How do lawyers do a good job in enterprise legal consultation?

To be a lawyer, you should start from being a corporate legal adviser. More than ten years' career as a legal consultant has made me deeply fall in love with this profession. In the process of being a perennial legal adviser to many large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises, institutions and listed companies, I met with a nail. With experience, I deeply realized that it is easy to be a corporate legal adviser, but it is really difficult to be a corporate legal adviser. Not only do it with your heart, but also master some of the tips. What is a legal adviser, what does a legal adviser do, what qualities are needed, and what are the key points? These problems not only confuse young lawyers who are about to engage in legal consulting, but also confuse many lawyers who engage in corporate legal consulting. The original intention of writing this article is to learn from my own shortcomings, share experiences and make progress together. How to provide high-quality and efficient professional legal services and prevent legal risks to the maximum extent has become the trump card and mainstream business for law firms to engage in legal services. The comprehensive strength, cultural background, brand effect, teamwork, professionalism and professionalism of law firms have also become the hard criteria for consulting units to measure and select clients. Corporate legal adviser is not only the embodiment of the comprehensive quality of lawyers, but also the true portrayal of the cultural construction of law firms.

Legal adviser, in short, is a professional activity in which lawyers accept the employment of companies, institutions, other organizations and citizens according to law and provide various legal services to employers with their professional legal knowledge and legal skills. The work of legal counsel varies with the scale, demand and attention of the leadership of the consulting unit. From the formulation of the company's development strategy, management decision-making, to the management of the company's documents, legal counsel is needed to review and provide legal advice to help prevent, control and avoid the company's risks. It is a real escort of the company. Specific to the following items or all of them: drafting, formulating, reviewing or modifying contracts for enterprises, gradually improving the enterprise contract system, preventing contract disputes, and participating in relevant negotiations and consultations at the request of enterprises; Answering legal questions in the daily operation of the enterprise by answering consultation or issuing legal opinions; According to the actual situation of the enterprise, help guide the enterprise to establish and improve the modern enterprise system, find a management framework model suitable for the development of the enterprise, make it operate according to law, standardize the management behavior of the enterprise according to law, and bring the management activities of the enterprise into the legal track; According to the specific situation and needs of enterprise employees, teach relevant legal knowledge to enterprise employees and improve their quality; When the enterprise may face disputes, conduct legal argumentation, propose solutions, issue a lawyer's letter, or participate in mediation of related disputes; Agency enterprises participate in litigation, arbitration and reporting crimes according to law, and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises.

A good enterprise legal adviser should have at least the following qualities and abilities:

1. Be familiar with the laws, regulations and relevant national policies related to the business activities of this enterprise. Such as contract law, general principles of civil law, labor law, tax law, urban real estate management law, trademark law, patent law and so on. You must have at least an understanding of all business-related laws and regulations, and you must be familiar with some commonly used laws and regulations, because enterprises will consult legal advisers at any time during their business operations, and in most cases,

2. Have a deep knowledge of writing. In modern large enterprises, contracts that may be used in daily life include sales contracts, purchase contracts, loan contracts, asset purchases, equity transfer, labor contracts and various agreements. In the process of drafting various contracts and agreements, the written expression of contract terms must be accurate and unambiguous, and there must be no objection to the written interpretation. Therefore, corporate legal advisers are required to have strong writing skills.

3. Have good coordination and communication skills.

In the process of being an enterprise legal consultant, it is different from engaging in litigation. The most obvious difference between the two is that litigation cases can be fought alone, but corporate legal counsel can't. You must coordinate and communicate with the management and decision-making level of the enterprise in various ways, so that the thoughts and opinions of your decision-making level can be unified and convenient for your work.

4. Quick thinking and strong adaptability.

This kind of unexpected thing is bound to happen in the course of an enterprise's operation. If something happens to the enterprise, of course, you should seek legal counsel. As legal advisers, we must keep calm about this sudden accident. Quickly mobilize your mind and find the best solution to deal with emergencies in the shortest time.

You must have a deep understanding of the business activities of the company you work for.

It is best to put forward some useful suggestions for the business decision-making of enterprises. If you can only express your opinions on the legal issues of the enterprise and know nothing about the operation of the enterprise, then you are at most a qualified legal adviser, not an excellent legal adviser.

It is far from enough to define the specific requirements of legal counsel. To be an excellent legal adviser, we have to do several key steps to be perfect.

