What Does An In-House Counsel Do?

WHAT DOES AN IN-HOUSE COUNSEL DO?

Published: Aug 26, 2025 - The In-House Counsel provides strategic legal support and advice across corporate, commercial, regulatory, and intellectual property matters, ensuring compliance with applicable laws and internal policies. This role involves structuring, drafting, and negotiating complex agreements, managing intellectual property portfolios, conducting due diligence, and advising management on potential legal and regulatory risks. The counsel also acts as the main point of contact for contract negotiations, regulatory inquiries, and pre-litigation disputes while streamlining legal processes to support overall business objectives.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for In-House Counsel

1. In-House Counsel Details and Accountabilities

Legal Counsel: Provide advice, guidance, and strategic counsel to the company on a wide range of commercial and corporate deals.
Contract Management: Draft, negotiate, and advise on various commercial contracts and agreements.
Corporate Transactions: Assist with corporate M&A transactions and corporate governance activities.
Dispute Resolution: Support the management of disputes, litigation, and employment matters.
Compliance Training: Deliver legal training on compliance topics and promote legal, compliance, and risk management best practices throughout the business.
Relationship Building: Build and maintain strong professional relationships across the organization.
Legal Advisory: Provide practical, business-focused legal advice to stakeholders on a variety of legal topics.
Lease Review: Prepare and review commercial office leases and renewals.
Lease Administration: Oversee and draft lease amendments, estoppels, notices of default, and tenant correspondence.

2. In-House Counsel Overview

Legal Advisory: Provide practical advice to internal clients on FinTech, regulatory matters, and new financial products.
Contract Management: Draft, negotiate, review, and update contracts to strengthen the legal framework supporting business growth.
Process Improvement: Develop, maintain, and improve in-house legal tools, processes, and policies for scalability.
Commercial Contracts: Draft and negotiate commercial contracts, partnership agreements, and service agreements.
Regulatory Compliance: Enhance compliance in collaboration with the Compliance Manager and other departments.
Legislative Monitoring: Monitor legislative and case law developments that may impact the organization.
Stakeholder Liaison: Liaise with regulators, law enforcement, business partners, and other stakeholders.
Policy Development: Create and review policies, procedures, forms, and training materials.
Executive Support: Assist Executive Management on all matters within the General Counsel’s duties.

3. In-House Counsel Job Description

Government Contracting Leadership: Act as lead in-house attorney on all government contracting and compliance matters across all business units.
Center of Excellence: Establish a company-wide government contracting center of excellence to support all government contracting matters, including ITAR compliance.
Risk Management: Identify compliance risk areas and implement best practices in government contracting processes.
Policy Implementation: Draft and implement policies, procedures, and practices to ensure compliance with government contracting requirements.
Service Delivery Improvement: Develop relationships, processes, and activities that support and continuously improve the delivery of legal services related to government contracting and compliance.
ITAR Compliance: Collaborate with export control and trade compliance teams on all ITAR and related compliance matters.
Contract Review: Prepare and review contracts, verify accuracy, and resolve discrepancies in line with company policies and language standards.
Employee Compliance: Ensure employees understand and comply with company contracts.
Contract Strategy: Work with staff across all levels of the organization to analyze and determine comprehensive contract strategies and ensure contract compliance.
Documentation Management: Maintain relevant documentation with organized digital and hard copy systems to support contract management.
Contract Interpretation: Interpret contracts and advise management on key terms and requirements.
Obligation Tracking: Keep personnel informed of contract obligations, new contracts, purchase orders, extensions, amendments, key dates, alerts, and reporting requirements.
Continuous Improvement: Take responsibility for government contracts, compliance, and leading continuous improvement initiatives in government contracting.

4. In-House Counsel Functions

Managed Care Contracts: Draft, review, and negotiate managed care provider agreements with health plans, including commercial, Medicaid managed care, and Medicare Advantage.
Healthcare Arrangements: Assess, review, and negotiate performance, value, and risk-based healthcare arrangements.
Commercial Agreements: Draft, review, and negotiate commercial agreements with suppliers and vendors.
Compliance Advisory: Provide advice, strategic support, and education about managed care compliance matters, including issues related to participation and enrollment in Medicaid and Medicare.
Regulatory Support: Support the business on regulatory aspects of privacy/infosec for software as a medical device and clinical/patient decision support software, with existing resources to help support this aspect of the role.
Legal Support: Assist with a diverse array of day-to-day matters handled by the legal department.
Regulatory Advisory: Provide regulatory advisory support.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate with internal teams in compliance, finance, operations, portfolio management, and risk.
External Counsel Management: Act as the point person in managing the relationship with external Counsel.
Ad-Hoc Support: Perform ad-hoc tasks relating to new products, consulting, marketing, sales, and vendor agreements.

