Sabine Chalmers, the chief legal officer of InBev, the world’s largest beer company by volume, has written a series of thoughtful columns for the ACC Docket. Her latest, Nov. 2007 at 10, treats the topic of law departments that have a corporate group as well as decentralized business groups of…
At a recent conference, Ben Heineman, the former general counsel of General Electric, gave his views on the optimal compliance function. At GE, the compliance staff were embedded in the functional unit that they worked for. For example, there were environmental compliance staff in the plastics division; there were environmental…
InsideCounsel, Aug. 2007, at 50, brings out a structural attribute in the law department of $4 billion SunGard. In the past few decades, the article states, the company has acquired more than 100 companies. That is legal work enough, but even so it is widely acknowledged that for every acquisition…
A quote by Norman Augustine, the retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, appears in an interview in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, July 2007 at 46. Augustine makes a good point about the scope of a general counsel’s responsibilities. “If the general counsel is to be looked upon as…
Tom Sabatino, Jr,, the general counsel of Schering-Plough, argues in Met. Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, July 2007 at 51, that lawyers “have to have accountability up to the general counsel. It reinforces the lawyers duty to the corporation.” In support of his view, he adduces three points. He links the…
Profiled in the N.L.J, Vol. 29, June 4, 2007 at 8, Mark Holden, the general counsel of Koch Industries, gives a glimpse of an important topic. Holden’s law department has 26 lawyers, and that legal team “provides litigation services for the stand-alone subsidiaries through separate service-level agreements with Koch companies,…
In 2004, NCR, a technology company with five business units and a presence in more than 100 countries, had a law department of about 112 people, including 42 lawyers. As recounted in Rees Morrison, Law Department Administrators: Lessons from Leaders (Hildebrandt Inst. 2004) at 8, the department’s organizational structure consisted…
Early this year, AmCOMP, Inc., an insurance holding company, announced that it had appointed George E. Harris as Senior Vice President and General Counsel, a new position for the Company. Commenting on the appointment, AmCOMP’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, said: “Having expanded our business … as well as…
The global legal function of Cadbury Schweppes hired 15 new lawyers during the early months of 2007, according to Legal Week, Vol. 9, March 15, 2007, at 4. During that period, the chief legal officer, Hank Udow, created five new practice groups: procurement, competition, emerging markets, food safety, and tax.…
CA (nee Computer Associates) announced in the fall of 2006 that it appointed Amy Fliegelman Olli and Kenneth Handel as co-GCs. The announcement is in Corp. Counsel, Nov. 2006 at 70. The joint position as chief legal officers has precedent at Citigroup and at Goldman Sachs. Both of those legal…