Time for the legal department to take a page from Billy Joel’s playbook and claim, “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” According to Kenneth Grady of Seyfarth Shaw, in-house counsel are “legal firefighters” who don’t start the company’s fires, but instead race “to tamp out one problem as another flares elsewhere.”
Though some of the blazes can be predictable, such as preparing proxy statements, many, if not most, come at the last minute—or so it may seem. “For many in-house departments, this reactive approach creates a feeling that the department is less manageable than other departments,” explains Grady, who has suggestions for being proactive about fire management.
