The general counsel is a critical member of a corporation’s senior leadership team. The function is also often the most difficult to evaluate, since it demands someone who can provide top-flight legal and business advice to the CEO and board of directors, often under acute time pressure, while also managing a legal department and dealing with government regulators. In addition to technical ability, these interactions require subtler skills of intellectual sophistication and judgment that can be difficult to assess.
Based on their experience completing numerous general counsel searches for Fortune 500 companies, consultants from Spencer Stuart’s Legal Search Practice share a series of practical insights that can help management conduct a smart, focused and expedited search for a new general counsel — a search that concludes with the hiring of a highly skilled lawyer who will be an invaluable member of the senior management team.