First, the lawyer's work before becoming a legal adviser

Before becoming an enterprise legal adviser, the lawyer directly faced the problem of contact with the consulting unit. On the one hand, lawyers need to know the scope of legal needs of consulting units, the difficulty of work and whether lawyers are required to attend classes. , decide the lawyer service fee and staffing. On the other hand, the consulting unit needs to sign an employment contract with the law firm where the lawyer is located. This can be said to be the first step, seemingly simple, which contains many negotiation skills, law firm costs, service content. The signing of such consulting units is mostly a way of cooperation in which lawyers personally contact the consulting units, and the consulting fees are relatively fixed and the fees are relatively small. In practice, according to the size of the law firm where lawyers work and the complexity of the service content, it is increasingly becoming a trend for lawyers to serve as consultants for "special legal services" such as government departments, listed companies or large-scale infrastructure projects. However, the consulting fee for such services is not agreed in advance, but determined after fully balancing the comprehensive factors such as service content, lawyer's service attitude and level, and social effect. In this case, the legal counsel is mainly based on teamwork, and the contractor interfaces with the consulting unit. The contractor's role here is very critical, and the task of preliminary work is relatively important. On the one hand, it provides the analysis report of the target company to the law firm that provides consulting services, so that the decision makers of the law firm can understand the current situation of the target company. It is also a quantitative assessment of your service attitude and work content. At the same time, you should have a work plan for the target company, and what kind of legal services lawyers can provide for the target company here, which is what we often call "the detailed rules for the implementation of the legal consultant work of the target unit". In this detailed rules, there are not only the specific work contents of lawyers, such as the detailed rules for the management of legal consultant documents, the detailed rules for lawyers' participation in negotiation of legal services, the detailed rules for the review of lawyers' documents, the detailed rules for lawyers' participation in company project meetings, and the detailed rules for the witness of lawyers' shareholders' meeting. , but also with the target company's various departments and specific document requirements, so that the target company has a clear understanding of the work of legal counsel. The importance of these two written materials. The director of the law firm should consult with the consulting unit according to the situation reflected by the lawyer, and the consulting unit should consider the service content and workload of the lawyer according to the detailed implementation rules provided by the lawyer. A special lawyer's fee is hundreds of thousands or even millions every year, which largely depends on these two materials of the contractor. As the saying goes, attitude determines everything, and details determine success or failure.

Second, the specific work of lawyers as legal advisers

This stage is the landing stage of the detailed rules for the implementation of legal counsel. The first step of the detailed rules for the implementation of the legal advisory work has been arranged, and specific detailed rules are needed in the next stage. As an enterprise legal adviser, you should pay attention to the following matters:

First of all, if the enterprise that just took over is not standardized, we must sort it out in time and formulate a set of practical rules and regulations for the enterprise. For example, the enterprise's contract management system, labor and personnel management system, and various risk management and prevention systems. When dealing with legal affairs of enterprises, the interests of enterprises are always the first consideration, and the fate of enterprises is regarded as their own destiny, which is related to the survival of enterprises.

Secondly, in the process of handling the company's legal affairs, we must make a good record of our work. Improve the production, sorting and filing of various legal documents, and quantify the specific work. When providing legal services, lawyers should make different legal service documents according to different legal service contents, so as to facilitate the management, arrangement and fixation of legal service contents. Lawyers engage in non-litigation legal business, and the commonly used types of documents are generally divided into suggested legal documents, explanatory legal documents, inquiry legal documents and recorded legal documents, including but not limited to the following documents:

1, "Contract or document countersignment form" is mainly a procedural requirement for lawyers' work. Only after the relevant personnel of the consulting unit have fulfilled the countersigning procedure can the lawyer carry out the countersigning process.

2. The contract registration form for submission for review is mainly aimed at the records of various contracts that occurred when each unit of the Industrial Management Department submitted to the legal adviser for review, which is a determination of the number of lawyers' work and a brief summary of the contract contents;

3. The contract review form is a record of the legal consultant's detailed review process of major contracts submitted for review, including problems in contract terms, legal risks, lawyer's suggestions, etc.

4. The legal consultation registration form is a record filled out by the legal adviser on the oral or telephone consultation matters of the consulting unit, including consultants, consultation contents, lawyers' opinions, etc.

5. Legal opinions mainly provide legal basis, legal analysis, revision opinions, risk tips, solutions and lawyers' suggestions for legal issues involved in legal affairs such as contracts and legal documents, and are the main records of lawyers' work.

