Inhouse legal team of the year: Difference between revisions

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{{a|people|[[File:Legal awards.png|450px|thumb|center|Just a golden envelope away]]}}To bring some rigour to the annual [[Awards]] season, and short of some kind of centralised games whereby different legal teams gather together to duel, or compete in a series of professional disciplines — [[tedium]] endurance events and so on — the [[JC]] is pleased to announce some standardised criteria by which judging panels, who plainly have no clue otherwise — to assess finalists for [[inhouse legal team of the year]] [[Awards|award]]s.
{{a|people|{{image|Legal awards|png|Just a golden envelope away}}}}To bring some rigour to the annual [[Awards]] season, and short of some kind of centralised hunger games whereby different inhouse legal teams gather to duel, or compete to the death in a [[tedium]]-endurance heptathlon — the [[JC]] today publishes standardised criteria by which judging panels who plainly have no clue otherwise — may assess finalists for [[inhouse legal team of the year]] [[Awards|award]]s.


Any experienced [[inhouse lawyer]] will tell you, the following are the core skills:
As any experienced [[inhouse lawyer]] will tell you, the following are the core skills:


*'''Timeliness of brief''': How reliably does your team sync to the magical 6pm deadline before dropping a “drafts required by open of business tomorrow” instruction on [[Private practice lawyer|external advisors]]?
*'''Timeliness of brief''': After an indolent day spent in [[Continuing professional development|CPD seminars]] and [[panel discussions]], how reliably can you hit the magical [[6 p.m.]] deadline for dropping a “drafts required by open of business tomorrow so help me” instruction on [[Private practice lawyer|external advisors]]?
*'''Inexplicable delay''': For how many weeks does your team leaves drafts — whose immediate turnaround it signalled was a matter of life and death, and to accommodate which, the [[Private practice lawyer|external legal team]] rearranged long-standing plans for the theatre, wedding anniversaries and so on — before deigning to look at them?
*'''Inexplicable delay''': For how many weeks can you leave the aforementioned drafts — whose immediate turnaround you expressed to be a matter of life and death, and for whose production the [[Private practice lawyer|external team]] rearranged long-standing plans to attend the theatre, celebrate wedding anniversaries and so on — before deigning to look at them?
*'''Can I speak to a partner please?''' How disdainful, on average, is the team to the [[Private practice lawyer|junior lawyer on the external team]] should {{sex|she}} try to answer uninformed questions about a document {{sex|he}} has just spent sixteen hours preparing?
*'''Yes, but can I speak to a partner please?''' How disdainful can you be to the [[Private practice lawyer|junior-most lawyer on the external team]] should {{sex|she}} try to answer your uninformed questions about a document {{sex|she}} has just spent sixteen hours preparing?
*'''[[Red-herring ninja]]dom''': How comprehensive is the team’s knowledge of the punctuation, typography, weight, leading and style of the firm’s legal name wherever it appears in a [[prospectus]]?
*'''[[Red-herring ninja]]dom''': How comprehensive is your knowledge of the punctuation, typography, weight, kerning, leading and style of the firm’s legal name wherever it appears in a [[prospectus]]?
*'''Mark-up pedantry''': Beyond the inherent pedantry of the [[red-herring ninja]], how brazenly superficial are the teams usual amendments to perfectly sound legal drafting? Additional points for refusing to hear of modifications to your own mangled syntax;<ref>{{Bold full stop}}</ref>
*'''[[Mark-up]] [[pedantry]]/ambiguity''': Beyond the inherent pedantry of the [[red-herring ninja]], how brazenly superficial are your amendments to perfectly sound legal drafting? Points available for:
*'''Throw the associate under the bus''': How shamelessly will the team blame the most [[Private practice lawyer|junior member of outside counsel team]] — the same one whose name the team keeps forgetting and whose legal assurances count for nothing in the “can I speak to a partner please” category — for neglecting to prepare and circulate “critical legal documentation” that has, in fact, been in every inbox since 4.30 am on the Saturday morning immediately following the 6pm request for it?
:*refusing to hear of modifications to your comments notwithstanding their illegibility, incomprehensibility or irrelevance;<ref>{{Bold full stop}}</ref>
*'''External law-firm management''': How feverishly insistent is the team in requiring all external spend over £2,500 to go through a mandatory three-way bidding process?
:*how rigorously you [[mark-up]] closing agendas, bible tables of content and [[process agent]] appointment letters, relative to your substantive input — [[if any]] — on the deal documentation;
*'''[[Panel discussion]]s''': Additional marks will be awarded for persistent participation in yet another “stimulating discussion about Phase 3 regulatory IM today!!!”
:*the ''inscrutability'' of your [[mark-up]]: a question mark, exclamation point or other cryptic glyph, annotated airily in a margin, ''apropos'' nothing but just hovering there, transcendent, above the fray, exuding other-worldly wisdom without giving anything away, leaving [[Private practice lawyer|external counsel]] the task of extracting meaning from it and converting that into a positive textual amendment, over which you then have a free option: if it turns out to be brilliant, you can take all credit; if it is not, you can ...
*'''Throw the associate under the bus''': How shamelessly will you blame the most [[Private practice lawyer|junior member of outside counsel team]] — the one whose name you keep forgetting and whose thoughtful explanations count for nothing in the “yes, but can I speak to a partner please” category — for neglecting to prepare and circulate “critical legal documentation” that has, in fact, been in your inbox since 4.30 a.m. on the Saturday morning immediately following your [[6 p.m.]] request for it?
*'''External law-firm management''': How insistent are you in requiring any external spend over £2,500 to go through a mandatory three-way bidding process?


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