The bread-and-butter of many in-house attorneys consists of commercial contracts, those contracts either to buy or to sell goods or services, and the legal work attendant on them (See my post of Dec. 22, 2009: primary role of many inside lawyers; Dec. 23, 2009: one-third of litigation involves contract disputes; June 7, 2010: most common kind of litigation is a contract dispute; Aug. 25, 2010: at Johnson Controls, commercial contracts, corporate work, and antitrust are core; Sept. 4, 2010: three priority levels for contracts handled by law departments; and Dec. 15, 2010: article cited that wonders about contracts being key work of law departments;).
Many people collaborate with the lawyers on contracts, or help get them done and tracked (See my post of Sept. 21, 2009: offshore staff to curate contracts; Nov. 6, 2009: global contracting staff outnumber legal staff by two to one at CSC; Aug. 10, 2010: contract specialists at Discover Financial Services; Nov. 18, 2010: sales force may be greater challenge than contract negotiation; Nov. 29, 2010: clients and negotiations; Dec. 19, 2010: outside counsel and fixed fee of Bell Canada for contracts; and May 31, 2011: eBay and procurement’s involvement.).