Met Pierre Schaubroeck verkoos de Raad van het Instituut voor Bedrijfsjuristen (IBJ) in het najaar van 2009 een voorzitter die in de voorbije drie decennia zijn sporen in het vak meer dan ruimschoots heeft verdiend.

With around 140 foreign competitors in Shanghai alone, firms outnumber deals in China. Better, then, to forget the usual reasons for moving to the Far East and adopt a realistic strategy instead.

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.

The purpose of this article is to help general counsel make the right analysis and the right decisions on matters relating to teamwork and team spirit in the law department.

En terme de création visuelle, les possibilités pour un cabinet d'avocats sont quasi infinies. Il s'agit dès lors d'effectuer les bons choix en fonction du message que veut transmettre le cabinet et des cibles qu'il souhaite toucher. Aujourd'hui, l'originalité et l'audace sont au goût du jour pour des structures jusqu'alors plutôt habituées à des formats standardisés.

In large groups with several business units (BU), the relationship between the Group General Counsel and the General Counsel of the different BU is often a delicate one. Basically, the BU General Counsel are very happy on their own. They don't need - or at least don't perceive the need - of an extra layer of management and oversight above them. They are often very experienced lawyers, with a deep knowledge of the BU and good ties with the BU managers, and they are the undisputed boss of the BU legal team. They don't need a Group General Counsel above them.

Managing a meeting is a simple things to do. At least, there a hundreds of books that will tell you how to do it, and you find in all corporate management programs at least one course on how to manage meetings.

Lockstep compensation schemes are often presented as the glue that keeps partnership together. A lockstep is supposed to erase conflicts of interests among partners, facilitate cross selling and client sharing, ensure a smooth and effective handling of cross-disciplinary projects, enhance team spirit and cohesion, allow greater specialisation of individuals and therefore a higher degree of expertise overall. A lockstep allegedly also allows clients to enjoy a genuine team experience when working with the law firm, instead of undergoing an addition of isolated relationships with a collection of unrelated individual lawyers. Finally, a lockstep, especially in full service or multi-niche firms, offers a form of solidarity among partners and collective resilience that is particularly appreciated in times of crisis.

Les associations d’avocats sont comme les mariages. Bon nombre ne résistent pas à l’épreuve du temps. Certaines se brisent dans mille fracas, d’autres végètent et sombrent dans une morne torpeur, beaucoup maintiennent une façade de collégialité camouflant mal querelles, rancœurs et immobilisme.  Et puis il y a les autres : les associations qui traversent les années avec confiance et vitalité, qui se renforcent plutôt que de se déliter au fil du temps, qui étonnent par leur stabilité, leur dynamisme et leur rayonnement. Quels sont leurs secrets ? Quels sont les ingrédients de l’élixir de jouvence éternel pour les associations d’avocats ?