finance function within a company cover many topics (See my post of Dec. 7, 2005: interactions of Legal and Finance; Nov. 23, 2008: RACI roles for Finance; Sept. 14, 2005: lawyer-client privilege and information sent to accounting; March 12, 2005: law department paid for some…
Some 240 general counsel responded to a survey conducted by FTI Consulting, the results of which are in Corp. Bd. Mbr., Vol. 12, 2nd Quarter 2009 at 51. One question on the poll was “Should the general counsel be considered the chief ethics officer?’” Three-quarters of the respondents agreed; no…
Bill Casazza, the general counsel of Aetna, “oversees the work of about 300 people. Seventy are lawyers,” according to Corp. Bd. Mbr., Vol. 12, 2nd Quarter 2009 at 47. Since the ratio of lawyers to non-lawyers in most US law departments stands typically around one to one, Aetna’s legal team…
Like other corporate staff groups, IT supports the legal group and is supported by them, such as with contracts issues (See my post of Nov. 23, 2008: IT licensing contracts; and May 22, 2009: adherence by legal to corporate IT standards.). They team on some responsibilities, such as e-discovery (See…
Jeff Kaplan: In many companies, the answer is either the general counsel or chief compliance officer. But a better answer – because it is more consistent with governmental expectations and best practices – is all of a company’s senior managers. The key legal standards – meaning the Corporate Sentencing Guidelines,…