Corporate Counsel Panel Wednesday at @SWLawNews

On Wednesday, I will moderate a panel discussion of in-house corporate counsel. Its title is “Corporate Counsel Panel: Key Insights for Attorneys and Marketing Professionals.”

The sponsor is the Southwest chapter of the Legal Marketing Association. I had the opportunity to play the moderator role last year, and I’m looking forward to doing it again. This year, the LMA has invited four in-house counsel. They come from a variety of public and private companies.

As I’ve pointed out before, what is on the minds of general counsel is very much of interest to Arizona Attorney readers. Right after lawyer discipline and what judges are thinking, the decision-making by general counsel is a prime topic of interest. And no wonder: Companies purchase a huge amount of legal services every year, and the General Counsel is the one who picks the outside lawyer and firm to get the work.

Last year’s corporate counsel panel, Sept. 22, 2011 (photo by Diana Wright)

But as I prepare for Wednesday’s event, I have a question for you: If I were only able to ask the panelists ONE question, what should it be?

Last year I asked the same question in advance of the event and was pleased at the responses.

Post your suggestion below, or send me a note at arizona.attorney@azbar.org.

In case you missed it, here is our roundtable discussion from the 2011 panel, as it appeared in Arizona Attorney.

And if you haven’t registered yet, here is a link to Wednesday’s event.

Our December 2011 cover story

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Corporate Counsel Share Insights

If you wanted to explore one component of the legal community that may serve as a bellwether for many others, you’d be wise to select corporate counsel.

These are the people on the leading edge of the economy, who have a sense when to hire lawyers and law firms freely, and when to take care of things in-house. They often interact with government and regulatory agencies, and they may know in a very direct way which way juries are tending. They can tell us a lot about the economy, government–business interaction, and the health of the legal market.

For those and other reasons, the Legal Marketing Association Southwest Chapter was wise to host another in its great series of Corporate Counsel Roundtables last week. (Before the event occurred, I wrote about it here.)

I was privileged to be asked to moderate the lunchtime conversation, and it was a hoot and a half. In fact, I couldn’t resist one of my dorkier pleasures: taking a cell-phone photo of the attendees as they watched me and the panel.

Legal professionals wondering why their photo is being taken

The praise for the great event goes to the three lawyers willing to sit in a hot seat and answer questions from me and the attendees.

Once again, let me thank:

• John Graham, General Counsel, North American Title Company
• Mike Reagan, EVP & General Counsel, Kahala Corporation
• Larry DeRespino, General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer, U-Haul International

Understand, these guys all have day jobs that keep them pretty swamped. Taking time out of a week with few minutes to spare is a great service. And, once there, they brought their “A” game. Each of them shared great insight and anecdotes on a range of topics the audience wanted to know. And then they added humor, to boot.

If there is a definition of “good job,” it would be the ability to work with people who take their work seriously without taking themselves too seriously. Thank you, John, Mike and Larry, for letting me have a good job on Thursday.

Thanks also to Kristi Phillips and the staff at Lewis and Roca, who shared their offices and their talents. Events like these take a huge amount of planning, and they handled it all with grace. (They were even kind enough to wrap me a plate of food to go, as I hadn’t gotten a chance to eat—thanks, Anna!).

Finally, thanks to AZ Business Magazine. Though I am most pleased to be able to tout my own publication, I have to send them my gratitude for sponsoring the event. Here’s looking to more of that kind of synergy in the future.

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