Prepare Like The CEO Is Watching

A CEO makes a surprise visit to a routine legal meeting; you won't believe what happens next....

For Biglaw and in-house lawyers alike, legal bosses in any setting often like to employ the same tired scare tactic to motivate junior members of the team undertaking a seemingly elementary legal task.

“Your work had better be immaculate; the CEO is going to see it.”

And while this may work at the start of a new client engagement or job, by week three or so, once you understand your job’s new demands, you often revert back to your old ways.  The next such threat is often met with a chuckle, knowing full well no CEO is going is ever going to review your petty research.

And soon, it is not just your research that begins to slip, but meeting preparation as well.

That is not to say that you mail it in completely — just that you often establish a routine with the normal team you work with, and you begin to understand what level of preparation is necessary to actively contribute in a meeting.

This is all well and good — that is, until the CEO unexpectedly decides to attend one of those meetings.

Last week I asked one of our staff attorneys to join me for an update meeting on a pending case of ours. The case itself was an older one, and the staff attorney had been the point person on the case since it began several months ago. Often these meetings are little more than Legal updating a division vice president and someone from finance on the status of the case, and generally Legal is granted additional funds to continue on.

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Unbeknownst to me or anyone else scheduled to attend the meeting, however, our CEO decided to join this particular update. The case was recently mentioned to him by a friend of his.

When we arrived, I was admittedly a little stunned to see him there, and our staff attorney went pale. It is not that our CEO is some sort of rock star or celebrity. In an organization of over 25,000 people, however, a CEO sighting care be rare.

After a quick round of introductions and a high-level overview of the case, I turned the floor over to the staff attorney for the latest update. However, she did little more than reiterate the summary of the case I had just given. When questioned on specifics by our CEO, she again stuck to high-level details, which did little to address his questions. Sensing his frustration, I promised him a full brief by the end of the day and thankfully returned the meeting to its normal cadence.

This particular attorney is a normally a superb lawyer. She is always a trusted source of information, and this experience did little to shake my faith. Her fault, however, came in her lack of preparation. Had she spent any significant amount of time reviewing the case prior to the meeting, I have no doubt she would have been able to impress the CEO with her command of the facts.

Sure, there are some particularly gifted attorneys out there who are able to remember even the most minute detail of a case they have not looked at in months, but by and large attorneys are successful due to lots of hard work and preparation. Law school itself taught us that most basic lesson.

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Once we get into the workplace and get into our routine, however, we begin to push the boundaries a bit, and only hark back to our intense preparation days when really called for. Which is certainly not for every routine meeting or brief.

But our clients or employers expect (and pay) us to be on top of our game at all times, not just when needed. So even if it means an extra hour in the office, we owe it to them to put in the time necessary to adequately prepare for a routine brief or meeting.

Besides, you never know when the CEO may just decide to crash the party.


Stephen R. Williams is in-house counsel with a multi-facility hospital network in the Midwest. His column focuses on a little talked about area of the in-house life, management. You can reach Stephen at stephenwilliamsjd@gmail.com.