To embark on the path of becoming a lawyer, you should start by becoming a corporate legal consultant. After more than ten years of working as a legal consultant, I fell deeply in love with this profession. In the process of serving as a long-term legal advisor to many large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises, public institutions, and listed companies, I have encountered difficulties and gained experience. I deeply understand that it is easy to be a corporate legal advisor, but it is really difficult to be a good corporate legal advisor. , not only do it carefully, but also master some of the tricks. What is a legal advisor? What exactly does a legal advisor do? What qualities are needed? What are the key points? These questions not only confuse young lawyers who are about to work as legal advisors, but also many lawyers who are currently working as corporate legal advisors. clear. Learning from the shortcomings, sharing experience, and making progress together are my original intentions in writing this article. How to provide high-quality and efficient professional legal services, prevent legal risks to the maximum extent, and become the trump card and mainstream business for law firms to engage in legal service projects. The comprehensive strength, cultural heritage, brand effect, teamwork, and professionalism of law firms Level and professionalism have also become a rigid standard for consulting units to measure and select service targets. Corporate legal consultants are not only the embodiment of the comprehensive quality of lawyers, but also a true reflection of the cultural construction of law firms.

Legal consultants, simply put, are lawyers who accept the employment of companies, enterprises, institutions, other organizations and citizens in accordance with the law, and use their professional legal knowledge and legal skills to provide various legal services to the hiring party. Activity. The work content of legal consultants varies depending on the size, needs, and leadership level of the consulting unit. The work content ranges from the company's development strategy formulation, operation and management decisions, to company document management, all of which require review by legal consultants. It also provides legal advice to help prevent, control and avoid company risks, and is the true protector of the enterprise. Specific to several or all of the following: drafting, formulating, reviewing or modifying contracts for enterprises, while gradually improving the enterprise contract system and preventing contract disputes. At the request of the enterprise, you can also participate in relevant negotiations and consultations; answer consultations or issue legal documents Answer the legal issues that occur in the daily operations of the enterprise in the form of opinion letters; help guide the enterprise to establish and improve the modern enterprise system based on the actual situation of the enterprise, find a management framework model suitable for the development of the enterprise, enable it to operate in accordance with the law, and regulate the enterprise's operations in accordance with the law Management behavior, bringing the company's management activities into the legal track; teaching relevant legal knowledge to company employees according to their specific situations and needs to improve their quality; when the company may face disputes, conduct legal arguments, propose solutions, and issue lawyer's letters , or participate in the mediation of related disputes; represent enterprises in participating in litigation, arbitration, reporting crimes in accordance with the law, and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises.

A good corporate legal advisor must have at least the following qualities and abilities:

1. Be familiar with laws, regulations and relevant national policies related to the business activities of the company. Such as "Contract Law", "General Principles of Civil Law", "Labor Law", "Tax Law", "Urban Real Estate Management Law", "Trademark Law", "Patent Law", etc., all laws and regulations related to business must at least have some understanding. Understand that you must be familiar with some commonly used laws and regulations, because during the business process, companies will consult legal advisors at any time about the legal issues they encounter, and in most cases, legal advisors are needed in the shortest possible time. You cannot answer the inquiry within a few seconds, and you cannot wait until you slowly search for laws and regulations before answering the inquiry. Therefore, you must be relatively familiar with the laws and regulations.

2. Have profound writing skills. In modern large enterprises, the contracts that may be used daily include "sales contract", "purchase contract", "loan contract", "asset acquisition", "equity transfer", "labor contract" and various types of "agreements". In the process of contracts and agreements, the written expression of the contract terms must be accurate and must not be ambiguous, and there must be no objections to the written interpretation. Therefore, corporate legal consultants are required to have strong writing skills.

3. Have good coordination and communication skills.

Working as a corporate legal consultant is different from working in litigation. The most obvious difference between the two is that you can fight alone in litigation cases, but you cannot work as a corporate legal consultant. , you must carry out various coordination and communication with the company's managers and decision-makers, so that your ideas can be unified with the opinions of the decision-makers, so as to facilitate the development of your work.

4. Have agile thinking and adaptability.

Unexpected things will definitely happen in the business process of an enterprise. If something happens to the enterprise, of course you need to find a legal advisor. As a legal advisor, you must take this sudden unexpected event calmly. Quickly mobilize your thinking and find the best solution to deal with emergencies in the shortest possible time.

5. You must have a relatively in-depth understanding of the business activities of the company you work for.

It is best to make some useful suggestions on the company's business decisions. If you can only give advice on the company's legal issues but know nothing about the company's business operations, then you are at most a qualified legal advisor. , not an excellent legal advisor

It is far from enough to clarify the specific requirements for the work of a legal advisor. To become an excellent legal advisor, you must also do a few key steps to be perfect.

