Editor’s Desk

Not so long ago general counsel often found themselves shut out of business decisions. You’re too focused on risk, they were told. Things have gotten riskier since then, and in this issue of Today’s General Counsel, some risks — and the opportunities they create for legal officers who focus on them — are the subject of an article about the evolving role of the GC/Chief Legal Officer, by Bobby Balachandran. He highlights the new corporate reality in which the GC/CLO has become a key figure in formulating and implementing business strategy, largely because that office has responsibility for managing legal governance, risk and compliance efforts.

Clearly, an ongoing risk lies in the area of cybersecurity. In their article, Thomas Yohannan, Paul Lanois and Brett Williams highlight the emerging role of the Chief Information Security Officer. They suggest that wise CLOs partner with the CISO to their mutual benefit. These new titles and changing positions in the corporate hierarchy reflect how central risk management has become to business strategy.

One reason lawyers are good risk managers is the high level of risk to which their profession exposes them. For example, bad actors routinely try to use client accounts to move dirty money into the financial system and exploit the shelf companies that attorneys create to obscure the source of cash. A protocol that protects against violations of money laundering and antiterrorist regulations is the subject of an article by Timothy Stone and Martin Foncello. In another article, Mark Wilson and Gerald Klein discuss yet another kind of risk, one that may arise when your transaction firm litigates lawsuits that stem from those transactions. Attorney/client privilege and the possibility that a transactional attorney might be called as a trial witness are just two of the issues they reference.

The trade war has been prompting a gradual shift of business operations out of China and into India, a trend that accelerated with the onset of the coronavirus. Vijita Verma’s article discusses an act of the Indian Parliament, the 2019 Code on Wages, that will impact all businesses on the sub-continent.