General counsel are valued for their knowledge of compliance as regulatory pressures heighten risks for board directors, according to  research released by Georgetown University. It also revealed that 71 per cent of general counsel and 37 per cent of directors expect general counsel to have a more valuable role in business strategy over the next decade. Meanwhile, general counsel with more experience who work for public companies were more likely to rank counselling the CEO and board of directors as top value drivers than those were new to the in-house role or who worked at private companies.
The research also found that more experienced general counsel were also more likely to pinpoint managing law department expenditure as a valuable job responsibility. As well as 689 general counsel, 78 public company directors also took part in the research The university carried out the survey in association with ACC. Source: Georgetown University.