The Road Not Taken: There Is No 'Esq.' in 'Team'

An in-house lawyer is only effective if his colleagues appreciate his value. How can you achieve this goal?

This is a great idea! Revolutionary! Let’s get Legal in here now to destroy our momentum and enthusiasm! — said no business person ever.

Ahh, the Legal Department, harbinger of hesitation, department of doom, negotiator of no. When a lawyer is an outside vendor, he has been actively engaged by his client, whether it is for preventative care or disaster recovery. When a lawyer is in-house, she isn’t always actively sought out by her internal business clients, she has to work to be included as part of the business team. When lawyers work together, we know our colleagues are going to find the flaws in our analysis and work product. We want them to do that, it’s better for our colleagues to point out the errors than an outside party. This devil’s advocate way of interacting doesn’t always play well in teams of non-lawyers. 

The polite way to say this is that lawyers are trained to spot issues. The realistic way to say it is that lawyers are cynical people who don’t trust humanity. We see what happens when people don’t do the right thing by each other. When parties cooperate and work together to reach a mutual goal they don’t need a lawyer. Lawyers get involved to anticipate parties behaving badly or to clean up after parties have behaved badly. A non-lawyer’s view of the world is brighter than a lawyer’s because non-lawyers see cooperation as part of their daily lives. These sunny people are tasked with making things happen in their jobs. From their point of view, they create something out of nothing, then Legal comes in and tears apart their creation without bringing anything constructive to the table.

What does this mean for in-house lawyers? Do we acquiesce and become sunny shells of the professionals we are for the immediate gratification of pleasing our colleagues and maintaining their momentum? Of course not. We have a job and we are still responsible for spotting issues and putting our client in as advantageous a position as possible.

Particularly when a lawyer is in-house, doing our job means dismantling a colleague’s work. We need to be aware of the cudgel of destruction we wield and do so benevolently. We can do this by being a productive team member, by providing alternatives instead of total rejections. Share information and education instead of hoarding it. Be a resource instead of an obstacle. This is a different role than outside counsel because outside counsel is generally not part of the daily business operations of an organization. Outside counsel is paid to say, “this is a problem,” and will never suffer for pointing out as many issues as possible. In-house counsel eventually has to say, “I know this isn’t perfect, but I’m okay with it,” and facilitate moving towards the common business goal.

It is a narrow tightrope to walk, I agree, but an in-house lawyer is only effective if his colleagues appreciate his value. It is a short distance between obstruction and irrelevance. When a lawyer is irrelevant, he has no credibility and when valid issues do arise, he has to work twice as hard to be taken seriously by his colleagues.

No one appreciates perpetual negativity. Instead, in-house lawyers have to find a way to be protective with positivity: a colleague who supplements his colleagues’ capabilities. When a lawyer helps people create, the team has tangible evidence of the lawyer’s value and that’s when you can put the “Esq.” in “Team.”

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Celeste Harrison Forst has practiced in small and mid-sized firms and is now in-house at a large manufacturing and technology company where she receives daily hugs from her colleagues. You can reach Celeste directly at C.harrisonforst@gmail.com.

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