The General Counsel is Not There to Say “No” Legal Brilliance is Table Stakes. What Matters More is Judgment, Trust — And the Courage to Guide Risk Rather Than Avoid it.

Abstract

After more than four decades in the law — the last ten as general counsel of a major Asian conglomerate, and earlier years in international firms and in-house roles at companies including Motorola and Siemens — I have come to appreciate that the law is rarely the hardest part of the job. The real challenge is judgment: understanding risk in a business context, navigating human dynamics, and recognising that the most technically correct answer is not always the most useful one. As I step away from the law, a number of lessons stand out — not about doctrine, but about how law operates in the real world.