6. The lawyer's work notes are a brief record of the consultant's daily work. According to the actual work needs of the consulting unit, we can decide whether to submit it to the consulting unit or law firm for reference within a certain period of time, reflecting the matters that lawyers need to deal with every day, the matters that have been dealt with, the matters that have not been dealt with and the opinions.

7. Lawyer's risk warning is mainly a risk warning legal service document issued when the legal matters involved are not suitable for issuing legal opinions, or only some legal risks need special warning;

8. Meeting minutes are documentary legal service documents made by consultants when they attend meetings held by consulting units or hold talks with consulting units on specific legal service matters. Meeting minutes are made and managed in a fixed format;

9. The Tracking Table of Legal Services for Negotiation Matters is a legal service document that records the legal services involved in the negotiation when the consultant provides legal services such as negotiation and consultation according to the Detailed Rules for Legal Services for Legal Consultants Participating in Negotiation Matters, and is managed and filed according to the principle of one thing and one table;

10. The summary of legal counsel's work is divided into two forms: monthly summary and annual summary. It is a report document made by the consultant to the consulting unit about his work.

1 1, "Lawyer's Opinion" is an extension of "Legal Opinion" service, which finds some common or representative events in the company, provides lawyer's opinion and reminds the company to guard against some common behaviors.

12, Lawyer work briefing is an extended legal service document formulated and managed according to the Detailed Rules for Legal Services of Lawyer work briefing. It is comprehensive, including suggestions, explanations and records.

13. The fact sheet is an explanatory legal service document provided by lawyers to help the company understand the relevant situation of legal matters.

14. "Legal information" refers to new laws, regulations, rules or policy information provided by lawyers to the company, which has an impact on the company.

15. The Request for Instructions is a written legal service document submitted by a lawyer to the company before engaging in legal services that must be approved by the company. The request should explain the necessity and specific circumstances of engaging in activities.

16. The work log is a simple record of lawyer's service matters, which is recorded according to the date.

Third, the importance of personalized service to lawyers.

Lawyers' legal services in consulting units are varied. Although regular legal consultation and contract review are still their main contents, they should provide customers with many personalized services according to their needs and abilities. The so-called personalized service is to provide unique services. This will prove the professionalism and sense of responsibility of lawyers and create conditions for continued cooperation in the future. Here, the importance of personalized service is discussed from the perspective of contract management in construction.

1, the contract management in project implementation contains two meanings, on the one hand, it is the test of the contract reached by the parties before; On the other hand, it is to prepare for possible disputes in the future. Therefore, the work at this stage plays a connecting role. The prudence of lawyers in every contract is very important, and the attitude towards the contract is also the embodiment of personalized service.

Construction project is a process from the first contract, through the signing and performance of a series of contracts, to achieve the expected results. Due to the complexity of the contract, the management of the contract must be planned and consistent with the project schedule. As a professional lawyer, only before the implementation of the project, the consultant can provide the schedule of the whole project contract, including contract negotiation, contract signing, contract execution supervision and other arrangements. The consultant will recognize the professional effectiveness of legal services provided by lawyers. This timetable is a manifestation of personalized service.

2. Because the construction of a complete project is too professional, many matters can not be completely covered by a general contractor or a main contractor. At this stage, the lawyer's personalized service is particularly prominent. Not only should we work out the construction organization plan together with the general contractor, arrange and supervise the mobilization of other subcontracted projects, but we should also work out the organization plan, clarify the working procedures, construction arrangements, coordinate and solve contradictions, and limit quality responsibilities. It is also necessary to make arrangements for a series of coordination and organization work in subcontracting.

3. Lawyers should specify the inevitability of subcontracting in the bidding documents. The construction contract is a general contract, which may include the following contents:

(1) general contracting agreement

(2) Management Contract for General Contract of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering

(3) Subcontracting of curtain wall works

(4) Subcontracting of comprehensive installation works

(5) Subcontract of fire fighting equipment and installation works

(6) air conditioning equipment and installation engineering subcontracting

(7) elevator equipment and installation engineering subcontract

(8) Subcontracting of weak current system installation works

(9) Subcontracting of Integrated Wiring Engineering

(10) procurement contract for important materials

(1 1) external environment construction contract

4. Personalized service is often manifested in some consulting units involved in management. For example, the formulation of management system, a common content, reflects from another level that lawyers can gain the trust of consulting units.

Four, pay attention to the publicity of law firms in the process of providing services.

The special service for lawyers is a very influential project in the local area. Lawyers should cooperate with consulting units in every link of the project, do a good job of two-way publicity, make the lawyer's work genuine, form a brand effect and achieve a win-win situation.