In-House Counsel, Outside Help

Keyna Skeffington, senior legal counsel at Minneapolis-based Medtronic, Inc., agrees: “Sometimes an amendment might do something that might be typical in the industry, but you haven’t seen it that often. Then it might be a better use of your time to have an outside lawyer do it. They can do it quickly, and your inside lawyers can be working on things for which their knowledge of the company is much more critical.”

An Independent Opinion

Some firms hire an outside lawyer just to get an outsider’s point of view. Topp, for instance, is sometimes called upon “when they want an outsider’s view of whether something is risky or not,” she says. “Senior leadership will sometimes listen more to an outsider opinion.”

Outside lawyers can also give clients information about business trends. “They’re interested in what their outside lawyers are seeing other clients do,” Topp says. “You can bring creative ways to structure relationships that other clients are experimenting with. You can say, ‘I’ve seen this work here, it’s been a disaster over here.’ You can bring a wealth of experience of what has worked and hasn’t worked.”

Outside lawyers can also be important for companies that need to investigate potential wrongdoing within the firm. Tourek, who is his company’s chief ethics officer, says that he hasn’t yet hired an outside lawyer to investigate a potential in-house problem with ethics or legality, “but if it were the right type of complaint, I would certainly reserve the right to retain independent counsel,” he says.

No one wants improprieties to investigate, of course, any more than they want litigation, complicated issues, or any of the other legal problems of business life. But between in house and outside legal help, Minnesota companies have the tools they need to cope.