5. In-House Counsel Accountabilities

Decision Making: Achieve legal objectives by gathering pertinent information, identifying and evaluating options, and choosing a course of action.
Legal Research: Prepare legal positions by researching issues and reviewing documents.
Transactional Counsel: Provide legal counsel by researching transactional matters related to the corporation and subsidiaries, drafting contracts, and advising senior management.
Dispute Resolution: Resolve disputes between the company and other entities by retaining external counsel, representing the corporation in negotiations with accounts and regulators, and managing litigation.
Staff Development: Develop assigned staff by providing information, direction, and educational opportunities.
Quality Assurance: Maintain quality service by establishing and enforcing organizational standards.
Professional Development: Maintain professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops, reviewing professional publications, establishing personal networks, benchmarking state-of-the-art practices, and participating in professional societies.
Contract Management: Maintain and update the library of standard contracts, forms, and templates.
Team Contribution: Contribute to team effort by accomplishing related results.

6. In-House Counsel Job Summary

Leadership Support: Report to the General Counsel and Company Secretary while demonstrating a commitment to excellence.
Autonomy and Service: Work with a high level of autonomy and maintain a service-oriented approach towards business unit managers.
Pragmatic Solutions: Apply commercially pragmatic legal solutions within acceptable risk parameters, and exhibit a grounded disposition.
Contract Management: Work with the legal team to focus primarily on contract negotiation and management, with overflow responsibilities in other areas.
Procurement Contracts: Review and negotiate terms across a broad range of procurement and commercial contracts, including supply agreements, marketing/media agreements, professional services (legal, accounting, engineering), specialist consulting services, transport, finance, intellectual property, and risk management considerations.
Property Matters: Review lease agreements and easements related to property matters.
Construction Contracts: Draft and negotiate construction contracts, including O&M contracts for capital works projects and maintenance of facilities, utilising bespoke precedents based on Australian Standard form contracts.
Commercial Support: Provide general commercial support by assisting the HR Team with employment contracts and HR policy documentation, resolving HR grievances, addressing workplace health and safety issues, advising on FIRB issues, supporting company secretarial requirements, ensuring compliance, and assisting with general corporate advisory matters.

7. In-House Counsel Responsibilities

Template Management: Maintain templates for purchase agreements and ancillary purchase documents.
Acquisition Process: Run the legal process of acquisition, including initial drafting of purchase documentation, coordination with opposing counsel, processing and reviewing comments from opposing counsel, and maintaining appropriate control and organization over documentation.
Risk Advisory: Provide legal advice on commercial risks/issues identified in the purchase process and on opposing counsel’s comments on the purchase documentation, coordinating with external counsel on complex matters.
Due Diligence: Complete legal due diligence on target companies, including corporate records review, contract review, obtaining comfort letters, and performing searches.
Legal Filings: Complete necessary legal filings with provincial registries in connection with purchases, including corporate name changes and director changes.
Lender Coordination: Coordinate with lender counsel and complete credit facility drawdown requirements.
Security Documentation: Review and advise on security documentation and other lending agreements.
Share Capital Management: Manage share capital documentation and records around share issuances and the company’s stock option plan.
Operational Support: Support ongoing business operations, including reviewing and advising on routine matters related to agreements, including employment, leases, vendor supply agreements, and confidentiality.
Annual Filings: Complete annual filings for companies.

