A corporate attorney is a person who works for a corporate or corporate house or firm and specializes in corporate law. Corporate law is the study of how shareholders, directors, employees, creditors and other stakeholders such as consumers, society and the environment interact with one another. Company law involves a study of the Companies Act 2013, etc. Thus, corporate law is part of the broader corporate law.
It is the job of corporate lawyers to understand the laws and regulations to help companies and their clients work within the confines of the law. The attorney’s role is to ensure the legality of business practices and transactions. Other duties of corporate attorneys include ensuring the continuity of commercial transactions, advising companies on their legal rights and obligations, including the duties and responsibilities of employers and other officials. To exercise effective compliance, they must have knowledge of aspects of contract law, securities law, intellectual property rights, tax law, accounting law, bankruptcy law, licensing, and the laws specific to the business of the company they work for. . He must maintain confidentiality between the company and the company’s clients. This is because if a company’s clients are not guaranteed confidentiality, they are less likely to seek legal advice.
A corporate attorney’s job includes drafting laws, reviewing agreements, negotiating deals, and attending meetings with corporate clients. He handles the company’s internal legal work with little or no litigation work. However, he must assist the company’s external lawyers in legal matters. Even though they work for large companies, they may also be self-employed and contract out to many different companies. Generally, they only serve one client, namely the company they work for. As a corporate attorney, he is called upon to handle a wide range of legal duties including corporate taxes, mergers and acquisitions, corporate structure issues, employment law, and various other legal matters. They generally need to be knowledgeable in various areas of the law and must be able to deal with a large number of issues. Some companies hire multiple attorneys depending on the job and requirements and each of them is a specialist in one or two areas of corporate law. So, a small company retains one or two attorneys while a large company may have more than one or two attorneys, each with their own specialization. Generally, companies such as banks, insurance companies, retail companies, hospitals, oil companies, and biotechnology companies, manufacturing companies, energy and communications companies require a full-time corporate attorney.
To become a corporate attorney, he or she must have specialist corporate law courses and this can be done by earning an LLM degree upon completion of the LLB course. LLM corporate law courses will generally cover work on corporate and securities law, contract and commercial law, intellectual property rights, banking law, international trade law and other fields.
