The inside counsel revolution - Benjamin W. Heineman

TheInside Revolution: Resolving the Partner-Guardian Tension, provides athoughtful and thought provoking analysis of the role General Counsels, andlawyers more generally, can and should play in business and society.

In the past 25 years, there has been a revolution inthe legal profession. General Counsel and other inside lawyers have risen inquality, responsibility, power and status. Once second-class citizens incorporations and the legal profession, they have become core members of topcorporate management, equaling in importance the Chief Financial Officer andthe finance function. They have dramatically shifted power from law firms tocorporate law departments, assuming strategic direction over legal matters andexercising far greater control over law firm billing and economics.

Ben W. Heineman, Jr. has led that revolution in hisnearly 20 years as the top lawyer at GE and then in teaching and writing as aDistinguished Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School's Program on the LegalProfession and lecturer at Yale Law School. In this analytic and prescriptivebook, he describes the essence of that transformation and the modern role ofinside counsel: the key functions, relationships, issues, problems anddilemmas. Moreover, he argues for the role of inside counsel aslawyer-statesman, motivated not just by the desire for income but by broadervalues of integrity and corporate citizenship.

In this analytic and prescriptive book, he describesthe essence of that transformation and the modern role of inside counsel inhelping attain the corporate mission of high performance with high integrity:the key functions, relationships, issues, problems and dilemmas. He argues forthe role of inside counsel as lawyer-statesman and as a partner of the CEO butalso guardian of the corporation, motivated not just by the desire for incomebut by broader values of integrity and corporate citizenship.

The Inside Counsel Revolution is asuccinct, concrete yet visionary statement of first principles from a highlyregarded founder of the in-house revolution that fundamentally changed thelegal profession and reframed the lawyer-statesman role in this era to servethe performance, integrity and risk goals of global capitalism.

Published by the American Bar Association in April 2016.