Hiring a Chief Legal Officer Can Help You Get Better Advice
In running your business, getting sound legal advice, whether it’s about hiring employees, a law you’re not sure about, or a legal case that you’re involved in, is so important. Good and bad legal advice can make or break a particular case, and relying on bad legal advice can have dire consequences for you and your business.
When you might not have a legal background, or if your business is on a tight budget, it can be difficult to know who to trust to give you legal advice. In some cases, businesses will turn to trusted friends or associates in other professions who seem to know what they’re saying. However, this can be a dangerous thing to do if their advice is not sound.
This article will explain what a Chief Legal Officer does, and how hiring one can potentially save you trouble and money in the long run.
What’s the Problem With Poor Legal Advice?
Bad legal advice can lead you down a dangerous path. It might tell you that suing someone in a particular situation is a good idea when it can really lose you a great deal of time, money, and stability within your company. It might also have you writing a contract with clauses that don’t represent what you want to see, that goes against current laws, or that might find you in a difficult legal situation later on.
When seeking legal advice, it is very important that you know the legal advice you are getting is from someone who is licensed to practice law and knows what they are doing. This means seeking help from a qualified legal professional who works in the field you want to know more about. Seeking legal advice from someone who doesn’t really know what they are talking about may save you money in the short-term, but can cost you way more in the long term with problems that will be expensive and stressful to clean up.
What is a Chief Legal Officer?
A Chief Legal Officer (CLO) is a lawyer who is hired, on a part-time, full-time, or as-needed basis, to address legal concerns for a business. This lawyer is an off-site executive who will work with your business on a long-term basis to help you address any legal needs that pop up, from litigation to contract to draft. This lawyer should at a minimum be skilled in the area of employment law.
Some items that CLOs usually help with a number of vital aspects of a business, including (but not limited to): hiring and onboarding, terminations and severance packages, performance reviews, and employee management, policy compliance and handbooks, human rights and disability accommodation, and contract drafting and reviews. These items are all things that a company technically might be able to manage on its own, but it is easy to run into problems if any of them are done incorrectly.
Hiring a CLO is also much cheaper than hiring a lawyer for an individual issue. A CLO will work at a reduced rate for a longer period of time than a regular lawyer, who will usually offer you a set rate retainer to deal with one issue or a series of connected issues.
How Can a Chief Legal Officer Protect You from Poor Legal Advice?
A CLO will become a one-stop shop for your business when it comes to legal advice. You will no longer need to worry about what will happen if a legal issue comes up, and the executives will not need to turn to people in their lives for advice when they can go straight to their trusted source: the CLO.
A CLO will also know much more about your business than the average lawyer would when taking your case. They will already know the whole history and context of your problem without you having to repeat it, and they will be able to deliver quick, same-day advice that is already tailored to what you need. You will not need to waste money speaking to a new lawyer and filling them in on the situation since your CLO will already know what they need to address the problem.
By having a CLO, you can ensure that all of your legal problems are taken care of quickly, efficiently, and for a fraction of the cost of hiring a lawyer each time something new comes up.
Conclusion
Taking bad legal advice can have a number of dire consequences, from costing you money to causing you to have to engage in a lengthy legal battle. If you are new to running a business or new to interacting with the law, it can be tempting to accept legal help from anyone willing to offer it, especially if they are offering cost-effective solutions. However, this can be dangerous, and there are better ways to solve your problems, such as hiring a CLO.
Hiring a CLO can save any business, whether it is an established place or a new startup, a lot of money, stress, and bad information. CLOs work closely with a business and provide legal help for any matter that pops up, from contracts to employee management to human rights complaints. Hiring a CLO is a cost-effective way to ensure that you are constantly getting the best legal advice on the market.
If you are interested in hiring a CLO for your business, please contact the qualified team at Achkar Law.
Contact Us
If you are an employer who is interested in hiring a Chief Legal Officer, our team of experienced workplace lawyers at Achkar Law can help.
Contact us by phone toll-free at 1 (800) 771-7882 or email us at [email protected], and we will be happy to assist.