Introduction
A lawyer does not only appear in court in the interests of the company. The essential functions of a specialist in the legal department are to formalize the organization’s activities in line with the existing legislation and not allow violations of the law that entail losses and costs. A lawyer also interacts with counterparties, partners, customers, and government agencies in the firm’s interests and applies in practice legal norms that are beneficial to the organization’s interests. A lawyer works with legal information – legislation and judicial practice. Regardless of the company’s size, a lawyer acts as a competent advisor to guide any rule of law. Decisions made by a lawyer affect the efficiency of a company.
Decisions to be made every week at work
The lawyers are involved in protecting violated rights, the punishment of those responsible, and the restoration of justice. The beginning of the work is the analysis of the case. After completing the legal analysis of the case, the lawyer proceeds to develop a legal position on the client’s issue. A case position is the formulation of a client’s claims or a logical and compelling story about what happened to the client from a legal point of view. The development of a position is a necessary stage of a lawyer’s work. Then the lawyer participates in the legal processes, working as a defender of his client’s interests.
All organizational decisions are made by a senior lawyer or head of the legal department. He sets deadlines, and distributes lawsuits among the workers. Such a lawyer appoints meetings at which the position on the case formulated by his subordinates is discussed. His responsibilities include regulating most of the processes in the organization and the general control over the execution of tasks. In addition, if it becomes evident to the senior lawyer that the employee is not coping with the duties, he can fire him, respectively, the senior lawyer also deals with personnel issues. The head of the legal department carries out legal expertise of draft orders, instructions, regulations, standards, and other legal acts prepared at the firm and participates in preparing these documents. For the decisions made by the senior attorney to have credibility among the staff, the chief lawyer needs to develop leadership skills (Sayyadi, 2019). Such a lawyer also clarifies the current legislation and the procedure for its application and provides legal assistance to structural divisions in dealing with claims.
Variables to consider when making decisions
Jurisprudence is a very complex industry that requires a certain mindset. A managerial position in this area adds a few more requirements to this list. So, to find the most profitable outcome of cases, contracts, and deals, the lawyer needs to have a well-developed ability to think logically and simultaneously process several possible situations. In today’s fast-paced world, the lawyer requires greater horizons and flexibility in decision-making and consideration of variables. To distribute tasks, one first needs to formulate a list of department tasks. The law department head should focus on such variables as the number of employees in the firm, the typical tasks they perform, their area of ​​specialization, and the nature and performance of employees. During the legal activity, it is necessary to take a structural approach to decision-making. This means that it is required to understand what the decision will make clearly; it is crucial to evaluate all possible options and the risk for each option.
Risks to face if decisions are made incorrectly
To improve the efficiency of the enterprise and reduce the likelihood of losses, it is required to monitor possible risks, including legal ones regularly, and focus efforts on minimizing them. In addition to the need to constantly make decisions, the lawyer’s work is connected with a continually changing legal framework and the need to stay late (Kane, 2019). All these circumstances increase the likelihood of making a mistake in the course of work. The lawyer must check the entire agreement for proper compliance with the law, for the absence of mutually exclusive clauses in the contract, and for the agreement’s content not to contradict the organization’s development strategy. In practice, if an employee makes a mistake, responsibility is distributed between him and his direct boss or ultimately falls on the boss. The chief lawyer or a senior lawyer are considered responsible because their tasks are to check the activities of employees. Making a mistake is directly reflected in the bonuses for the responsible employee of the legal department. A firm leader should ensure that advice to clients is not based on small, biased data sets (Grady, 2018). If the quality of satisfaction with the services provided decreases, the company might lose customers and, as a result, its revenue will decrease. That is why, at all stages of making significant decisions, one should observe the utmost accuracy and clarity to avoid shortcomings.
References
Grady, K. (2018). Decision making, lawyers, and lessons not learned: Why lawyers persist in making data-light decisions. Medium. Web.
Kane, S. (2019). The 10 challengers about a career as a lawyer. The Balance Careers. Web.
Sayyadi, M. (2019). How effective leadership of knowledge management impacts organizational performance. Business Information Review, 36(1), 30–38. Web.