Working with Legal Professionals

Establishing an Attorney Relationship: Topic A 

The privately owned company has a formal relationship with its legal team. The management found that it was essential to have a formal legal relationship that would allow the counsels to engage the firm clients and other operations even though they are not business associates or partners. As a result, it becomes possible for the management to engage in a wide array of business operations even those that are beyond their core competency. Additionally, having a formal legal counsel enables an organization to enjoy legal representation without necessarily having the attorneys being elevated to partners. Consequently, lawyers working for the organization understand their position and they know that they will not be elevated to business partners, which helps in managing their expectations. The management does a lot of efforts to explain the roles and responsibilities bestowed on the counsels at the time of hiring, and this practice helps in ensuring that there is clarity practiced in business operations. Moreover, the attorneys understand the need to be professional as they execute their duties to meet the set organizational goals and needs. Establishing a legal relationship in the company required the management to evaluate the scope of operation to determine the terms of work that would be involved in the partnership. For instance, initially the company hired the lawyers as a way of handling the overflow work that the existing employees lacked competency to execute. However, when the company began to expand its operation, it became vital to have a team of legal experts that understood business operations in the organization.

The formal relationship between the organization and its legal counsel is backed up with a letter of agreement between the two parties. The letter of agreement plays an essential role in preventing disputes between the company and its attorneys in future by outlining the terms of engagement. Furthermore, the letter of agreement also provides a mechanism that will help identify the most appropriate solutions to challenges that might be encountered in future. Therefore, the letter of agreement helps to formalize the legal agreement compared to an oral contract that even though enforceable, it does not provide a material that can be used as evidence. The organization has taken over the responsibility of writing the agreements letters, which enables the management to be in control of operations involved. The legal agreement is structured to fit each individual attorney in a team of five counsels hired in the company. Some vital details featured in the legal agreement include name of involved parties, date signed, contact information, span of time the agreement will last, and attorney fees (Yonjan 2019). The parties must ensure that they have signed the letter of agreement for it to become abiding legal document. Each of the team is expected to keep a signed copy of the legal agreement until the period of engagement is over. It can play a critical role in providing solutions to issues that might influence the legal relationship in future.

The company has done well by abiding with the tips suggested to maintain a strong and convenient legal relationship in the video titled “Five Tips.” Firstly, there is effective communication between the legal team and the management to ensure that all decisions are agreed upon to minimize disagreements. The management uses the existing communication channels to make its legal experts understand the organizational needs and objectives (Pathak et al., 2019). Moreover, the managers have an opportunity to ask questions from the legal team to ensure that only informed decisions are made. Accordingly, it becomes possible for the management to outline expectations from the existing relationship between the two parties. On top of this, the company managed to identify a team of attorneys that will handle a range of services on behalf of the organization. The management needs legal counsel in multiple activities including formulation of business contracts with its clients. It is essential for the management to ensure that besides having the right skills and competencies, the legal team clearly understand business operations in the company. Even though attorneys have the right skills and knowledge required to execute their duties, they might lack knowledge about a business. Therefore, the management ensures that they have in-depth discussion with the attorneys to ensure that they understand the vision and mission of the company. Additionally, the company demonstrates its capability to respect the value of the team of legal experts involved in business operations within the company. The company achieves this aspect through evaluation of performance determined by how well organizational goals and objectives are met. Accordingly, the management reveals both short and long term goals with its legal experts. Moreover, it is essential for the company’s management and all the attorneys to demonstrate their commitment in their daily activities. Thus, communication is encouraged between legal experts and management to ensure that all parties understand the bearing that the business tends to take.

Despite the benefits and commitment that the organization show towards its relationship with a legal team, there are a few aspects that should be improved. Firstly, the company has yet to institutionalize its operations such that the participants understand what they should partake or refrain. For instance, legal counsel is needed when the organization is expanding its operations in foreign countries. However, the management consistently checks for nations that have opportunities to expand business operations. As a result, it is not possible for the management to give an outline of the countries where it will invest in future making it a prompt move when the legal team is brought on board to acquire relevant information to facilitate legal compliance. Another challenge experienced in the legal counsel relationship is due to the integration of technology in company operations (Peláez-Pier, 2017). The use of artificial intelligence risks replacing the work done by the lawyers, which results to a disruption in the roles and responsibilities that they are entrusted to conduct. The disruption results to a gap and confusion in execution of activities, especially when there is no adequate information available to facilitate data analysis. Legal practices in the organization should focus on achieving the best interests of the organization, which might be impossible amidst the disruption and confusion caused through integration of artificial intelligence because lawyers are known to be resistant to change. Therefore, the organization must ensure that it establishes a strategy that will incorporate both technology and lawyers to achieve the best legal practices.

