General counsel

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A general counsel is the chief lawyer of a legal department, usually in a corporation or government department. The term is most used in the United States. The status and prominence of the general counsel has grown much over the past 10 years as is evidenced by the large number of lawyers who come into the role from private practice.

A general counsel’s roles include furnishing legal advice to the corporation’s board of directors, CEO, and other senior executives. But a contemporary general counsel often occupies other roles as well, each complex and additionally interlinked in many ways. These linkages may be beneficial to a corporation and society more generally. Nonetheless, general counsel’s position has often been characterized as ambiguous, a characterization that suggests that not all occupants of the position succeed in balancing its multiple roles in either a professionally or socially satisfactory manner. Alternatively, any ambiguity in defining the role of general counsel, if such ambiguity exists, might not reflect any specific or general lack of balance. Such "ambiguity" may instead reflect the fact that each entity that has general counsel may have diverse and independent needs to the extent that a single definition of counsel's roles is not useful.

Professional bodies

In the UK a group of general counsel, called the GC100, was officially launched on 9th March 2005 and brings together the senior legal officers of more than 85 FTSE100 companies.

1 GC100
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] GC100

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The GC100 group was created in response to the increasing volume and complexity of domestic and international law and regulation which impacts on UK listed companies. The group was formed with the support of Practical Law Company which acts as its secretariat.^[1]

The main objectives of the GC100 are to:

Provide a forum for practical and business focused input on key areas of legislative and policy reform common to UK listed companies.

Enable members to share best practice in relation to law, risk management, compliance and other areas of common interest.

Membership of the GC100 is by invitation only. At the Group AGM on the 16 January 2007 members voted in favour of extending membership to company secretaries as well as general counsel in the FTSE100. The formal name of the GC100 is , "The Association of General Counsel and Company Secretaries of the FTSE100", although it will continue to be known as the GC100.

The first officers of the GC100 for 2007 are:

Helen Mahy, National Grid (Chair).
Rosemary Martin, Reuters and Peter Maynard, Prudential (Vice-chairs).
Richard Bennett, HSBC (Treasurer).

The following are members of the executive committee:

Rupert Bondy, GlaxoSmithKline
Grant Dawson, Centrica
Nick Folland, Kingfisher Plc
Mark Harding, Barclays
Andrea Harris, WPP
David Jackson, BP
Peter Kennerley, Scottish & Newcastle
Alastair Michie, Lloyds TSB
Christopher Roberts, Reckitt Benckiser

Mark Harding, the first chair of the GC100, said “One thing we are clear about is that we are trying to do low-profile stuff. We are not a campaigning body and we have deliberately avoided being in the press”, adding, “The group is also there to provide technical input. We chose our issues and are very much in contact with the FD100 [a similar grouping of bluechip finance directors] and then we come together on legal issues. Sometimes we input into what they are doing, sometimes they do that to us.”^[2]