Jonathan Smith – LBC Wise Counsel

Working with MyCompany PLC – a charter for external counsel

Jonathan Smith July 9, 2015

This guide is not a replacement for our retainer letter. It does not form part of our legal relationship. Instead it sets out guidance on what I think characterises good…

A framework for legal issue management (2) – the three categories. By Jonathan Smith

Jonathan Smith January 14, 2015

Handling the business as usual. The “business as usual” (BAU) category of activity covers those activities which represent the organisation’s purpose, as distinct from those activities which are necessary for…

A framework for legal issue management by Jonathan Smith – introduction.

Jonathan Smith January 10, 2015

Lawyers executing management roles – as General Counsel, Head of Legal or head of a department or division – have no shortage of advice available to them, especially when starting…

Products in Development

Jonathan Smith September 3, 2014

We spend a long time at work, and longer still if we include the time we spend thinking about work and our role in it, including what role or job…

Profit and Loss

Jonathan Smith June 23, 2014

Avid readers of the English legal press may recently have seen a lot of agitation about an international law firm, Dentons, and one of the commonly seen measures of law…

There but for the grace of God…

Jonathan Smith January 25, 2014

There but for the grace of God… Over the last few weeks we have been able to read the judicial and regulatory consequences of lawyers behaving badly. Not badly in…

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck

Jonathan Smith December 6, 2013

“A general counsel should never talk like a lawyer, or think like one.” I came across a debate on this statement on Twitter a little while back. One of the…

Being a good client

Jonathan Smith August 8, 2013

There seems always to be an awful lot of (often awful) discussion about the engagement of external law firms by in-house teams. Most of it concerns the charging model adopted…

When enough is enough

Jonathan Smith June 6, 2013

It’s not our fault, it’s the way we’re trained. Or at least it’s tempting to see it that way. The typical training process for a lawyer includes the “beasting”; having…

Alchemy on the banks of the Cam

Jonathan Smith April 4, 2013

This is a tale of alchemy practised in Cambridge’s sylvan groves of academe, but first, let me take you to a nearby pub on the banks of the River Cam.…

Under African Skies

Jonathan Smith March 3, 2013

Lawyers, especially those of us from the corporate world, seldom gain the opportunity to do something which is both truly ground-breaking and puts something back into the broader legal community.…

Taxing times

Jonathan Smith March 3, 2013

Benjamin Franklin wrote that, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. But the world of tax is increasingly less certain, especially if the…

Jury trial – a Pryce worth paying?

Jonathan Smith February 2, 2013

A lot of interest has been generated by the approach taken by the jury in the Vicky Price trial, in particular the apparent inability of the jury to grasp fundamental…

Are ABS so Fab?

Jonathan Smith February 2, 2013

We’ve all heard a lot about Alternative Business Structures (ABSs) lately, mostly which law firms and commercial organisations have succeeded in navigating through the thicket of registration requirements with the…

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