The In-House Counsel as Legal Risk Manager and Business Partner: Are These Roles Compatible?

Massimiliano Carpino, Global General Counsel, GUCCI

With a view to reducing the gap between the perception of the legal office (both internally and externally) and its actual role (communicated and implemented) and mental attitude, I wrote and circulated an internal document entitled “The In-House Counsel as Legal Risk Manager and Business Partner: Are These Roles Compatible?” My attorney colleagues and I were attempting to share a broad overview of how in-house counsel must be capable of thinking and acting in various apparently contradictory ways. Basically, I’m talking about what I’ve always called a “healthy feeling of imbalance”, meaning the comfortable feeling that comes from the knowledge that a precarious position is the norm.