Why hire an attorney who has a business background?

If you run a business, you want your entire team aligned behind your efforts.  Obviously, the Sales and Marketing personnel are interested in revenue and number of units sold, but does your support staff understand the sales process as well as fixed, variable, short term, and long term costs? 

Your legal counsel should be as interested in business as you are.  Counsel with a background in business can relate to your problems and offer solutions that make sense in your environment.  The legal experience provides the boundaries while the business experience provides the innovation and practical understanding.  In-house attorneys handling transactions need to be even-keeled, patient, detail-oriented individuals who can catch potential problems to save your business from disaster.  To do that, your counsel needs the breadth of knowledge from years of exposure outside of law schools, law firms, and legal departments.  To be a true team member, the individual you hire for this role should be comfortable interacting with all levels within the company and should be a potential resource to be tapped should a need occur on the business side.

If your legal counsel cannot relate to the truck drivers, the work crews, the sales reps, the office staff, the accounting team, the executives, and the board members, you may wish to consider a change.  Consider bringing in a well-rounded individual to represent your interests.

It may be legal, but is it right?

Hiring talent, wisdom, and experience in a down economy.

In this economy, many employers are filling positions with highly qualified applicants who possess the exact experience needed to do the job. It is truly a buyer’s market.

However, employers thinking about the long term (yes, we all believe the economy will turn sooner or later) should consider the applicants who have more to offer. Because it is a buyer’s market, now is the time to load up the bench. Take a look at the applicants with broader work experience and greater depth. Add a bit of wisdom to the workforce within your company. Instead of screening out those that do not check all ten boxes, ask your HR department to bring you some candidates with fresh view points. Perhaps you could use an infusion of thinking from outside your industry or perhaps a generalist would be able to bridge the gaps among departments.

Do you really need clones in every department? Should your sales reps have nothing but “sales” in their backgrounds? Do all of your programmers know everything about software and nothing about business? Has you legal staff done nothing since law school but offer opinions? Do your construction folks have any idea what makes a business profitable?

Now is the time to build strength while your competition frets about survival. Some strategically placed generalists who have experience and expertise in multiple areas may be just what you need to leave the competition in the dust.


It may be legal, but is it right?