These days, the members of law departments are expected not just to advise on legal issues, but increasingly to also educate their business colleagues on legal matters. For example, many in-house lawyers are creating and delivering "anti-trust training programs" and delivering them to the managers and employees of the company.

In these sessions, participants learn basic principles about cartels, abuse of dominant positions, price-fixing and other similar offences, and to recognize and avoid the behaviors that could lead them, and their company, into serious trouble. This phenomenon, that is not new but nevertheless becoming more frequent, shows two interesting evolutions in the in-house legal profession:

The rise of compliance: corporate leaders increasingly expect the law department not just to deliver legal advice and handle legal files, but to prevent the company and its employees from breaching the law.

Whether this evolution is a good or a bad thing for in-house lawyers is another matter (some claim that you can't advise and police your client at the same time), that fact is that it has become common to see law department taking on a new role as "legal missionary" within their organization. For good or bad reasons, many lawyers see "training" (which often means just an information session) as the main tool, sometimes the only one, they can use to help their colleagues avoid doing the wrong thing, which explains why so many legal training for non-lawyers are popping up.

Indeed, antitrust is not the only topic were lawyers are now expected to influence people's behaviour: popular subjects also include commercial practices, privacy, intellectual property, insider trading, and harassment, just to name a few.

The growing importance of communication skills: Educating business people about legal matters does not require sharp legal skills: it requires good communication skills. Lawyers organizing a training do not have to solve complex legal issues, but through their speaking and writing, they must be able to draw and keep attention of busy managers for whom legal matters are hardly a top priority, and get their message through.

Being a good communicator demands another set of skills than being a good legal expert. Writing the typical legal document, with lengthy definitions, fully-fledged details and jargon for the happy few only, won't make it. Lawyers must leave their legal habits behind and start communicating in a way that works: speaking their audience's language, using visual communication (charts, pictures, diagrams) and not just texts, adopting a sharp, concise, simple and attractive writing and speaking style, delivering a powerful punch line instead and not just of seasoned legal analysis, this all constitutes some of the basic requirements.

This is carrying some lawyers too far away from their home base, and they won't make it. They'll stick to the familiar legal style and jargon, which works for dealing among lawyers but fails for educating managers. What are then the options for the general counsel? He or she could train the members of the law department in communication skills, or request a close cooperation with the HR department and the Internal Communication department.

Some general counsel have already made a step further: they have left their lawyers to what they do best, dealing with legal matters, and hired communication professionals in their legal team. Not external consultants, but full members of the legal department. Message to legal recruitment firms: your clients may increasingly be interested in non-legal profiles to fill in positions in the legal department.

Voir aussi : Frahan Blondé ( Mr. Antoine Henry de Frahan )

[+ http://www.frahanblonde.com]