Cost Effective Out-House General Counsel Legal Solutions

I have had many discussions with business owners expressing frustration about Corporate/Business lawyers that companies and in-house counsel have been trying to address for many years – the high cost and opportunity lost of traditional law firm services. The business model of traditional law firms does not work for start-ups and many established companies are not receiving cost effective representation when retaining traditional law firms to perform their corporate legal work. Retaining an “Out House General Counsel” offers a solution to these frustrations by providing cost-effective, value-based, general counsel services to start-up, fast-growth and mid-size companies. With over fifteen years of corporate legal experience (both transactional and litigation), I provide industry proven, senior level general counsel attorney experience to companies for a monthly retainer well below the cost of a traditional hourly rate law firm and with none of the overhead of adding a new legal department which makes it possible for companies to enjoy all of the advantages of having an experienced “out-house” general counsel contributing to the success of the management team.

The entire business model of corporate law firms is going to have to adapt to the current market. With all the “online” legal services available, lawyers can’t assume that companies will turn to them when transactional legal issues arise. Today, many small and mid-size companies are being priced out of the law firm market and are looking for alternative ways to get legal services. Nothing takes the place of a business lawyer. My "Out-House General Counsel” practice provides business clients with critical corporate legal services replicating, as much as possible, the methods, approach, and style of an "in-house" law department. It is a cost-effective solution to the high price of traditional law firm lawyers.

To get more information about this program, feel free to contact me at dalexander@outhousegeneralcounsel.com

The Do's and Dont's of Online Employer-Employee Recommendations

For those of you who know or follow me, you know that I am a big fan of LinkedIn. In fact, I invite you to join my LinkedIn network at http://www.linkedin.com/in/dalex2 and post a recommendation that I can share on my profile. However, if you are an employer or manager and an employee asks you to post a LinkedIn recommendation for them....beware.

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I have been discussing this issue with some of the leading employment lawyers in Los Angeles and they all agree that employers and managers need to be careful when posting recommendations or testimonies about their employees. The recommendation feature of LinkedIn that allows users to write flattering online recommendations about others' work has become a popular way to shower praise on LinkedIn contacts-and to draw accolades for oneself. But employment lawyers warn that managers and employers who do this for their employees must be careful. If official performance reviews are different in tone than the LinkedIn recommendation, the LinkedIn recommendation could be used by plaintiffs' lawyers in discrimination or wrongful termination cases that put an employee's performance at issue. Over the next few years we are going to see lawyers mining these social networking sites such as LinkedIn for evidence to support their claims.

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While it is not necessary to cease providing your employees with these online accolades, please make sure any LinkedIn recommendations or other online comments match up with what is included in their HR-sanctioned reviews.