Monthly Archive for June, 2009

Figuring out what the client needs also helps you think about things from the client’s perspective. That’s another element of what makes a great corporate lawyer – the ability to think about things the way the client would without losing the legal perspective. That’s the way you can add value because you can not only [...]

What the Client Wants and Needs When I think of the fundamental role of the corporate lawyer, I start with the concept of helping the client achieve its objectives. I remember one of my law school professors at Harvard, Professor Casner, who was a very confident – some would say cocky – guy who strutted [...]

Corporate lawyers deal constantly with change. Maintaining a mastery of the law and transactional developments is critical to staying on top so that you can guide clients through different transactions and provide guidance on emerging trends. I read constantly, focusing on both new laws and interpretations of existing laws. Also, the more transactions you are [...]

The most important aspect of negotiation is a thorough understanding of what the client is trying to achieve at the macro and micro levels. It is also important to understand what the other side wants. I endeavor to accomplish my client’s objectives in a manner that accommodates the objectives of the other side to the [...]

How a corporate lawyer spends the day depends upon his or her status. Younger attorneys spend most of their time learning the law and technical skills, such as contract drafting, research, preparation of registration statements and negotiation. Senior lawyers spend more of their time counseling and providing strategic advice. I work with clients on issues [...]

Michael H. Friedman Pepper Hamilton Partner, Commercial Department Golden Rules of Corporate Law The role of corporate lawyer is to assist a client in achieving its business objectives in a manner that is efficient and consistent with the client’s expectations. Sometimes these expectations are based on an inaccurate understanding of either the law or the [...]

The best advice I ever received – and maybe to me it is the best because I received it very early in my career – became an element of the foundational framework for understanding my practice, corporate law, life, clients and everything. When I think back on that advice, it seems basic and simple, but [...]

One thing we find surprisingly important as corporate lawyers is the ability to be able to relate on a personal level to the persons involved in the transaction. This person could be the lawyer’s client, the lawyer on the other side of the transaction, the investment bankers involved in helping your client raise money or [...]

We think the issue that has a number of companies figuratively scratching their heads is how we are going to behave in this reactive environment, which allows a level of criminal liability for chief executive officers and chief financial officers who lie or mislead the public. What level of liability is there for directors trying [...]

One of the things very important to us – and something our clients understand very well – is that we can never advise them and we never will advise them in a manner that distorts reality, shades the truth, or violates principles of ethics or legality. We all must operate in the world and in [...]

It is critical for the corporate practitioner to find some manner to understand and communicate to his client what the implications and risks of various actions are. A large but real variable among lawyers is how they quantify these risks and how they factor risk into their analysis in advising their clients. On one end [...]

A meaningful degree of due diligence is performed in taking on a new client, depending on who the client is and what its objectives are. If it is a large, significant, public company, one can look at its public filings and get a description of the company and an understanding of its strategy and direction. [...]

Each industry is evolving constantly, and in the last quarter of the 20th Century, change arrived in a big way to the practice of corporate law in the U.S. Having an active practice and being involved in marketing and client development keeps you well attuned to changes. You can read it in the clients and [...]

You also have to be able to handle many things in your head at once. I started my legal career clerking for a well-known justice on the Delaware Supreme Court. Justice Moore distinguished between lawyers who were very good as long as they focused on one task at a time versus those who kept seven [...]

You must remember that when you take away the education, the oath, the professional status, i.e., the lawyer’s trappings of office, you’re in the customer service business. At bottom, it’s not a whole lot different from waiting tables. As a waiter, you have to know what you’re serving, how it’s made, how it’s served, and [...]