8. In-House Counsel Details

Legal Advisory: Provide accurate, relevant, and timely legal advice to the President/CEO, Board of Directors, senior staff, and other staff on a variety of legal topics related to the organization’s business and services.
Document Management: Draft, review, and assist in maintaining legal documents, including contracts, leases, policies, procedures, and other agreements.
Business Operations Support: Advise leadership and staff on matters relating to general business operations.
Confidentiality Agreements: Develop and update non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements.
Risk Management: Manage and mitigate legal risks by designing and implementing organizational policies and procedures.
Regulatory Compliance: Ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.
Best Practices: Promote legal compliance and risk management best practices throughout the organization.
Legislative Monitoring: Stay current with changes to legislation, particularly laws, rules, and regulations directly impacting the organization.
Cross-Functional Coordination: Coordinate with Compliance and Privacy/Security Officers.
Risk Communication: Support risk and quality management by proactively communicating identified risks to senior leadership to minimize exposure.
Ethical Standards: Maintain the highest level of professional and ethical standards, ensuring compliance with both the letter and spirit of applicable laws and regulations.

9. In-House Counsel Duties

Legal Services: Provide in-house legal services and support to all areas of the company, including foreign and domestic subsidiaries and affiliates.
Project Work: Perform project work related to employment, general litigation, and other matters.
HR Advisory: Advise Human Resources representatives and managers on a wide range of labor, employment, and general litigation issues.
Employment Claims: Investigate, respond to, and resolve employment claims through the company’s internal dispute program (including binding arbitration) and those filed with federal and state agencies or courts.
Litigation Management: Investigate, respond to, and manage general litigation matters.
Outside Counsel Management: Partner with and manage outside counsel.
Legislative Monitoring: Stay informed of existing and emerging legislation or requirements in assigned areas of the law (e.g., wage and hour and leave laws) and proactively support policies and controls to ensure compliance.
Legal Education: Educate business partners through presentations and guidance to mitigate legal risks.
Workforce Advisory: Provide advice on workforce reorganizations, including conducting adverse impact analyses and preparing severance-related documents.
E-Discovery Compliance: Understand e-discovery issues and requirements, and proactively support processes, policies, technologies, and controls to ensure compliance.

10. In-House Counsel Tasks

Media Counsel: Provide counsel regarding the planning, buying, and placement of traditional, mobile, social, and digital media, as well as the execution of digital marketing programs.
Agreement Negotiation: Negotiate and draft a wide variety of agreements, including client and vendor agreements (master service agreements and statements of work), media placement and sponsorship agreements, technology services (IT, SaaS, and similar) agreements, and data/intellectual property licenses.
Marketing Compliance: Provide legal counsel on an ongoing basis concerning marketing in traditional and new media by addressing issues about advertising law, rights of privacy and publicity, user-generated content, and social media.
Privacy Collaboration: Collaborate closely with privacy counsel regarding online behavioral advertising and other digital media–related privacy issues.
Management Advisory: Educate, advise, and counsel management on legal issues affecting business decisions.
Process Standardization: Standardize templates, processes, and legal guidance to improve the efficiency of legal services to business units.
Training Delivery: Provide periodic training to business units on key legal issues affecting operations.
Legal Point of Contact: Serve as the first point of contact for the Legal team, advising relevant teams on day-to-day legal matters and escalating higher-risk or significant issues to senior attorneys.
Commercial Contracts: Negotiate and manage a wide range of commercial contracts in support of business operations, with a focus on manufacturing and supply chain matters.
Regulatory Filings: Manage national and local corporate and regulatory filings in collaboration with the Finance team and outside counsel.

11. In-House Counsel Roles

HR Compliance: Advise the Human Resources Department and other business clients regarding compliance with all requirements in the area of labor, employment, and benefits.
Policy Advisory: Advise and partner with the People Services Department and other business clients regarding company policies affecting the company’s relationships with its employees, vendors, customers, and other third parties.
Representation: Represent the company in hearings, administrative proceedings, negotiations, and other forums.
Executive Partnerships: Develop strong partnerships with executive management, senior management from other corporate departments, and stores.
Enterprise Representation: Represent all departments and locations on enterprise-level issues both internally and externally.
Problem Solving: Partner with business clients to identify and resolve problems promptly, gather and analyze information skillfully, and maintain confidentiality.
Process Development: Assist with the development of standardized processes and procedures for the organization in identified practice areas.
Policy Management: Assist with the development and management of policies and procedures regarding labor and employment issues.
Regulatory Monitoring: Maintain awareness of existing laws and regulations, identify changes to the regulatory landscape and legal trends that may impact the company's business operations or jeopardize its strategies, communicate with appropriate personnel, and develop ways to respond.
Risk Management: Anticipate and assess legal and other risks to the company, and devise appropriate measures to avoid or reduce those risks while furthering the successful execution of its strategies and achievement of its goals.
Compliance Assurance: Ensure that legal and regulatory requirements, as well as company ethical expectations, are communicated and that compliance is maintained.

