The Job Description for a Law firm=s Ethics Analyst

Law firms sometimes ask us for a job description for A someone to have a responsibility in our firm to help us on ethics matters.@ The tendency today is to name the person with that job description as the "General Counsel" in the firm.  The perceived problem with having the person named as "Ethics Analyst" or "Ethics Counsel" is that to the public such titles suggest that the law firm has "a lot of problems with their ethics."

Assuming the law firm neither now has a General Counsel position within the law firm, nor now has anyone within the firm who wants to have such a position, my response is to suggest that the firm needs to decide if it wants a full or part time person.  A part time person may be desirable for a number of reasons.  Among those reasons are the availability of senior age attorneys who have the knowledge, credentials, and personal skills to do the job well, but who do not want to work full time. 

Also prominent among reasons to consider is whether a full time General Counsel will be "filling out his/her time" by working part of the time outside of the job of an ethics analyst. That will lose focus on the job of constantly analyzing what is occurring in the firm and improving the firm's ethics practices and procedures. On the other side of the coin, the attorneys in the firm need to feel the ethics counsel is truly devoted to that area within the firm and thereby has no additional interest in his/her self-starting investigation, initial question-asking and affirmative, self-starting, analysis of potential ethics problems.

Put this another way: most firms, except very large ones, simply have no need for a full time General Counsel, and would be best served by getting a top senior attorney as a part time employee (call it a consultant job if you must).  An employee/consultant who only spends one day a week  exclusively on ethics work will have a focus that will serve the firm much better than a full time employee who winds up spending four of five days a  week working on something other than ethics matters.

Once having identified time needs (e.g., full or part time job), the law firm could well describe either a full or part time position as follows.
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The primary focus of the job of the Law firm=s General Counsel is to:

• conduct in depth analysis of complex conflict issues,

• then advise the firm's partners and lawyers on the management of those issues and any associated risks to the law firm.

Other responsibilities of the General Counsel include:

• coordinating with partners to manage ethics issues,

• devising and implementing practical workable solutions to ethics issues.

• advising on client engagements, and

• answering ethics queries from attorneys and support staff at all levels.

The General Counsel will:

• document risk management policies and conflicts resolution processes, and

• prepare for the partners draft documents regarding ethics and conflicts resolution processes for distribution within the law firm.

The General Counsel must have:

• comprehensive knowledge of ethical rules, guidelines, and compliance issues; word processor and data entry ability;

• superior organizational, communication, and interpersonal skills;

• consistent attention to detail, and

• ability to analyze complex concepts and facts.

A J.D. degree is required, with at least four years of law firm work experience including at least one year directly related to ethics issues.

[Note: this job description is adapted from an advertisement by the firm of Fennemore Craig, P.C., an Arizona law firm.]