A general counsel, also known as chief counsel or chief legal officer (CLO), is the chief in-house

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

for a company or a governmental department. In a company, the person holding the position typically reports directly to the CEO, and their duties involve overseeing and identifying the legal issues in all departments and their interrelation, including engineering, design, marketing, sales, distribution, credit, finance, human resources and production, as well as corporate governance and business policy. This would naturally require in most cases reporting directly to the owner or CEO overseeing the very business on which the CLO is expected to be familiar with and advise on the most confidential level. This requires the CLO/general counsel to work closely with each of the other officers, and their departments, to appropriately be aware and advise.The 2011 In-House Counsel Compensation Survey, Question 1

Profiles of In-House Counsel 200

Who Does Your Counsel Report To? (2001) (The Majority Report to the CE

Historically, general counsel often handled administrative tasks while outside lawyers in Practice of law, private practice handled more complex legal work. Since the 1980s, however, the general counsel position has become increasingly prominent in multinational companies, often directly advising the

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

in place of outside lawyers. General counsel are now often among the most highly paid executives of major American corporations, with many earning seven-figure or eight-figure compensation packages.General Counsel Can Take Home Millions (But Will Still Endlessly Gripe About Your Bill!)

/ref> Prominent American government lawyers and law firm partners are often hired for general counsel roles at prominent companies. Similar trends are also being seen in the United Kingdom and other countries. General counsel often have broad roles encompassing

crisis management Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a disruptive and unexpected event that threatens to harm the organization or its stakeholders. The study of crisis management originated with large-scale industrial and envi ...

and

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a Group decision-making, decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to Problem solving, solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conceptio ...

advocacy. Many companies also hire in-house counsel to handle specialized tasks such as

tax A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to regulate and reduce negative externalities. Tax co ...

work,

mergers and acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of a company, business organization, or one of their operating units is transferred to or consolidated with another entity. They may happen through direct absorpt ...

labor law Labour laws (also spelled as labor laws), labour code or employment laws are those that mediate the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions, and the government. Collective labour law relates to the tripartite relationship be ...

and

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

, sometimes building in-house practice groups that rival the practices of major law firms.

Organizations

United States

The General Counsel Forum

The Forum is an association of 700 general counsel and senior managing counsel. The non-profit organization was founded in the fall of 1998 as the Dallas-Fort Worth General Counsel's Management Practices Forum (“DFWGCMPF”). The association is a partnership between in-house members and outside counsel, known as underwriters. Members are general counsel and managing counsel of corporations, non-profit organizations and government agencies. The mission of the Forum is to improve the professional lives of general counsel and managing counsel through meaningful opportunities for

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network, forming a peer-to-peer network of Node ...

interaction and knowledge exchange, mentoring through professional development in legal best practices, ethics, governance, and compliance. In November 2000, the DFWGCMPF changed its name to The Texas General Counsel Forum, also known as The Forum, and in the following year the Houston Chapter was formed, and then the Austin-San Antonio Chapter was founded. In July 2005, the Forum hired a chief executive officer with the mandate to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization, expand membership, and launch the organization nationally. In November 2009, the board of directors approved expanding the Forum nationally, and dropped the reference to Texas, becoming simply The General Counsel Forum. In the fall of 2012, the General Counsel Forum founded the Chicago Chapter.

United Kingdom

In the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

a group of general counsel, called the GC100, was officially launched on 9 March 2005 and brings together the senior legal officers of more than eighty-five

FTSE 100 The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie" , is the United Kingdom's best-known stock market index of the 100 most market capitalisation, highly capitalised ...

companies. The GC100 group was created in response to the increasing volume and complexity of domestic and international law and regulation which impacts on UK listed companies. The group was formed with the support of Practical Law Company which acts as its secretariat. The main objectives of the GC100 are to: * Provide a forum for practical and business focused input on key areas of legislative and policy reform common to UK listed companies. * Enable members to share best practice in relation to law, risk management, compliance and other areas of common interest. Membership of the GC100 is by invitation only. At the AGM on the 16 January 2007 members voted in favour of extending membership to company secretaries as well as general counsel in the FTSE 100. The formal name of the GC100 is now "The Association of General Counsel and Company Secretaries of the FTSE100", although it will continue to be known as the GC100. Mark Harding, the first chair of the GC100, has stated that the GC100 is not a campaigning body, although they work closely with the FD100 (a similar grouping of blue chip finance directors).

References

External links