Work-life balance is increasingly an issue for burned-out lawyers of both genders, parents in particular. Law students interviewing at firms increasingly ask whether they’ll have a life once they have a job. Our roundup keeps track of this hot topic for you.
Nor is this limited by types of organizations. Corporations, partnerships, universities, hospitals, charities, government agencies � they are realizing the need for compliance and ethics programs and the personnel who make them work. The city of Chicago, for example, just appointed a compliance officer. There has been a trend in government to make such programs mandatory; most recently this has been proposed for government contractors. The range of positions is also quite broad; more than 800 job titles relate to compliance and ethics. At the upper end, the chief ethics and compliance officer titles mean executive-level positioning, power and compensation.
Ultimately, though, perhaps the best reason for a lawyer to consider this field is that he or she could be the one person who stands in the way of the next corporate crime and successfully prevents another Enron or Siemens debacle.
Joe Murphy, a New Jersey-based attorney, is co-author of “Working for Integrity” (Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics 2006). This article originally appeared in The National Law Journal, a Recorder affiliate.
