Naturally, the number of lawyers in a law department who report directly to the general counsel depends greatly on the total number of lawyers. That said, of the approximately 100 lawyers in Honeywell’s law department, 15 report directly to Peter Kreindler, the company’s general counsel.
This soupcon on structure, from GC Mid-Atlantic, May 2006 at 26, suggested for me a few comments. Are there also non-lawyers who report to Kreindler? For larger departments, does this 15 percent direct-report ratio hold elsewhere (such that a 50 lawyer department has between seven and eight direct reports)? Since Kreindler praises his team as a “smart and independent staff of attorneys,” does that allow him to have so many direct reports, the assumption being that he doesn’t have to manage them very much? Doesn’t the number of reports cast a pall on any one of them in terms of his or her likelihood of succeeding Kreindler?