We are all by now well aware that being a successful corporate counsel in a modern growth-oriented corporation is not just about having industry experience, being a knowledgeable lawyer, a top-drawer contract drafter or an ace legal researcher. All helpful, by all means, but not sufficient in order to shine.
Here are three qualities to which every ambitious modern corporate counsel should aspire.
1. Business advisor, not legal advisor
Sounds obvious, but for many corporate counsel, including many who have moved inhouse from private practice, shifting from “I provide legal advice” to “I provide business advice” is not automatic. Traditionally, legal departments were involved by business colleagues only if and when something “legal” surfaced. Only then, and somewhat unwillingly, somebody declared “We need to involve Legal”. Nobody expected miracles, and the expected answer was often a depressing “No, you can’t do that.”
That era is behind us. Today’s successful corporate counsel are embedded partners in cross-functional teams, contributing early to product development and strategy. Their role is not just a last resort when all other options have been exhausted.
This welcome change in the level of involvement of corporate counsel in business activities, and their perceived role within corporations, has come with a change of mindset. A change in the mindset of corporate counsel themselves, followed by a change in the perception business colleagues have of the value that can be added by enlightened legal counsel.
Corporate counsel must of course be knowledgeable of the relevant legal framework. The added value is seeing yourself first and foremost as a collaborative co-worker of your business and technical colleagues, with a shared business objective. There will be technical obstacles, business imperatives, financial constraints, to name but a few. Your primary role is to protect the company against risk and help navigate the legislative framework. Identifying pathways through legal complexity. Turning obstacles into strategic business opportunities.
2. Problem solver, not problem creator
Not so long ago, who can deny that the occasional business colleague would go and visit the legal department about a tricky legal quandary the sales team had gotten themselves into, only to return to his or her desk later dejected and demoralised having learned that the legal problems they had identified earlier were only the tip of the iceberg. The number of legal issues had quadrupled, and seemed to have no easy solution.
For some lawyers, spotting risks everywhere was intellectually stimulating. In a way, there could be considerable job satisfaction for the active legal brain of a bright young corporate counsel, with well-honed skills of identifying risks and legal exposure, in analysing a business problem, and discovering multiple additional theoretical risks and hitherto unidentified downsides from the already complicated horror story of legal exposure a business colleague has just brought to his or her desk.
But today, that approach is a career dead end.
Modern corporate counsel know that doing business is about risk and reward, identifying risk, quantifying risk and calculating reward. An endless stream of cost/benefit analyses. Legal risk is merely one element of an often complicated trade-off of balancing interests. The job of corporate counsel, skilled in risk analysis, is merely to use his or her experience and wisdom, to help business colleagues assess and evaluate risk, not necessarily avoid it.
In terms of job satisfaction, contributing meaningfully to, say, a management meeting on a strategic business initiative, having carefully analysed and debated complicated risk/reward set-offs aimed at navigating often complex legal risks and identifying potential strategic opportunities, is a much more rewarding experience than standing back, giving legal-only feedback, and not being involved in the management meeting as a welcome contributing member.
The true reward comes from being at the table—contributing meaningfully to management discussions, analyzing trade-offs, and guiding the business through legal complexity toward opportunity. That is far more impactful than offering narrow, legal-only commentary from the sidelines.
3. Attention to detail
So, let’s say you’ve succeeded: your business colleagues see you as a trusted advisor, and you’re welcomed onto the new product launch team as a valued, problem-solving partner. Is that enough?
Not quite.
Necessary for a successful career as a modern corporate counsel, but no cigar. At the end of the day, you will often be called upon to draft, or comment upon, the regulatory positioning of the new product or the joint venture or product development agreement with third parties.
It is at this stage you get to don your old lawyer hat, switch your mobile to silent, and concentrate. Good old fashioned wordsmithery applied to legal drafting, with carefully crafted wording, protection for the company against identified risks, clear provisions (when you want to be clear) and clever provisos (when clarity may not be so helpful). Here is an opportunity to let out the internal clever lawyer you imagined yourself one day to become while daydreaming back in law school.
Your input may be subtle—perhaps even minimal on the surface—but brilliant nonetheless. A single clause, a crisp definition, or a nuanced exclusion that, three years down the line, could make all the difference. When the business team comes back in 3 years time to ask “Does our contract cover this?” - you get to smile and say, “Yes it does”.
Oh, being a modern corporate counsel can be great fun.
SWOT Legal Team
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