7 ms·

So anyone running a company with lawyers is a lawyer?

• michaelochurch 12y ago
  Lawyers answer to other lawyers, up to the GC, who reports directly to the board. Law firms can't be publicly-traded or owned by non-lawyers. It makes it hard to liquidate, but it's generally good for them. It tends (at least in theory) to give them the autonomy and respect of a true profession. In truth, it's never that simple, but the idea is right.
  • otoburb 12y ago
    Would the appropriate engineering analogy then be professionally recognized/credentialed technology teams rolling up into to a similarly credentialed General/Chief Technology Officer who also reports directly to the board? If we believe wikipedia, GCs used to mainly report directly to the CEO, and still do for smaller firms. For larger firms, it's not unusual for GCs to report to the board in conjunction with CEOs[1]. Going back to the idea of technologists reporting up to technologists, this is probably the same end state where the Professional Engineer (PE) designation for "software engineers" in the US is ultimately trying to get to. I think it's the NCEES and IEEE that are driving this[2]. It doesn't seem to me that you'd endorse the NCEES-IEEE vision for other reasons articulately expounded on at length on your blog, but would like to get your thoughts on it nonetheless since I don't think it's been touched on much in this forum recently. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_counsel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_counsel [2] http://www.todaysengineer.org/2009/Sep/Software-PE.asp http://www.todaysengineer.org/2009/Sep/Software-PE.asp
  • cridenour 12y ago
    Got it. So the equivalent would be for CTOs to report only to the board?