Law Department Management Blog
Despite having addressed reporting from several perspectives, I have not pulled together my pieces on where the general counsel reports. So, I have filled that hole (See my post of Aug. 28, 2005: general counsel who seek to be the CEO’s consigliore; Jan. 1, 2006: reporting lines of General Electric business unit GCs; Jan. 17, 2006 #1: reporting lines of McDonald’s general counsel; Feb. 7, 2006: book’s recommendation that GC should report to the Board; May 28, 2007: time GCs spend with CEO; Aug. 12, 2008: 12% of European GCs reported to head of corporate governance; Dec. 21, 2008: analogy to reporting lines of administrators; Nov. 13, 2009: criticism of reporting line of Bank of America’s general counsel; and March 2, 2010: GCs who report to the CEO are paid more.).
My strong recommendation is that general counsel report directly to the CEO (See my post of May 14, 2005: most US GCs report to the CEO; and Nov. 30, 2008: GC should report to the CEO.). The situation is somewhat different in Europe (See my post of April 12, 2006: UK GCs report less often to CEOs than the 80%+ mark in the US; July 25, 2005: less common for European GCs to report to the CEO; Nov. 9, 2006: about 40% of European GCs report to the CEO; and March 8, 2010: GCs in the UK more frequently report to the CEO.).