A trend is developing for general counsels to step outside their legal departments.
While the tumultuous economy has led to a series of changes in the way companies communicate, a new poll from Deloitte suggests that general counsels should start teaming up with the C-suite more often.
Just as corporate secretaries have started working more closely with investor relations professionals since the financial meltdown, so general counsels at some companies have started taking significant strides toward teaming up with chief financial officers.
According to the recent Deloitte poll conducted during a webinar, ‘General counsels and CFOs: collaborating for growth during the Recovery,’ 41 percent of participants report an increase in collaboration between their company’s general counsel and CFO in response to market volatility. But the ‘GC-CFO’ relationship is still seen as occasional (25 percent) or non-existent (3 percent).
With governance professionals and C-suite employees being tasked with more responsibilities due to labor shortages, debts and limited resources, a trend is developing for general counsels to step outside their legal departments. Twenty-five percent of respondents say that periods of business growth or expansion, which may include mergers and acquisitions and increased hiring, call for even more interaction between these executives.
‘This collaboration is important in all market conditions,’ says Steve Shapiro a partner at Pircher, Nichols & Meeks and former general counsel of Cole Taylor Bank. ‘So many corporate decisions are intertwined among our respective disciplines that I imagine it makes it more difficult for companies to function without that collaboration.’
Financial chiefs, on the other hand, have always been closely connected with other departments. For instance, earlier this year CFOs started rolling up their sleeves and getting personally involved in the measurement and reporting of a company’s CSR activities, says a study by Ernst& Young. The CFOs' relationship with chief sustainability officers has proved successful at many companies and has led to even more collaboration.
‘CFOs have long been seen as cross-functional players,’ says David Williams, chief executive of Deloitte Financial Advisory Services. ‘Now, we’re seeing general counsels step out of their legal department or business unit silos and into more strategic roles. CFOs and GCs are beginning to connect much earlier on transactions and other corporate events, but our findings show many companies still have a long way to go.’
Shapiro adds that in his experience as a general counsel, board members and CEOs were the ones that encouraged the relationships between the legal department and financial chiefs.
The poll included more than 1,300 business professionals from a range of industries, including technology, media, consumer, energy and resources industries, among others. 
 

