Law Department Management Blog
On the website of eHow.com you can read a thumbnail description of several corporate staff functions, including legal. Very peculiar in several respects, it is pasted below. The bracketed numbers I inserted follow the odd words or phrases I comment on after the quote.
‘The legal department receives legal reports [1] from lawyers who work with other departments in the company or processes [2] legal documents such as contracts and licenses [3]. The chief legal officer or general counsel position usually leads executive level [4] legal departments. These departments may provide litigation, legal compliance and risk management, business ethics and government relations functions.’ [5]
[1] Reports? This statement mystifies me because report reception amounts to nothing in law departments, and even more because the presumed report writers are “lawyers who work with other departments.’
[2] Processes? Scriveners, those who fill in blanks, Motor Vehicle agency employees. Processes leaves in-house attorneys to be sausage-stuffers.
[3] Licenses? The writer of this confused, ill-informed paragraph doesn’t mean inbound licenses of patents: what is meant is far from clear.
[4] Executive level? As compared to hidden lawyers embedded in business units? What other kind of legal department is there?
[5] What about corporate secretary and governance functions?