Straddling inside and outside (O’Neill Properties, its primary firm and EVP-GC)

Kevin Silverang is the EVP and Chief Legal Counsel of O’Neill Properties Group, which handles environmental cleanups, as well as the senior partner of a four lawyer firm that handles O’Neill’s legal work. He is a corporate executive and a law firm partner. Silverang’s firm can serve select other clients; Silverang also retains outside counsel for specialty work in which his firm lacks expertise, such as litigation, tax, labor and zoning.

This hybrid of a senior company executive also running the firm that does most of the company’s legal work somewhat resembles outsourcing (ala Continental Bank in 1991) and somewhat resembles arrangements like Ted Tetzlaff, who was both a partner at a firm and a company executive. More details in GC Mid-Atlantic, June 2005 at 24.

I can’t help but feel that conflicts of interest will bit this arrangement. To warp a hoary saying, “Too many hats ruin the broth.”