Monthly Archive for June, 2009

Your Ethical Foundation This was the One Rule long before anybody ever heard of a company called Enron: To be successful in corporate law, you must do the right thing. You must have a value system rooted somewhere, remember you took an oath, and remember that all the money in the world isn’t worth your [...]

To state the obvious, it all starts with the clients. No clients, no practice. To do the interesting work, or any work, you need clients, and because every firm periodically loses clients for a variety of good and bad reasons, you need a constant flow of new business in the pipeline. Our firm is fortunate [...]

A corporate lawyer must be able to serve as a counselor in every matter likely to be important to the decision-makers of a business. The people who have ultimate responsibility and authority for a business of any size, from sole proprietorships to General Electric, want to be able to ask their lawyer almost anything and [...]

For the future, I think we will continue to see corporate consolidation. As long as the antitrust rules remain as relaxed as they have been, we’re going to continue to see it – not just here, but internationally, with increasing consolidation of large multinational companies. I have concerns about that on a number of levels. [...]

Trends in business are inevitable. As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, businesses and industries will experience ups and downs. While it is impossible to predict these trends with certainty, being able to recognize where we are in a particular cycle is highly important. A significant part of my practice in recent years has [...]

I am a firm believer in the old adage “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” The most successful companies, and frankly the most successful people, are those willing to take risks. It’s important to have a hedge, though. In other words, while it’s okay to be aggressive and enter into speculative transactions, it’s only okay if you [...]

In preparing for negotiations, before I make that conference call or participate in an all-hands meeting, I spend a lot of time learning about my client’s objectives, if I don’t fully understand them already from past projects. I also do my homework on the other parties. What are their backgrounds? What are the personalities of [...]

Dedication to clients is the key. You need to have the mindset that what you do is not just a 9-to-5 job: It is your career and it defines you professionally. It’s relationships with clients – the way clients feel about you and how you feel about them – that really matters. In my view, [...]

Another aspect of being a good business lawyer is knowing when and how to match two clients, or one client with a third-party, in a way that results in something good for them, even if there’s nothing foreseeable in it for me. That happens all the time. I have a company that’s looking for money, [...]

Being a successful corporate lawyer is more than being a capable legal technician or someone who documents a company’s transactions. It’s more than understanding a set of laws and regulations that govern a client’s business. In my experience, being a successful corporate attorney must be far more collaborative than that. Although my involvement with clients [...]

The practice of corporate law can be a stimulating, satisfying experience. However, certain developments in the practice of corporate law may change the nature of the traditional experience of a corporate lawyer. For example, it would be desirable for the lawyer to maintain a more traditional relationship with the client instead of having to serve [...]

It is important that the lawyer be fully informed of new developments to provide services that may be required due to changes in the law and the businesses of clients or in the manner in which legal services are provided. Being aware of law firm mergers, services provided in-house or by alternative service providers, and [...]

A key element to the success of the great corporate lawyer is the ability to distinguish the importance of issues, identify the client’s priorities and develop creative, effective solutions to problems and issues. In any matter or transaction, it is extremely important to distinguish between issues that have significant financial and other consequences and are [...]