1. What lawyers do before becoming a legal consultant

Before becoming a legal consultant for a company, the problem that lawyers directly face is the contact with the consulting unit. On the one hand, lawyers need to understand the scope of legal needs of the consulting unit, the difficulty of the work, and whether lawyers are required to work in person, etc. to determine the lawyer's service fees and staffing. On the other hand, the consulting unit needs to communicate with the law firm where the lawyer works. Sign the "Legal Consultant Employment Contract". This can be said to be the first step, a seemingly simple first step, but it contains many negotiation skills, law firm costs and service content. The signing of such a consulting unit is usually a cooperation method in which an individual lawyer contacts the consulting unit, and the consulting fee is relatively fixed and the cost is small. In practice, depending on the size of the law firm where the lawyer works and the complexity of the service content, it is increasingly becoming a trend for lawyers to serve as consultants for "specialized legal services" such as government departments, listed companies, or large-scale infrastructure construction, and lawyer consultants for such services The fee is not negotiated in advance, but must be determined during or after the event, taking into account comprehensive factors such as the content of the service, the lawyer's service attitude and level, and social impact. Legal consultants in this situation mostly rely on teamwork, with the handling lawyer connecting with the consulting unit. The handling lawyer’s role here is very critical. The preliminary work is relatively important. On the one hand, it is aimed at providing consulting services. Provide a "Target Company Analysis Report" to your law firm on the current situation of the target company, 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, At the same time, there must be a work plan for the target company, and what kind of legal services the lawyer can provide the target company here, which is what we often call the "Implementation Rules for the Target Unit's Legal Counsel Work". This "Details" not only includes the specific work content of lawyers, such as "Details for the Implementation of Legal Advisor Document Management", "Details for the Implementation of Legal Services for Lawyers' Participation in Negotiations", "Details for the Implementation of Lawyers' Document Review", "Details for the Implementation of Lawyers' Participation in Company Project Meetings" ", "Lawyers' Implementation Rules for Witnessing the General Meeting of Shareholders", etc., as well as the connection with various departments of the target company and specific document requirements, so that the target company has a clear understanding of the work of legal advisors. The importance of these two written materials This is most vividly reflected in the project’s legal service fees. The director of the law firm must negotiate with the consulting unit in a targeted manner based on the situation reported by the handling lawyer, and the consulting unit will consider the services that the lawyer can provide and the workload of the lawyer based on the "Work Implementation Rules" provided by the lawyer. The legal fees of hundreds of thousands or even millions per year for a special project largely depend on the two documents provided by the attorney. As the saying goes, attitude determines everything, and details determine success or failure.

2. The specific work of lawyers when serving as legal advisors

This stage is the implementation of the legal advisor implementation details. The first step is There are already work arrangements in the "Implementation Rules for the Work of Legal Advisors". Next, specific implementation details are needed at this stage. As a corporate legal advisor, you should pay attention to the following matters:

First of all, for those who have just taken over, If the enterprise is not standardized enough, it must be sorted out in a timely manner and a set of practical rules and regulations be formulated for the enterprise. For example, the company's contract management system, labor and personnel management system, various risk management prevention systems, etc., when dealing with the company's legal affairs, always take the company's interests as the first consideration, and make the company's fate look like Your own destiny depends on the survival of the company.

Secondly, when handling corporate legal affairs, work records must be kept. Improve the production, organization and archiving of various legal documents, and quantify specific work. When lawyers provide legal services, they should produce different legal service documents according to different legal service contents to facilitate management, organization and fixation of legal service work content. When lawyers engage in non-litigation legal business, the commonly used types of documents are generally divided into advisory legal documents, explanatory legal documents, requesting legal documents, and recording legal documents, which specifically include but are not limited to the following types of documents:

< p>1. The "Contract or Document Countersignature Form" is mainly a procedural requirement for lawyers to work. It is a countersigning process that lawyers can only carry out after the relevant personnel of the consulting unit have completed the countersigning procedures.

2. The "Registration Form of Contracts Submitted for Review" is mainly a record of all types of contracts that occur in units of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce when they are submitted to the legal consultant for review. A brief summary of the content;

3. The "Contract Review Form" is a record of the legal consultant's detailed review process of the major contract content submitted for review, including problems existing in the contract terms, legal risks and lawyer's suggestions;

4. The "Legal Consultation Registration Form" is a record filled out by legal consultants regarding verbal or telephone consultation matters from the consulting unit, including consultants, consultation content, lawyer's opinions, etc.;

< p>5. "Legal Opinions" are commonly used legal service documents that provide legal basis, legal analysis, revision opinions, risk warnings, solutions, lawyer suggestions, etc. for legal issues involved in contracts, legal documents, and other legal matters. , is the main record of the lawyer's work

6. "Lawyer Work Notes" is a brief record of the daily work of the consultant lawyer. It can be decided according to the actual work needs of the consultant unit whether it should be submitted to the consultant within a certain period of time. The unit or law firm records the matters that lawyers need to deal with every day, the matters that have been handled, the matters that have not been handled, and the notes.