The founded relationships between the company and its legal team has substantially helped in expanding operations in the global market despite the few challenges encountered. The management has implemented a collaboration where the team of attorneys feel valued as they execute their roles and responsibilities. On the other hand, the lawyer ensures that they engage in their practices such that it will be possible to avoid legal implications that might deter operations and make it impossible for the company to grow and expand its operations in other countries.

Collaborating in Litigation Matters: Topic A 

Business activities involves dealing with multiple stakeholders including suppliers, employees, and customers. Thus, it is likely that a legal dispute is likely to emerge, which might jeopardize the effectiveness of the organization in executing its duties. Based on the above factor, the company needs a team of litigators that help in executing business operations. The above scenario also demonstrates that an organization is likely to participate in a wide range of litigation practices that can be effective. It is essential that the company establishes the nature of litigation that will be effective and integrate it in its corporate culture. In the case of my co-owned company, commercial litigation is the most appropriate form of legal presentation that is relevant for the company. Commercial litigators engage in several practices within a business that include formulation of business contracts, handle employment issues, product liability claims, intellectual property, fraud, and ascertaining legal compliance (Okoli, 2020). Besides that, commercial litigators act as business representatives on behalf of the company in some instances. The management made the decision to hire a team of attorneys to assist in its litigation issues as a way of ensuring that legal representation and advice is available anytime it is needed. Notably, the aspect is vital given that a business can have a dispute that needs legal guidance at any moment, which demands for an immediate response. Having commercial litigators in the company makes it possible for them to handle several practices that minimizes the need to have different legal teams handling business operations in the organization. The above section demonstrated the need for the management to share information with the attorneys, which includes both private and confidential data. Accordingly, a team that can meet all legal needs in the organization helps to maintain the integrity and confidentiality of its business operations without risking a breach of information to competitors.

The collaborations between the company and attorneys demonstrates strengths of the latter in executing business operations based on the tool guiding an effective working legal relationship. For instance, the legal team has done extremely well in retaining the confidentiality of the business by being open and complete when outlining the information. The management should emphasize on the need to retain an attorney-client privilege whereby the counsels have access to more information compared to the consumers. Being aware of exclusive details on how the organization operates makes it easier for the attorneys to respond to any emerging issues promptly. As a result, the company is capable of maintaining a suitable business environment because its competitive advantage strategy remains a secret for the insiders only. Similarly, the attorneys have also demonstrated their willingness to ask questions aimed at acquiring better understanding on organizational goals and objectives. Moreover, the attorneys also accommodate questions asked by the management to ensure that all parties understand the legal processes featured in business operations. The engagements involved in addressing such questions play an essential role in understanding the changes featured in the organization. Consecutively, the attorneys have performed extremely well on the two aspects because it has been possible to retain a positive relationship between the two parties. In addition, the engagements through asking and responding to questions enables the parties to review organizational goals and objectives. The practice creates an opportunity for the legal team to reflect on whether their engagements was geared towards achieving the organizational goals, if not, corrective measures are effected at this stage.

Similarly, the counsel relationship between the company and its legal team reveals some weaknesses and strengths demonstrated by the management based on the proposed tool of engagement. The company management has performed extremely well in being open and complete in effort aimed at sharing all vital information with the attorneys. Revealing all the vital information ensures that decisions made by the legal team is correct. Moreover, it becomes possible for the management to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the organization by revealing what needs to be concealed from being leaked. Furthermore, the management has performed extremely well in explaining business operations to the attorneys aimed at ensuring that they comprehensively understand it. Business managers pursue this aspect because they know that even though attorneys have adequate information concerning their practice, they might lack knowledge concerning the specific venture. On the other hand, the company has somehow failed to keep in touch with its legal team. It is the responsibility of the management to ensure that its legal team understands changes in business operation, which can only be achieved through effective communication. Nevertheless, even though the management communicates about such aspects, it does not achieve this on time or practice it consistently. Therefore, the company gets into issues that could have been prevented if the management had communicated the relevant information to attorneys on time. Accordingly, it is essential that the management should consider to identify ways through which engagements between the involved parties were done on time.

