A corporate attorney is a lawyer that specializes in corporate or business law. Corporate attorneys interpret the law through words and actions for the protection of business interests and the ideas of that business. These attorneys can work for a law firm that has a corporate law division. For larger corporations, companies hire corporate attorneys full time for legal advice and representation. Corporate attorneys ensure the legality of commercial transactions. They must know the statutory law and regulations created by local, federal, and state government agencies.
To ensure the legality of business transactions, a corporate attorney should be knowledgeable in aspects of contract law, zoning law, tax law, securities law, intellectual property rights, licensing, bankruptcy and other laws, regulations, and protections that may interest a corporation. Corporate attorneys are also obligated to make sure that the corporation he or she may represent is not doing any transactions that conflict with local, state, and federal laws and codes.
The nature of the work that corporate attorneys do is not adversarial as it is in trial law. Corporate law is a team oriented form of legal practice in which the teams of attorneys representing two parties, one being a business and the other being an individual or another business, collaborate to create agreements based on common grounds between the two said parties. Corporate law is generally non-competitive. A corporate attorney must communicate with the company he or she is representing to understand what the corporations interests are in forging an agreement with the other party. The corporate attorney negotiates with the other party to create an agreement that is legal, equitable, and fair between all parties involved. The negotiation process involves writing and revising agreements based on the suitability of the client’s needs in an agreement. If there is a dispute a corporate attorney may need to represent their client in a civil court. There are, however, trial lawyers that specialize in corporate litigation that handle most civil disputes between two or more parties. Most corporate lawyers go for the entire duration of their career without ever setting foot in a courtroom.
Because corporate attorneys are often experts in the realm of legal issues regarding commerce and business related topics. Large corporations are known to form partnerships with law firms for full time in house counsel on business related legal matters.
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