Corporate lawyers are lawyers who specializes in corporations law. They offer businesses advice on a host of issues. Issues that corporate lawyers handle may include corporation’s financial matters as well as general commercial contracts and sometimes employment law related matters such as drafting employment contracts, or deal with unfair dismissal matters etc.
Roles and Responsibilities of Corporate Lawyers
The role of a corporate lawyer is to ensure the legality of commercial transactions, advising corporations on their legal rights and duties, including the duties and responsibilities of corporate officers. In order to do this, they must have knowledge of aspects of contract law, tax law, accounting, securities law, bankruptcy, intellectual property rights, licensing, zoning laws, and the laws specific to the business of the corporations that they work for.
In recent years, controversies involving well known companies such as, Walmart and General Motors have highlighted the complex role of corporate lawyers in internal investigations, in which attorney-client privilege could be considered to shelter potential wrongdoing by the company.If a corporate lawyer's internal company clients are not assured of confidentiality, they will be less likely to seek legal advice, but keeping confidences can shelter society's access to vital information.
Profession of Corporate Lawyers
Most corporate lawyers work in law firms, often in large or mid-size firms that have corporate law departments. Corporate law departments may include attorneys with subspecialties, such as mergers and acquisitions work or venture capital work. Also some corporate lawyers become partners in their firms.
Corporations of all types, from insurance companies to airlines to manufacturers, often hire in-house counsel, with large corporations generally having a larger number of in-house counsel than smaller companies. A limited number of attorneys who specialize in corporate work, particularly securities work, work for the government, most often for agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Key Skills for Corporate Lawyers
A corporate lawyer needs to be good at working with tight deadlines, function well under pressure and have good communication skills. A good knowledge of general corporate law but also contract law, tax law, insolvency and bankruptcy, as well as regulatory/securities law is useful. In addition, corporate lawyers need first-rate writing skills. They need to be proficient in two types of writing—first, in legal writing, because they must draft contracts, briefs, and other legal documents.
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If you have further inquires, please do not hesitate to contact Tannet at anytime, anywhere by simply visiting Tannet’s website english.tannet-group.com, or calling Hong Kong hotline at 852-27826888 or China hotline at 86-755-82143422, or emailing to tannet-solution@hotmail.com. You are also welcome to visit our office situated in 16/F, Taiyangdao Bldg 2020, Dongmen Rd South, Luohu, Shenzhen, China.
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