Inhouse counsel
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People Anatomy™
A spotter’s guide to the men and women of finance. 
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Inhouse counsel
/ˈɪnhaʊs ˈkaʊns(ə)l/ (n.)
A peculiar breed of flannelwright whose chief expertise resides in:
- (i) knowing enough about the law to frame a sensible question about it for someone else, but disclaiming enough knowledge to competently answer the question by herself; and
- (ii) having the tactical acumen to throw just such a hospital pass without anyone twigging that she has done it.
You can find detailed criteria — what it takes to excel at the job of steering emails — here.
The person who proves best at this behaviour over a sustained period of time gets to be general counsel.
Inhouse counsel are different from normal lawyers: more work-shy, less heroic about the number of hours, on the bounce, they can remain engaged in utter tedium without collapsing and being stretchered out. But then, without the time and attendance yardstick, the sole dimension of sustained concentration when gripped in the jaws of boredom and confusion is no great advantage.
In this and many other ways their incentives are inverted. Where a private practice lawyer is a profit centre: one that profits from discord — the more of it, and the longer it takes to untangle, the better — an in-house lawyer resolutely is not. Inhouse counsel don’t generate revenue: they can’t — they are not allowed to. They cost revenue. This is not just by coincidence: the legal department is by its very ontology a cost centre. This does not stop giddy general counsel, from time to time, alighting on the idea that perhaps they might like to be a profit centre. To be sure, this would be an excellent corrective to the unimaginative disposition usually held by the Chief Operating Office when it holds the legal function in contemplation: that it is a blight, a cost, a drag and, at the end of the day, a roadblock: a costly department stocked with expensive professionals whose main talent seems to be devising creative ways of saying “no”.
“But many of our lawyers are commercial and creative, and they do contribute to the successful execution of banking deal flow.” Indeed; this is quite so. “So, why should we not be credited with our contribution?”
There are many simple, axiomatic answers to this question: the importance of segregating those divisions whose primary mandate is defensive from those whose role is to seek out reward — that kind of thing. But one can quickly become bogged down with distracting details and lose sight of the wood for all the argumentative trees. An easier way of remembering and shutting off this debate before it gets going is the single word: “Enron”. That is what happens when you turn a risk control function into a profit center.
There is a cautionary tale the JC has a