“Lawyers for Lawyers”: The Emerging Role of Law Firm Legal Counsel

Abstract

Large law firms, and many smaller ones, now engage a lawyer as legal counsel to the firm. Usually it is a lawyer in the firm assigned to the task, but some firms also have an outside legal consultant. These appointments respond to the increasingly "legal" environment in which law firms function, in such matters as conflict of interest, malpractice risks, the obligation of candor to courts and other government agencies, duties of disclosure in litigation and transactions, and responsibilities among lawyers and other firm personnel. Having legal counsel is not necessarily effective to keep a law firm out of legal trouble, however. The effectiveness of a law firm's legal counsel depends on essentially the same factors as determine the effectiveness of legal counsel to any client: competence of counsel, seriousness of attention on the part of the client, and good communication. Some arrangements for legal counsel to law firms have been less than optimal in one or more of these respects.