In an effort to improve the litigation procedures between the company and its lawyers, the company purposes to make a few changes to its operations in future. Such changes are critical because they help to achieve an effective legal counsel relationship between the involved parties. For instance, even though the management has achieved positive results from their engagement with attorneys, the interaction has also interfered with the effectiveness of achieving objectives within a stipulated period. The involvement of the management in several operations within the company limits the effectiveness of decisions made because the process might be delayed awaiting availability of the management. In future, the organization should improve its engagement with the attorneys by accommodating them in their schedule and creating time to handle emerging issues. It also emerges that the management omits some details when communicating with the attorneys aimed at protecting the privacy and confidentiality of the organization. The management must ensure that it entrusts the legal experts with all information regarding business operations in the company. Failure to reveal such vital information creates a negative perception among the legal experts and might jeopardize the effectiveness of work relations. If the company works to improve the issues outlined above, it should be noted that the litigation process and counsel relationship between the organization and its management will be enhanced. Such a perspective will play an essential role towards attaining business objectives and propelling the agenda of the organization forward.

Working with Lawyers on Transactions: Topic A 

The company hires a legal team for transactional reasons even though the attorneys also address other legal issues when they emerge. Transactional lawyers engage in research to acquire relevant information that will enable an organization to run its operations with minimum challenges. Such information include compliance requirements for the company to qualify for a business permit in a foreign country. Additionally, the lawyers’ further research helps to understand trademark policies in various countries and enable the company to better position itself in the market. Moreover, through research and fact finding, the transactional lawyers are capable of resolving conflicts involving the business before they escalate into lawsuits (de Fontenay, 2015). Furthermore, the company has been using its litigators to engage in negotiations on behalf of the management. For instance, when the organization intends to enter into a partnership with another firm, it becomes possible to have the organization acquire best deals. The use of lawyers to negotiate ensures that the agreements made are legal and do not violate any labor policies that can implicate the company into a legal suit. Another role of the transactional lawyers in the firm is that they advise clients on various business deals. It is vital to acknowledge that one of job descriptions for the organization involves its role in consultations. Some of the issues faced by their clients might require legal advice to resolve, which is where the counsels get involved. Solving disputes involving their clients diligently and professionally helps in growing the company’s customer portfolio as it recommended as an ideal organization. Transactional lawyers have a significant value for corporate organizations since they minimize chances of the company getting implicated in lawsuits by partaking legal operations. Additionally, using transactional lawyers to assist in the organization’s daily operations play a critical role in saving time and resources.

Transactional lawyers have an advantage when allowed to serve in a corporate organization, but they only achieve this when the management is open and complete when sharing information with them. Sharing adequate information without omissions with a team of legal experts gives them a client-attorney privilege making it possible for a company to increase its chances of having successful negotiations favoring the business (Simon, 2017). It is essential to acknowledge that lawyers have no capability to read the minds of the management and comprehend what needs to be said. Therefore, the management takes the responsibility of ensuring that they have provided all the adequate information needed to understand how the company operates. In this case, the management should let its lawyers understand even information classified to be private and confidential since such a move helps to protect the company better. As a result, the management of the company should have meetings with the legal team to ensure that they understand any changes and new trends within the organization. Achieving the best from transactional lawyers require the legal team and management to have engagements that extensively address questions that either of the parties might have. The strategy enables the management to be actively involved in decision making by understanding what measures the legal team will partake. Similarly, the legal team has an opportunity to review the expectation of the management in relation to their activities making it possible to get frustrated. The engagements between the two parties demonstrate a two-way relationships in the organization where the company expresses its interests through communication, while the legal team addresses the existing issues through their expertise. Accordingly, it is vital to ascertain that the hired legal team has all the resources needed to solve emerging issues within the business. Attorneys equipped with the right information and resources are better placed to address all the needs that the organization has.

