Editors' Blog

Corporate counsel’s best form of defence...

Posted 21/05/2007 by Alex Novarese

The career development theme that ran through the Legal Week Corporate Counsel Forum was a timely reminder of the challenges still facing in-house lawyers. The employed section of the profession has grown in influence over the last five years but many corporate counsel struggle with limited career options and organisations that treat them as an unwieldy cost centre or a drag on creativity.

There are now, at least, more role-models to demonstrate how corporate counsel can win and wield greater internal influence. Among the most effective at the forum in Brussels last week were InBev legal head Sabine Chalmers, who opened the event with a well-received speech on leadership, and Linde legal chief Nick Deeming. Other strong performers included National Australia Bank general counsel David Krasnostein and Credit Suisse strategic counsel Ruth Glazer, who both delivered entertaining and jargon-lite tips on how to show you are helping the (sometimes quite ungrateful) business. Interested readers will get a full report in Thursday’s edition of Legal Week.

But what remained striking about the conference was the strange lack of confidence among many in-house lawyers. They may no longer feel second-class to private practice but there are plenty who still feel second-class in their own organisations.

In this respect, it is hard to escape the feeling that what is holding back some corporate counsel is their own self-image. After all, the majority are well-educated, intelligent and diligent, not to mention working in a field of growing importance given the ever-expanding reach of regulation and red tape. Yet many assume an essentially defensive stance towards their employers.

Obviously, one solution is to work on the ‘pull factors’, as in gently persuading non-legal colleagues of the value of your contribution, such as internal networking, translating legalease into plain language and coming up with ideas that save (or even generate) cash.

That is important, but surely only part of the answer. Most organisations still have a little of the schoolyard about them. As such, individuals who fail to robustly assert their own worth get bullied, ignored or trodden on. If you want to get on, you need to push a bit ­- no one will just hand it over.

This applies in spades to corporate counsel, who still often refer generically to all non-legal staff in their companies as “business” or “commercial” staff, a spurious divide that reinforces in-house lawyers’ secondary status. Do in-house accountants refer to non-accounting staff as “the business people”? I doubt it.

Corporate counsel have made substantial strides in recent years. If they want to keep making them, they will have learn to have a bit more confidence in themselves, maybe even develop a little swagger in their step. And if they still feel on the back-foot, it’s worth remembering what the best form of defence is.

alex.novarese@legalweek.com