David Leitch didn’t know what he was in for when he became general counsel of Ford Motor Company five years ago. One thing he wasn’t expecting was another crisis. He’d dealt with two in his previous jobs. Leitch was chief counsel of the Federal Aviation Administration on the worst day in the history of American flight: September 11, 2001. And he’d been deputy counsel to President George W. Bush when the United States invaded Iraq two years later. The Ford job figured to be an easier ride.
So much for expectations. A year after Leitch became GC, Ford’s sales collapsed—from 2006 to 2008, the company lost a cumulative $30 billion. One response: It laid off a third of its 300,000 employees worldwide.
