Appropriateness of a general counsel seeking to be the CEO’s consigliore (consiglieri)

Every consulting project I hear, “We want to be the trusted advisor of our clients, a consigliore.” Those who bandy the term about don’t know its illegal roots. The most common association of the Italian term is with gangsters, Mafiosa, Cosa Nostra racketeers. Discomfiting, isn’t it, that the Knoxville Bar Association’s In-House Newsletter bears the name “Consigliore”? Odder still that the chief legal officer of a company would want to be described with the same term as the right-hand confidante of the Godfather.