Achieving the best results from the engagements with transactional lawyers require that the management should create time to discuss either the trends in business or address concerns on their practice. Therefore, the management are required to schedule some time to have a discussion with the lawyers as a way of sharing information. It is essential to acknowledge that the management is overwhelmed with a range of administrative activities required in the organization, which might make it extremely difficult to schedule a meeting with the lawyers unless when it is considered extremely important to meet. As a result, such a scenario tends to make the lawyers feel frustrated and undervalued because there are not prioritized by the management. Moreover, it has been established that when the lawyers are allowed to work on their own volition, they tend to miss some of the company’s interests in the negotiations. Consecutively, the lawyers are often forced to renegotiate with the clients to have the missed interests featured in business contracts. Such habits tends to slow down the effectiveness of the business due to time loss and also contributes to wastage of resources. It is essential that the management considers improving its involvement with its attorneys by ensuring that they hold meetings often. Moreover, to ensure that neither the management team nor the legal experts feel overwhelmed by their engagements, it is essential that the leaders consider creating a schedule on when the two parties should meet. The measure will help in achieving engagements that are not rushed and the management has enough time to update the team about changes within the company and its interest in specific collaborations or business operations. Creating a schedule to meet the lawyers will ensure that the management does not feel overworked when a meeting with the team is fixed amidst other corporate engagements.

Improving engagement between the management and the lawyers require the business to implement some corrective measures. Firstly, the management must understand the goal and intention of making the needed changes to derive the most suitable solution for the challenge (Cornell Law, 2017). Moreover, it is essential that the management should seek to understand what the attorneys think about the issue. In this case, the company management understand that its legal team has been frustrated during its engagement with the administrators. The frustration occurs when they are forced to renegotiate already sealed deals to feature company interests that they were not aware of during the first deliberations. Therefore, there is a need to resolve the issue to ensure that the two parties are satisfied by how business operations are undertaken. The next step should ensure that the management prioritizes the vital aspects from their engagement with the hired lawyers to achieve the best interests of the company. It is essential that the management involves the lawyers in determining the most appropriate schedule that will meet their expectations. Such a consideration will help in ensuring that the two parties are satisfied with the proposed strategy to ensure that there is satisfaction in what is taking place within the organization.

Working with In-house Counsel: Topic A 

The organization has already considered to have its in-house counsels based on its engagement with foreign operations. The management considered having a team of legal experts that would help it resolve all legal issues emerging from the business. It is essential to note that the issue of legal compliance in foreign countries is critical, which is among the factors that influenced the company to hire lawyers aimed at ensuring that the organization protected itself from any form of legal challenges likely to occur in future. Moreover, the company has managed to derive maximum benefits from the legal team in its litigation and transactional matters because it is possible to be open and complete when sharing information with a team that is working for the business compared to the much can be revealed to outside attorneys. The primary role of the counsel hired by the management is to ensure that the business is protected from any issues that might disrupt business operation or lead the company to incur losses that could be avoided. However, even though the team of lawyers working for the organization make efforts to ensure that the business is stable, the in-house legal counsel does not operate as a partner and it should be evaluated whether the individuals intend to establish a similar venture in future. Therefore, the organization has achieved best results from the engagement it has achieved from having a team of in-house attorneys that help the company in addressing legal issues.

The in-house legal team hired by the organization performed distinctive tasks, which will be defined by the 3P’s of counsels. It means that hiring a team of in-house lawyers will be critical in addressing a few needs that influence ways in which the company operates. The first P define in-house attorneys as business partners. In sections above, it is clear that the company is careful to hire a team of legal personnel that have no interest in being business partners (Rotunda, 2011). That means that the legal practitioners should not expect to enjoy partnership benefits besides their compensation as employees of the company. Nevertheless, the attorneys have skills and competencies that are not available among other individuals working in the management. Accordingly, the company has established a corporate culture that integrates the attorneys in its daily operations and they enjoy similar benefits as other valued employees within the company. The attorneys should engage the employees to ensure that they understand the trends and changes taking place within the company. It is also vital to acknowledge the role of the attorneys when they are required to represent the management in negotiating business deals. Consecutively, even though the in-house attorneys do not enjoy benefits of business partners, their collaboration with the management plays an essential role in achieving growth and development in the company.

