MANAGEMENT: employed lawyers need to get management onside, says C&I Group


In-house lawyers have an important contribution to make to the corporate governance of the organisation they work for but are neither the sole 'conscience of the company' nor its only 'saviour', the Law Society's Commerce and Industry Group has told its members.



The advice came as the group's corporate governance committee launched two publications aimed at helping in-house lawyers to ensure good corporate governance in their organisation and to agree the scope of their role with senior management.



The first - called A Fine Line - covers such areas as advising the board and the management of regulatory risk. 'You are not alone in upholding your organisation's corporate governance, and there are many others, in particular the board, who must share - and in the case of the board be ultimately responsible for - that burden,' it says.



The second publication is a briefing document on money laundering.



Dell in-house lawyer Bruce Macmillan, who has just stood down as chairman of the committee, said that when things go wrong in a company, there were usually legal consequences and management 'instinctively looked to the lawyers as saviours of the business'.



He added that because lawyers could not be 'omni-present', the problems often concerned issues on which they had not previously been consulted.



Mr Macmillan said: 'The corporate environment is changing and, as recent high-profile cases in the US have shown, the risk of corporate meltdown and personal exposure are very real. A Fine Line gives succinct and clear guidelines about the in-house role and about how to get the management onside. It should be required reading for everyone, particularly someone who has recently moved from private practice.'



The committee's paper on money laundering defines the problem, describes the warning signs that lawyers should be alert for, and explains what measures should be taken.



It is the first in a series of guides on issues related to corporate governance and legal risk. Other topics to be covered include legal privilege, insider trading, data protection, whistle-blowing and corporate insurance.



Jonathan Rayner