There’s value when you manage projects that have legal ramifications

Although I criticize in-house counsel who are sucked into doing quasi-legal tasks (See my post of Feb. 23, 2006 and my article cited there.), I came across a possible exception.

In-House Corporate Counsel Barometer 2006, Canadian Corp. Counsel Assoc. at 24 reported that about one third of 780 Canadian corporate counsel ranked their “management role” as the most important one fulfilled by them in their organization. Deeper, of three skills that are most important for corporate attorneys to define their management role, more than half (57%) chose “manage or champion projects and initiatives that have legal components or ramifications.”

You can call this quasi-legal work, to run a project, but if it leads to better legal protection for the company or alters the flow of work that comes to the law department, I can make an exception to the quasi-legal interdiction.