In-House Counsel

Rees Morrison?s Morsels #74 ? additions to earlier posts

By Rees Morrison

Neurolawyering. Portfolio, June, 2008 at 114, offers us the neologism, cogniceuticals, ?for drugs that focus on improving decision-making, learning, attention span, and memory processes? (See my post of March 25, 2008: transcranial stimulation; April 22, 2008: caffeine.).

Unusual role ? reporting on compliance under a non-prosecution agreement. The scope of responsibilities for a general counsel can be broad. A general counsel at the Fifth General Counsel Roundtable, Dec. 6, 2007, summarized in a publication by the Economist Intelligence Unit at 9, describes the following obligation. "The company is under a non-prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice that requires the GC to provide regular reports to the audit committee about the compliance plan and provide copies to the US Attorney's office" (See my post of March 16, 2006: scope of a GC?s responsibilities.).

Hard to keep specialist stars in-house. Thomson Litigation Consulting has hired Laura Kibbe from Pfizer (See my posts of Oct. 1, 2005: Kibbe and e-discovery expenses; Feb. 25, 2007: Pfizer?s discovery team.). This is another example of how hard it is for law departments to keep their non-lawyer specialists who become widely known (See my post of March 13, 2006.).

?Special legal counsel to the CEO.? Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, June 2008 at 95, mentions that the current general counsel of Qwest, Richard Baer, left his partnership at a major Denver firm in 2001 to become the company?s ?special legal counsel to then-CEO Richard Notebaert.? That is an unusual role. Notebaert offered Baer the top legal position a year later.

Export compliance software at GM. That technologically advanced law department has implemented export compliance software, according to Corp. Counsel, Vol. 15, June 2008 at 104 (See my post of Feb. 9, 2008: 27 kinds of law-department software.).

Full post as published by Law Department Management on June 11, 2008 (boomark / email).