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Three points from UPS: law outranks HR, business experience, and lawyers from operations

A profile of the Teri McClure, the General Counsel of UPS, has three points of idiosyncratic interest to this blog host. First, according to InsideCounsel, Jan. 2007 at page 76-7, she became the general counsel when her predecessor, Alan Hill, “stepped down as general counsel … to become vice president of human resources.” (emphasis added) Now we know how UPS’s legal and personnel functions rate!

The second notable point is that the department tries “to have all of our attorneys participate in a district [business operations] experience.” Some of the lawyers spend a week on the front lines, some several weeks or even a month. Now we know how to understand the business!

The final point of note is that “about half of the attorneys here [in the UPS law department] started with the organization on the operations side, went to law school at night and then joined the legal department.” I assume UPS paid for their law school education. Now we know how to recruit business-savvy, dedicated lawyers!