Welcome to Practical Counsel, a weekly e-letter for the in house legal community - providing solutions to people issues for General Counsel, CLOs, and their teams.
I’m Jonathan Middleburgh, and for the last 35+ years I’ve been a member of the legal community, first as a law student, then briefly as a University teacher, then as a practising lawyer, and for the last 15 years as a consultant and coach to the legal community. I have as much real lived experience as anyone when it comes to figuring out solutions to the people issues that face in house lawyers.
What is Practical Counsel?
Practical Counsel is a weekly e-letter that provides practical advice and counsel on people issues to the in house legal community. These are the issues that keep GCs, CLOs, DGCs and their teams awake at night.
You, the readers, post in your problems to me. Those problems are anonymised and tweaked to obscure identity and preserve confidentiality. And I, as an expert in this field, provide my suggested solutions or questions to reflect on, in response to your mailings to me.
I will never reveal or compromise your identity. And I will send you a personalised response if I do use your mailing to me in compiling Practical Counsel.
Each issue of Practical Counsel will feature one unique people problem based on a problem or problems submitted by one or more of our in house readers.
In addition to my response to the problem either a General Counsel or Chief Legal Officer will provide their insights on the problem - an invaluable GC Insight of the Week.
Why should I subscribe?
Practical Counsel is free. It is the only weekly e-letter I am aware of that is focused exclusively on the people issues that affect GCs, CLOs, DGCs and their teams. And unlike other publications, all of the issues discussed are real life issues, with practical suggestions and solutions - not abstract theory or management consultant speak.
This is because I have been a member of the legal community for 30+ years - both as practising lawyer, consultant and coach to scores of in house lawyers and legal departments, and consultant and coach to scores of lawyers in private practice and law firms.
The Practical Counsel Advisory Board
To ensure Practical Counsel does what it says, as well as it can, I have assembled an Advisory Board of ‘industry’ experts who will provide regular feedback to me on my postings - to complement those of the readers.
The current Advisory Board consists of the following members:
Lauren Bellows - Managing Principal, Bellows Law Group; former President, American Bar Association
Phil Casey - Partner, Calfee, Halter & Griswold (US); ex Deputy GC, Fortune 500
Julia Chain - former GC, T-Mobile and Board Member, Deutsche Telekom, Consultant to the Legal Industry
Douglas Curtis - Senior Counsel, Arnold & Porter (US); ex Deputy GC, WeWork, Thomson Reuters
Bill Grimes - Deputy GC, NiSource (Fortune 500)
Robin Hilton - Partner, Sheridans (media and tech law firm, London)
Joe Kohler - Partner, Reed Smith; ex-MD, Legal, Co-Global Head of Global Markets, Deutsche Bank
David Moskowitz - ex-Deputy GC, Wells Fargo, now a Consultant
Anirudh Rastogi - Managing Partner, Ikigai Law (India)
Howard Rubenstein - Managing Partner, Asserson Law (UK; Israel); ex GC, Yell (FTSE 100)
Tapasi Sil - GC, South Asia, GE Renewable Energy
Christian Wells - ex GC, Yell (FTSE 100); ex Chief Counsel Europe, Sara Lee Corporation
Martin Wilson - Chief GC, Phillips (International Auction House); ex Global MD, GC, Christie’s
The Practical Counsel Community
Practical Counsel will be as much a Community as an e-letter. This is because the problems covered in Practical Counsel are common to in house lawyers across the world. All in house lawyers face the same issues around engaging effectively with their business, striving to become and remain trusted adviser to the business, managing risk in a complex and changing environment and managing self and managing others. By engaging with the content of each newsletter - and engaging with each other - Practical Counsel readers will be part of a supportive learning community, striving for excellence and to be the best version of themselves as in house lawyers.
Please engage with each other and engage with Practical Counsel by giving me regular feedback and suggestions for improvement; and by sending me your problems so that I can always be focused on the real life people issues that affect you and our the Practical Counsel Community.