Legal Counsel

• A legal counsel is an attorney who provides advice, guidance, and representation for clients who include individuals, corporations, and organizations. This position can encompass a wide variety of roles, from providing one-on-one client representation in civil and criminal cases to leading a company or nonprofit organization’s legal team and supporting compliance and litigation efforts.
• While a legal counsel can work from an independent practice, they can also work directly for an organization. In either case, the legal counsel provides oversight and direction for individual and organizational legal compliance, represents their client during litigation, and aids in complex legal decision-making and negotiations.

Legal Counsel Duties and Responsibilities

• While the responsibilities of a legal counsel can depend on their area of practice, we identified several core duties that tend to carry over:

Provide Legal Guidance

• One of the legal counsel’s most significant duties is providing advice and guidance to clients, whether they’re individuals or organizations. This can include general legal advice on best practices for compliance, input on business decisions and contract negotiations, and legal strategies for litigation and other legal activities.

Represent Clients

• The legal counsel represents clients at hearings and trials. Prior to the proceeding, the legal counsel gathers relevant information, sometimes requesting documents from other involved parties to build the client’s legal case. During trials, the legal counsel presents arguments to a judge or jury, while at a hearing the counsel may negotiate on their client’s behalf.

Conduct Legal Research

• Legal research is another key duty of the legal counsel. They may consult previous case information to determine its relevance to their client’s current concerns or may locate information on specific laws pertaining to their client’s activities. In some cases, a legal counsel may conduct research based on their client’s specific questions in order to provide accurate and timely advice.

Draft Legal Correspondence

• A legal counsel drafts documents related to their client’s activities, which can include statements, contracts, or agreements. In this aspect of the job, the legal counsel ensures that the agreements are readable and enforceable and that they represent their client’s best interests. They may also send letters on their client’s behalf, such sending as a cease and desist letter to a party infringing on the client’s copyright.

Ensure Compliance

• A legal counsel also ensures that their clients comply with laws and guidelines related to their business or other activities. While this largely relates to providing legal guidance and advice, the legal counsel also needs to anticipate changing laws and codes that their client may not be aware of and take action to ensure that the client does not violate these laws.