“The critical legal issue facing business today is reducing business risk.”

No. I disagree with this quote, which comes from ACC Docket, Vol. 27, Jan./Feb. 2009 at 58.

Sure, if you run a company that specializes in consulting on compliance solutions, like the author of that tendentious quote, every corporate problem is a risk-creating nail for your compliance hammer.

But the view expressed seriously cramps law departments. If in-house attorneys see themselves principally as reducers of business risk then they will continually be at cross-purposes with their clients, who need to make money. No single, critical issue exists. That is a reductive claim that badly distorts the changeable, evolving mix of legal services law departments should provide.