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That doesnt match the training, approach, nor skillset of the lawyers I know. They advise on legal matters, the client decides based on the sum total. Lawyers

That doesnt match the training, approach, nor skillset of the lawyers I know. They advise on legal matters, the client decides based on the sum total. Lawyers would explicitly avoid confusing legal opinions and business ones. Then again, my lawyer friends aren't google lawyers.

pluma 8y ago
Seconded. Most general advice ("IANYL/TINLA") I've heard from lawyers in Germany about e.g. GDPR boiled down to "1. Don't. 2. If in doubt, see 1." -- it's their job to recommend against taking any risks even if the risks are sometimes necessary. It's your job as a business to assess whether that risk is still worth it.
Bartweiss 8y ago
The only actual business decisions I've seen corporate lawyers make are "no, that project is too legally risky to do". And even then the decision technically belongs to someone else, it's just that no one involved was both willing and able to contradict them. Anything beyond that pretty much reduces to "here are the legal options available, and their likely legal consequences." Which is how things should stand - obviously morally, but even from a "ruthlessly maximize shareholder value" perspective. It's at least possible that reputational damage cashes out as a bigger financial risk (e.g. via lost staff, failed recruitment, or new regulations) than increased damages from lawsuits. Corporate counsel is almost certainly not the most qualified to calculate the size and likelihood of those risks. (And morally, of course, it would amount to Pichai et al abdicating responsibility for Google's decisions.) I suspect counsel does have an outsize effect on these decisions, but not because they have final authority. Rather, the risks they present are generally large, immediate, and quantifiable. People tend to prioritize even unlikely risks of that sort against the slow, ambiguous decay of destroying a reputation or failing to follow a changing industry.

pluma 8y ago

Seconded. Most general advice ("IANYL/TINLA") I've heard from lawyers in Germany about e.g. GDPR boiled down to "1. Don't. 2. If in doubt, see 1." -- it's their job to recommend against taking any risks even if the risks are sometimes necessary. It's your job as a business to assess whether that risk is still worth it.

Bartweiss 8y ago

The only actual business decisions I've seen corporate lawyers make are "no, that project is too legally risky to do". And even then the decision technically belongs to someone else, it's just that no one involved was both willing and able to contradict them. Anything beyond that pretty much reduces to "here are the legal options available, and their likely legal consequences." Which is how things should stand - obviously morally, but even from a "ruthlessly maximize shareholder value" perspective. It's at least possible that reputational damage cashes out as a bigger financial risk (e.g. via lost staff, failed recruitment, or new regulations) than increased damages from lawsuits. Corporate counsel is almost certainly not the most qualified to calculate the size and likelihood of those risks. (And morally, of course, it would amount to Pichai et al abdicating responsibility for Google's decisions.) I suspect counsel does have an outsize effect on these decisions, but not because they have final authority. Rather, the risks they present are generally large, immediate, and quantifiable. People tend to prioritize even unlikely risks of that sort against the slow, ambiguous decay of destroying a reputation or failing to follow a changing industry.