A corporate lawyer is a lawyer who specializes in corporations law.
As of 2004, there were 67,000 corporate lawyers in the United States, working on average for 50 hours per week, with a mean starting salary of USD164,000, rising to USD193,700 after 5 years and USD239,000 after 10–15 years.
The role of a corporate lawyer is to ensure the legality of commercial transactions, advising corporations on their legal rights and duties, including the duties and responsibilities of corporate officers. In order to do this, they must have knowledge of aspects of contract law, tax law, accounting, securities law, bankruptcy, intellectual property rights, licensing, zoning laws, and the laws specific to the business of the corporations that they work for.
The practice of corporate law is less adversarial than that of trial law. Lawyers for both sides of a commercial transaction are less opponents than facilitators. One lawyer (quoted by Bernstein) characterizes them as "the handmaidens of the deal". Transactions take place amongst peers. There are rarely wronged parties, underdogs, or inequities in the financial means of the participants. Corporate lawyers structure those transactions, draft documents, review agreements, negotiate deals, and attend meetings. In this job the average pay ranges from $50,000-90,000. Increases throughout your working years.
What areas of corporate law a corporate lawyer experiences depend from where the firm that he/she works for is, geographically, and how large it is. A small-town corporate lawyer in a small firm may deal in many short-term jobs such as drafting wills, divorce settlements, and real estate transactions, whereas a corporate lawyer in a large city firm may spend many months devoted to negotiating a single business transaction. Similarly, different firms may organize their subdivisions in different ways. Not all will include mergers and acquisitions under the umbrella of a corporate law division, for example.
Some corporate lawyers become partners in their firms. Others become in-house counsel for corporations. Others still migrate into other professions such as investment banking and teaching law.
Some publications read by those in the profession include Global Legal Studies, Lawyers Weekly, and the National Law Journal.
Famous quotes containing the words corporate and/or lawyer:
““It’s hard enough to adjust [to the lack of control] in the beginning,” says a corporate vice president and single mother. “But then you realize that everything keeps changing, so you never regain control. I was just learning to take care of the belly-button stump, when it fell off. I had just learned to make formula really efficiently, when Sarah stopped using it.””
—Anne C. Weisberg (20th century)
“Yours are no common feet.
The lawyer don’t know what it is he’s buying:
So many miles you might have walked you won’t walk.
You haven’t run your forty orchids down.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)