7. "Lawyer Risk Warning" is a risk warning legal service document mainly issued when the legal matters involved are not suitable for issuing legal opinions, or only special reminders of certain legal risks are required. ;

8. "Meeting Minutes" is a recorded legal service document produced when a consultant lawyer participates in a meeting held by the consulting unit or when the consulting lawyer meets with the consulting unit on specific legal service matters. The meeting minutes follow a fixed format. Production and management;

9. The "Legal Service Tracking Form for Negotiation Matters" is a legal document that consultant lawyers provide in the process of providing legal services such as negotiation and consultation in accordance with the "Legal Service Rules for Legal Advisors' Participation in Negotiation Matters". Legal service documents recording service matters shall be managed and archived in accordance with the principle of one table per matter;

10. "Legal Counsel Work Summary" is divided into two forms: monthly work summary and annual work summary according to needs. It is a reporting document written by a consultant lawyer to the consulting unit on his or her work.

11. "Lawyer's Advice" means that during the process of lawyer's service, a lawyer discovers some common or representative incident in the company and provides lawyer's advice to remind the company to prevent certain common behavior. It is an extension of the service matters of the "Legal Opinion"

12. The "Lawyer's Work Brief" is an extended legal service document produced and managed in accordance with the "Lawyer's Work Brief Legal Service Rules". It is comprehensive and includes suggestive, illustrative and documentary content.

13. "Situation Statement" is an explanatory legal service document provided by a lawyer on legal issues, which helps 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 that has an impact on the company.

15. "Request for Instructions" is a written legal service document submitted by a lawyer to the company before engaging in a certain legal service that requires the consent of the company. The request for instructions should include the necessity and specific details of the activity. The situation will be explained.

16. The "Work Log" is a simple record of lawyer service matters, recorded according to date.

3. The Importance of Personalized Services by Lawyers

The legal services provided by lawyers in consulting units are diverse. Although regular legal consultation and contract review are still the main contents, We also need to provide many personalized services to the parties based on their needs and abilities. The so-called personalized services simply mean providing services that are different from others. This proves the lawyer's professionalism and sense of responsibility and creates conditions for continued cooperation in the future. Here, I will only talk about the importance of personalized service in terms of contract management during construction.

1. Contract management in project implementation contains two aspects. On the one hand, it is a test of the contract reached by helping the parties before; on the other hand, it is for possible disputes that may arise in the future. Be prepared for processing. Therefore, the work at this stage plays a role as a link between the past and the next. The degree of prudence of lawyers for each contract is crucial, and the attitude towards the contract is also a reflection of personalized service.

Construction project is a process that starts from the first contract and achieves the expected results through the signing and performance of a series of contracts. Due to the complexity of the contract, the management of the contract must be planned and consistent with the progress of the project. As a professional lawyer, only before the project is carried out, the consultant can provide a schedule for the entire project contract. , including the arrangement of contract negotiation, contract signing, supervision of contract execution and other matters, only then will the consulting unit recognize the professional effectiveness of the legal services provided by the lawyer. This schedule is a manifestation of personalized service.

2. Because the construction of a complete project is too professional, many matters cannot be fully covered by a general contracting contract and a main contracting contract. Lawyers' personalized services are particularly prominent at this stage. It is not only necessary to work with the general contractor to formulate a construction organization plan, but also to arrange and supervise the implementation of other subcontracted projects. It is also necessary to prepare an organization plan and clarify the process, construction arrangements, coordination and resolution of conflicts, and limitations of quality responsibilities. It is also necessary to make arrangements for a series of coordination and organization work in subcontracting.

3. Lawyers should clarify the inevitability of subcontracting in the bidding documents. The "Construction Contract" is a general contracting contract. A general contracting contract may have the following components:

(1) General Contracting Agreement

(2) Mechanical and Electrical Engineering General Contracting Management contract

(3) Curtain wall project subcontract

(4) Comprehensive installation project subcontract

(5) Fire protection equipment and installation project subcontract Subcontract

(6) Air-conditioning equipment and installation project subcontract

(7) Elevator equipment and installation project subcontract

(8) Weak current system Installation project subcontract

(9) Integrated wiring project subcontract

(10) Important materials purchase contract

(11) External environment construction contract

4. Personalized services are often reflected in some participation in the management of consulting units. For example, the formulation of the "Management System" with various common contents reflects from another level that the lawyer can gain the trust of the consulting unit.

4. Pay attention to the publicity of the law firm in the process of providing services

"The fragrance of wine is also afraid of the depth of the alley." The special services participated by lawyers are extremely influential projects in the local area. , lawyers must carefully cooperate with the consulting unit in every aspect of completing the project, and do a good job of two-way publicity work, so that the lawyer's work is genuine, forming a brand effect and achieving a win-win situation.