Your growing business should not be waiting for something to come up, to call in a specialist. It should have a regular general counsel advisor, someone who is a jack of all trades...with an emphasis in law.
Many know the old saying a “Jack of all trades, master of none”, but this saying as you know it is actually incomplete. The full saying is “Jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than master of one”. Specialists have their place for what a business “needs”, but only when those needs are oriented towards task specific work requiring deep expertise in one area, versus day to day needs. For an ongoing basis, General counsel, like company management should have varied experience, and expertise in multiple areas to draw on for regular operations as well knowledge as to when to call in the specialists.
In the 2000’s and early 2010’s the vast majority of businesses shifted their hiring practices thanks to the information age to an era of hyperspecialization. Harvard Business Review even had an article on the topic in August of 2011. This article exemplified that technology would drive an Adam Smith Wealth of Nations progression of talent towards hyperspecialization. We have all heard the stories of hyperspecialists getting hired by companies. From the AI and machine learning programmers in silicon valley businesses, to securities law specialists, hyperspecialties have a necessary place in modern businesses. However, these heavy hitting super specialists should only be hired when the timing and specific needs are in place. Just as it would be insanity to lease a Formula 1 car as a company ”fleet” vehicle, businesses would be wasting valuable resources for the cost of specialists when the environment isn’t ideal for them to function and add value.
Law firms are known for being “full service” when they have a group of individual specialists in many areas of the law. But this full service is the same as a legal department store. Business owners, using these firms are shopping for specialists to help with specific company needs which have already arisen. The problem with this model is that by the time a business is looking into hiring a firm for a special need, the clock is usually ticking. Once they hire a firm, that’s when the billing clock starts really ticking. This is completely different than the model of having a general counsel attorney or a generalist in house. Someone who will be a few steps ahead of the business’s legal needs before the specialists get brought in and the meter starts running.
In the 1990’s when interviewed by Fortune Bill Joy said, “…the smartest people in the world don’t all work for us. Most of them work for someone else.” He was talking about Java programming and the challenges of recruiting talent to support a company’s technology. These foundational words were so profound they became known as "Joy's Law". These days hyperspecialists are guns for hire, and finding someone who can perform a niche role especially in law is just a few internet searches away. Many of these specialist attorneys are best to be hired by the hour or by the job, but they aren’t there and would not be suitable for the day to day tasks or advice, unless your business needs that exact specialty full time. Examples of this would include pharmaceutical companies who need full time IP counsel, or a bank who has a legal collections department for nonperforming loans, or a Taxi cab company who needs a full time insurance and litigation defense attorney. What this does not eliminate is the need for a legal business generalist or general counsel to help avoid the unforeseen general legal issues which may arise. Businesses should have the ability to lean on an advisor for general needs before bringing in the specialist “big guns”.
During the Renaissance generalists were lauded, and still are to this day for their knowledge and skills in multiple arenas. Leonardo Da Vinci’s interests included invention, drawing, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. The entire period coined a moniker people like this: Renaissance Man, or someone who has expertise in a variety of subject matters. These people still exist in various segments, but in the arena of business, they are the business athletes who can perform any number of tasks at a high level in broad subjects, but in business law are the ideal candidates for general counsel attorneys.General counsel attorneys function on a high level in a broad range of topics to assist your business growth. These attorneys are here to assist you creating policies, procedures and strategies towards the day to day operations and management of your company. A general counsel attorney with a solid business background will be able to provide insight to advance your business towards your goals in multiple areas. They are there to take your current goals, contracts, procedures, processes, and strategies and progress them and your business to the point of success, or to the point where adding a hyperspecialist can dovetail in to create the most value with the least cost.
In reality, being a generalist is a speciality in it own right, a company's general counsel should be a generalist/specialist in providing the insight of where business and law meet from a functional, strategic, compliance, and operations perspective. These people should also have the insight to know when a business will need the depth of knowledge of a hyperspecialist ahead of time.
Thankfully for smaller growing businesses who need general counsel the most, there is a new general counsel concept which allows business to get regular general counsel services without having to hire a full time attorney in house. Business owners get almost all of the advantages of inside counsel without having to hire someone full time, someone who is helping build the processes and procedures, someone who is regularly and frequently meeting with the business leaders. Someone who is familiar with your business and looking out ahead to avoid the pitfalls as well as preparing the company to call in and manage specialists when needed.
Your growing business should not be waiting for something to come up, to call in a specialist. It should have a regular general counsel advisor, someone who is a jack of all trades...with an emphasis in law.
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