A total of 12 HR lawyers (eight in the US) work directly with Intel’s Human Resources department and report to the Vice President of Human Resources, not to Intel’s general counsel (InsideCounsel, Feb. 2006 at 46).
One could use the same arguments to assign other lawyers: patent lawyers to the R&D department; environmental, health and safety lawyers to the EHS function; marketing lawyers to Marketing; tax lawyers to the CFO; real estate lawyers to operations or facilities, etc. etc.
Debate over the wisdom of decentralized lawyer reporting will continue forever, but the prevailing norm is to have all practicing lawyers – those who interpret laws, represent the company as lawyers, give legal opinions and advice – report to the general counsel.