The GC vs. CLO Role

In this short video, Tim responds to a listener's question about the difference between the GC and CLO roles.

Transcript

Question: You have worked as a general counsel in several companies and now you are a chief legal officer. What do you think the main difference is between one position and the other?

Answer: I think in some organizations, there really isn't that much of a difference. You're the top lawyer in the organization. What I like about the chief legal officer versus the general counsel title is that the chief legal officer shows that the position is a C-level position. A lot of times you'll see people with titles like general counsel and executive vice president or senior vice president and vice president.

So there's this difference between title and level. And with chief legal officer, it marries those two. Where it's a C-role. And, you know, certain organizations, depending on what the legal environment is, maybe they don't need a C-level lawyer.

Some would argue that every organization needs a c level lawyer. I would say probably not. But that's that's the major difference that I see.

The other thing is if you are a chief legal officer, then that just opens the door to being in certain conversations that maybe an SVP general counsel wouldn't be in. So maybe you're in the board meetings, but you might not be in the executive weekly meeting or daily meetings with however frequently they meet. You may be reporting to another C-level. So there's a lot around it. It's like, what is your reporting structure? What is your scope and purview?

It really just depends on a company-by-company basis. But the actual core tenets of the job, I don't think they change all that much.