Odeko’s Chief Legal & Administrative Officer Stephen Mar and executive coach and former F500 general counsel & secretary Mark Roellig explore the various functions that may fall to the company’s top lawyer — and how an ambitious in-house lawyer can lead these functions effectively.

Odeko Inc. General Counsel Stephen Mar and Mark Roellig, senior client advisor for Perkins Coie LLC, outline 8 value-adds that law firms should consider providing to their clients — free of charge. #ACCDocket #inhouse

Research shows that highly engaged teams significantly outperformed those in the bottom quartile. Here’s how to increase collaboration and find the leaders who will drive the cause.

Congratulations, you’ve survived your first three months as general counsel! So, what do you focus on next? You can already tackle the important legal issues du jour, but how do you advance the entire department — and your career?

The intent of this article is not to address either the legal or internal governance requirements for your company's board and committees, but to provide suggestions on ways to engineer your in-house processes to meet these requirements. This is the practitioner's guide to those processes.

I started this column nearly two years ago, and his will be my last one for the Docket’s Career Path column. So, I began to document my own learnings and rules for career success that I could reflect on and share with others.

In this article, I have simply outlined the lessons I have learned. By the way, the final lesson I would recommend is to start to develop your own list.

As our careers mature, we all play three, and maybe even four, distinct roles. To be successful in these career roles, there are five key attributes we all should strive to attain: curiosity and continuous learning; a drive for excellence; positive relationships; a moral compass; and effective use of our time.

It is incredibly valuable for legal departments to create and annually update a Strategic Long Range Plan, lovingly referred to as a “slurp” (SLRP). Simplistically, you take the enterprise’s major objectives and develop strategies and tactics for your department to advance each one.

There are many articles on how to find a job and how to succeed once you’re there. But what is the best way to leave your current position? Your exit can be as important as finding your new job.

After a long career, it is my view that the cloud approach is much stronger. It allows the team to reach better decisions and obtain superior results. More leaders should and will adopt it going forward. This enables the development of a group that enjoys working, learning from mistakes, winning, and having fun. You want to develop a team, or work with a team, in the cloud.

You should forget litigating with the mindset you may have been taught at a law firm, to prove you are “right,” or to satisfy some abstract legal principle. Your job is all about adding value to the business.

I have gone through this transition several times, and have some tips to share. Your team members watch you very carefully. They notice with whom you have coffee, lunch, dinner, and drinks, and who has a chance to interact with you. You need to act differently, and allocate your time fairly.

If you truly aspire to be a leader, you need to make developing a diverse and inclusive culture as important as any other operational and leadership action you take to drive performance.

My career and life journey has not been one with a real plan or real structure. So don’t feel bad if you don’t have yours figured out.

My answer to the correct structure, whether law, technology, or any support function always is: “It depends.” So, what does it depend on? Simplistically, the way to organize any corporate department is to follow the formula of company strategy and structure, stakeholder expectations, and then, lastly, populate it with individual team members.

You can give all the verbal recognition you want, but in corporate America, recognition and reward fall in the areas of base salary, bonuses, special rewards, and long-term awards, including options and restricted stock.

Inclusion allows for superior decision-making by bringing balance and equilibrium to any team or group and to the environment in which the team operates. And a diverse group will develop different strategies, approaches, solutions, and ideas.

An entity’s culture over time reflects the collective values of the leadership. And any communications on culture need to be totally aligned with those values or you lose credibility, which will have a negative impact on the organization.

Surround yourself with a strong team and exceptional people, develop and promote them, and they will tell you what to do to make you — and them — successful. These are the most important decisions you make.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about what judgment is, and I believe it definitely can be improved and practiced. I have concluded that, in the corporate environment, “good judgment” is making effective, productive decisions or actions in multidimensional settings that are aligned with business objectives.

One of my mantras is: “Never skimp on technology or education.” If you want your team to do exceptional things, you simply have to provide the tools.

Honest performance reviews are the only way your employees can make reasoned decisions about their future lives and careers.

Being an effective leader isn't about posters, slogans, memos, PowerPoints, or speeches. Your actions must be consistent with what you believe.

There is a disparity in the growth rates of gender and racial diversity as the rate of increase in gender diversity vastly outpaces that in racial diversity. This article sheds light on the phenomenon, and presents the implications of the findings.