Legal guidance needed to deal with forecasted constraints to growth (McKinsey research)

Recently, McKinsey & Company sought the views of more than 9,300 business executives around the world. The executives ranked 11 constraints on growth, 5 of which clearly involve legal issues. I have listed them in order, showing the ranking in parenthesis:

(1) “Competitive environment” includes pricing, antitrust, and M&A guidance;
(3) “cost/availability of talent” includes employment contracts, discrimination, and compensation arrangements;
(4) “substitutions/innovations by competitors” relies in part on intellectual property protection;
(5) “excessive regulations” shouts out legal advice;
(7) “inadequate government/legal protection” self-evidently will need the counsel of lawyers.

Judging from the forecasts of this impressive set of global executives – 34 percent North American and 39 percent European – demand for the expertise and judgment of law departments to ameliorate growth challenges can only grow. McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 No. 2 at pg. 24