Essential Functions Of A Corporate Lawyer

Author: Steve Dimic – Dimic Law Firm

A Corporate Lawyer is one of the best resources for a business to achieve success. They can perform a multitude of tasks that will not only assist you daily but also put you on the right track to always be prepared for challenges and have your company run smoothly. Businesses should have a clear understanding of how a corporate lawyer can help them in the long run.

If you are a business owner, it’s important to have a basic background in law nowadays, which is why enrolling in Introduction to Business Law is considered essential. Nevertheless, it would be best if you considered hiring a corporate lawyer, and here is why.

How to Hire a Corporate Lawyer

Corporate Lawyers, also known as commercial lawyers, can choose two models of work: Either they work for a law firm, or directly with the company. You can find Corporate Lawyer Calgary that fits both of those groups and that will match your expectations and workload better.

The main differences between those groups, aside from purely the place where they perform their activities, are who are their clients and who is their employer. 

Corporate Lawyers in Calgary that work in law firms are free to take more than one client and work on several cases all at once. They usually have the expertise of knowing the market of commercial law and can bring this knowledge to your company when working on your cases. However, law firms can be perceived as being too distanced from their clients, giving the impression that their job is not as personalized as it should be. This happens mostly when the firm has a larger team and works with an expressive number of clients. 

On the other hand, lawyers that work directly for a company will always focus solely on one client. Being employees, the lawyer or team of lawyers will take on any task that needs to be done, and will have the advantage of knowing the company personally, performing an artisanal job for their workplace. The downside is that you, as the boss, will be the one responsible for hiring the lawyers and keeping up with them at all times. 

Bigger companies, more often than not, choose to follow a third lane when hiring lawyers: They choose to have both internal lawyers and an associate law firm working with them. 

To decide which one is best, you need to assess your needs and resources. 

Paperwork

No matter the area of practice, lawyers are well known for dealing with tons of paperwork daily, and a corporate lawyer is no different.

There is a lot of bureaucracy involved in running a business, and the legal aspect of it is filled with it. Your lawyers can help you write and review contracts, assemble documents that need to be taken care of and participate in the communication with your clients and commercial partners. 

More importantly, lawyers will take care of M&A for you, and conduct the purchase or selling of companies for you, a task that can be overwhelming and highly demanding.

Even for the most experienced business owner, there is always something in their commercial activities that requires one extra signature—or one notarized copy, or one better look at a policy—that slips through and causes, at the minimum, an inconvenience. For every magnitude of the issue, a team of corporate lawyers will always be ready to assist you.

Also, Check – 7 Cases When You Need To Hire A Family Lawyer

Regulatory Compliance

On the same line as paperwork, regulatory compliance is a function that requires an expert eye to navigate through, being the most important function of a corporate lawyer. 

Every business owner wants their company to thrive and be recognised as an ethical player in the economic sector, so gathering a team of compliance lawyers is vital. 

What it means is that the lawyer must keep themselves updated regarding regulations, laws and politics that can affect the industry in which their clients work. There is no worse feeling than receiving a fine for not complying with current regulations, just because you failed to analyze it better. 

The lawyer will keep track of the company’s operations, and work on every step that needs proper documentation, certifications, validations or, even further, a complete restructuring of the business model. The legal team, alongside corporate, will hire experts in other areas of study to make sure that the company is doing everything it should, legally, be doing—while also avoiding actions that could lead to serious lawsuits and fines.

As an example of this scenario, an oil & gas industry can hire a corporate lawyer to track their compliance with greenhouse gas emission regulations and make sure that they are not emitting more than what the law allows them to.

Advice

Having a corporate lawyer working with or for you is still a great idea even when you feel like your company is too small to need one, or when there is not much to report in a commercial law field. 

One of the main functions of your lawyer is to provide legal advice whenever you ask for or need it. If you, as a business owner, are considering changing your commercial activities, or if there is something that you wish to understand better, your lawyer can guide you through the best path for your interests. 

They will provide a clear view of the situation that you want to change, and suggest which is the best approach. Once and for all, you can be confident that your business is secure, and that your decisions will only have a positive impact on the future.

Litigation 

Finally, another function of your lawyer is to represent you in court. Not everything in the business world is flowers, so you will likely face conflicts that can severely harm your company.

To avoid further damages, you can count on your lawyers to defend you against third parties, or to demand your rights on your behalf. 

If you have a large business, it is, however, a good idea to have a litigation team work independently from other corporate functions, as lawsuits can be very demanding and will require extra care from your lawyers. 

No matter the size of your company, the industry field or how you choose to run it, having a lawyer by your side is essential.