In-House Counsel

In early 2007, 84 general counsel of ?leading multinational companies? submitted survey data on the functions that report to them other than traditional legal functions. The general counsel are largely from companies with their headquarters in Northern Europe or the UK and Ireland and these findings are from PLCLaw Dept. Quart., Vol. 3, April-June 2007, at 26.

The four additional functions that report to the general counsel all show approximately the same percentage:

?Intellectual property management? (63.4%) (See my posts Dec. 6, 2006: no proximity argument for patent lawyers reporting to R&D; Feb. 19, 2006: patent lawyers and R&D managers; Feb. 27, 2007: should the GC oversee IP; March 23, 2008: Patent Review Committees; and June 25, 2008: patent lawyers pay off.).

?Compliance? (60.8%) (See my post of June 11, 2008: compliance with 33 references.)

?Company administration/company secretary? (59.2%) (See my post of Aug. 12, 2008: corporate secretary with 21 references.).

?Corporate governance? (55.3%) The article does not explain this role.

One odd finding is that 11.8 percent of the responding general counsel report to the head of corporate governance, while 7.9 percent of them report to the company secretary. Odd only in that in comparison to US companies, general counsel overwhelmingly report to the CEO.