General Counsel have stressful jobs. They are expected to be managers, advisors, administrators, supervisors, consultants, and HR experts, among other things — all while trying to find the time to do the legal work that is theoretically their primary responsibility.
And their challenging roles require not only legal expertise, but also business/industry understanding, risk assessment skills, and management knowledge. Keeping all those plates spinning would be difficult even when those lawyers are in regular communication with one another to exchange ideas, information, and best practices.
But, all too often, they are not. Instead, being a General Counsel or Head of Legal is often an insular job, with far fewer opportunities for communication and exchange of information with peers than senior lawyers in private practice enjoy. Accordingly, and in response to dozens of requests for the information, the Editors of CEE Legal Matters have — in consultation with an elite Advisory Panel consisting of General Counsel from some of the biggest companies in the world — created the 2014 CEE Corporate Counsel Best Practices Handbook, to rave reviews. The Handbook, which was based on a survey prepared in consultation with the Advisory Panel to guarantee that the results would be topical, relevant, and informative, contains the committed responses of almost 700 General Counsel and Heads of Legal across Central and Eastern Europe. The participants were asked about subjects as diverse as hiring/recruiting, time management, external counsel management, communication and managerial styles, and much more.
The size of the response alone is evidence of the thirst among senior in-house lawyers for information about their peers, about their performance, and about their choices. And the initial feedback from the few who have seen the final report before its publication was overwhelmingly positive.
The Handbook was sponsored by Edwards Wildman, Freshfields, CMS, Tuca Zbarcea & Asociatii, and Stratula Mocanu & Asociatii. Go get it now — you’ll be glad you did.
