|  | | 2006 News and Press Releases | | |
HEADLINE NEWS:
Corporate Governance Tops List Of Concerns For In-House Counsel
Staff Writer – Chicago Tribune
Securities Mosaic. November 7, 2006
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EXCERPT: Compliance with constantly evolving corporate governance rules has become the top priority for in-house company lawyers, outranking their concern about the costs of outside counsel, according to a new study. In the post-Enron Corp. world, public companies are placing more emphasis on identifying legal and regulatory risks. Eight out of 10 companies surveyed in 2005 said their main concern is "keeping track of company activities that might have legal implications," according to the Managing Outside Counsel Survey report, prepared by the Association of Corporate Counsel and Serengeti Law. Much of the anxiety has been driven by the Sarbanes-Oxley investor-protection law, enacted in 2002 in response to financial scandals at Enron, Tyco International Ltd. and WorldCom Inc. The legislation established new corporate governance standards for U.S. public company boards and management. Corporate law firms are responding by beefing up their white-collar practices. Baker & McKenzie said Monday that it has hired Robert Kent Jr. as a partner in Chicago. Previously chief of the complex fraud division of the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago, Kent led a number of high-profile prosecutions, including the government's case against Conrad Black, the former chief executive of the parent company of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. One of Kent's former colleagues, Sean Berkowitz, left the government last week to join the Chicago office of Latham & Watkins. Berkowitz won convictions in the trials of Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling this year. Up until two years ago, the concern cited most frequently by in-house counsel was controlling outside legal expense, the study said. For companies with revenues of more than a $1 billion, median spending in 2005 on outside counsel was $5.2 million. Outside counsel hourly rates rose 5.2 percent last year, compared with a 5.7 percent increase the year before. |
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