The second P in in-house engagements demonstrates that the attorneys should be proactive as they execute their duties and responsibilities within the organization. As a result, the management should ensure that they take advantage of this aspect and achieve the best from their collaboration to grow the company (Gunz & Gunz, 2019). The management should ask for advice on how to handle various issues aimed at ensuring that it does not attract compliance issues. Moreover, the in-house counsel ensures that they identify the existing legal issues and identify suitable solutions to prevent the issue from escalating into a lawsuit. The company should ensure that it has avoided implicating itself in lawsuits because they can be expensive or result to adverse rulings for the company, which might deter its operations. It is essential to acknowledge that legal issues can emaciate from a wide range of activities within the business such as employees issues, human right violations, and intellectual property. Hence, having an in-house counsel increases the chances that such issues will be addressed before they escalate into more adverse issues. The team of attorneys can also be useful in updating organizational goals and work hand to ensure that such aspects are met. As a result, it will be essential to achieve proactive strategies to meet the organizational goals. The two teams should ensure that they have developed some level of trust between the management and the attorneys to ensure that they extensively and openly share information concerning business operations.

The last role of in-house attorneys helps in protecting the organization from legal implications that might significantly influence operations within the company. Nevertheless, to achieve the form of protection that the business needs in executing its responsibilities, information sharing plays a critical role. For instance, the management ensures that the attorneys understand business operations in the company well without hiding some information from them. Furthermore, the attorneys are involved in all aspects of the business to ensure that it is possible to achieve the best results from their engagements. For this reason, the attorneys will have the ability to protect the interests of the company. It is essential to note that the analysis conducted by the attorneys will reveal incidents where organizational practices will be perceived to have the capability to cause some losses or negatively affect the company’s brand image. Nevertheless, the management has to take risks in some circumstances to pursue growth. Therefore, the management should be prepared to say no to some of the suggestions made to refrain from particular activities. However, it is critical that the management should give reasons for their decisions compared to dismissing the suggestions made by the legal team. Accordingly, it will be possible to achieve the desired outcome within the organization.

The relationship with the in-house counsels can be improved to ensure that the best result is achieved from the collaboration. The reason I am pursuing this course is aimed at improving engagements with the in-house attorneys because the knowledge acquired helps to ensure that business operations are legal. Moreover, it enhances the engagements between the two teams because it will be possible to understand the legal perspectives on a variety of issues discussed. Moreover, the knowledge acquired from the course will improve the engagements because it will be possible to ask relevant questions and identify areas that the team might be neglecting. Moreover, it is essential that all parties in the management should perceive the in-house attorneys as their enablers and understand that they have the right to say no to some business practices that the company intends to undertake. Consequently, the management should consider such suggestions to have the best interest of the organization and consider the recommendations being given. On the other hand, the attorneys should also be willing to take no as an answer even after they warn the management that specific activities might implicate the business into legal issues or lead to losses. The lawyers should understand that entrepreneurs are risk takers and might be willing to engage in some business operations even though they know that such involvement might lead to losses.

References 

Cornell Law. (2017). LAW504: Working with Legal Professionals Twelve Questions for Negotiation Preparation . https://s3.amazonaws.com/ecornell/content/LAW/LAW504/law504_tool-negotiation-tips.pdf 

De Fontenay, E. (2015). Law Firm Selection and the Value of Transactional Lawyering. SSRN Electronic Journal . https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2642299 

Gunz, H., & Gunz, S. (2019). Ethical Challenges in the Role of In-House Counsel Ethical Challenges in the Role of In-House Counsel Ethical Challenges in the Role of In-House Counsel . https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4824&context=caselrev 

Okoli, C. S. A. (2020). International commercial litigation in English-speaking Africa: a critical review. Journal of Private International Law , 16 (1), 189–203. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441048.2020.1738982 

Pathak, A., Sinha, S., & Srivastava, A. (2019). Importance of Communication in Law. International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology , 8 (6S3), 1305–1307. https://doi.org/10.35940/ijeat.f1227.0986s319 

Peláez-Pier, F. (2017). The New Challenges of the Legal Profession and Business World . IE Insights. https://www.ie.edu/insights/articles/the-new-challenges-of-the-legal-profession-and-business-world/ 

Rotunda, R. D. (2011, September 6). Why Lawyers are Different and Why We are the same: Creating Structural Incentives in Large Law Firms to Promote Ethical Behavior – In-House Ethics Counsel, Bill Padding, and In-House Ethics Training . Papers.ssrn.com. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1923363 

Simon, W. (2017). Confidentiality: A Critical Analysis. In Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, Forthcoming; Columbia Public Law Research Paper (pp. 14–539). https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3025&context=faculty_scholarship 

Yonjan, Y. K. (2019, August 14). An Analysis on Major Elements of a Valid Contract under Muluki Civil Code, 2074 . Papers.ssrn.com. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3437233