If there’s a common element to first-day training for in-house counsel, it may revolve around a single question: For whom do we work? The answer, of course, is that our client is the corporation and not any single individual or division within it.
But like peeling the layers of an onion, that deceptively simple answer blankets a world of complexity. Sit down with an experienced in-house lawyer and you’ll likely uncover some stories about trying to serve multiple masters. There’s good reason for this. In-house lawyers typically serve different people in different situations. In one context or another, we may owe an ethical, legal or practical duty to a divisional business leader, the CEO, the board, shareholders, a law enforcement agency or a bar authority. And that may be just the start.