12. In-House Counsel Additional Details

Strategic Advisory: Work closely with senior in-house counsel in the Legal and Regulatory Compliance team to advise the firm at a strategic level on a variety of risk and compliance issues.
Regulatory Monitoring: Monitor and assess legal and regulatory changes that impact the firm and collaborate with senior in-house counsel to design and implement compliance programmes to address them (e.g., DAC6, Modern Slavery).
Growth Support: Support the firm’s growth plans, including opening new offices in other jurisdictions.
Risk Management: Collaborate with colleagues on projects to manage risk across the firm’s network of offices (domestic and international) (e.g., Brexit-related issues).
Operations Contribution: Actively contribute to International Operations Team initiatives to meet business needs and address risk and compliance matters (e.g., reviewing client money strategy, or arrivals and departures processes).
Client Advisory: Respond to enquiries from clients and third parties on risk and compliance issues.
Governance and Ethics: Advise on governance and ethical matters, including compliance with professional regulatory standards.
Conduct Investigations: Investigate and respond to conduct complaints against the firm or individuals.
Regulatory Liaison: Liaise with regulatory bodies on behalf of the firm, including reporting misconduct.
Legal Research: Research and advise on local law and regulatory requirements across the firm’s network of offices.
Risk Training: Contribute to the development and delivery of the firm’s mandatory risk training programme.
Policy Development: Review and update firm policies and facilitate the development of new policies and guidance notes, including adapting UK-focused policies for international application.
Collaboration: Work collaboratively with other members of the Risk and Compliance team and the wider business to support delivery of the firm’s objectives.

13. In-House Counsel Essential Functions

Regulatory Knowledge: Maintain expert knowledge and awareness of court precedent and government regulations (federal, state, local, and provincial) concerning finance company-related legal topics, including data privacy and security, licensing, federal lending laws applicable to commercial borrowers, insurance, and credit cards.
Client Advisory: Advise, counsel, and assist internal clients by promptly answering legal questions, providing guidance, reviewing policies and documents, and delivering training.
Outside Counsel Management: Direct outside legal counsel to protect business interests.
Risk Management: Reduce business risk and ensure legal compliance while supporting strategic business objectives.
Regulatory Compliance: Understand financial services regulations, including AML, ECOA, FCRA, UDAP, Patriot Act, SCRA, and TILA.
Compliance Support: Support the legal needs of the compliance department.
Business Alignment: Promote business objectives while fostering a culture of regulatory compliance.
Regulation Interpretation: Interpret state and federal regulations and guide employees on compliance requirements.
Lending Regulations: Apply working knowledge of federal lending regulations.
Policy Drafting: Draft and review internal policies and procedures.

14. In-House Counsel Role Purpose

Data Privacy: Guide data privacy and security regulations.
Contract Management: Draft and review purchase agreements and nondisclosure agreements (NDAs).
Business Support: Assist business functions with legal issues, including wholesale, retail, and asset remarketing.
Marketing Compliance: Review marketing materials for compliance.
Lending Advisory: Provide research and guidance on lending matters.
Collections Support: Support collection activities.
Financing Agreements: Review and draft financing agreements.
Insurance Support: Demonstrate understanding of general insurance laws and assist the insurance group.
Credit Card Compliance: Apply knowledge of credit card regulations and support the legal needs of credit card operations.
License Management: Ensure all required state and provincial licenses are maintained.
Regulatory Response: Respond to regulators.
Regulatory Research: Research and interpret current, new, and proposed regulations.

15. In-House Counsel General Responsibilities

Legal Advisory: Provide legal support and advice to management in legal aspects such as trade and commercial matters, foreign investment, technology transfer, labour, and corporate issues.
Agreement Negotiation: Structure, draft, and negotiate complicated supplier, marketing, and other commercial agreements and provide ongoing legal counselling in a wide range of areas, including regulatory compliance, privacy, consumer protection, operations, competition, intellectual property, import/export, permitting, and others.
IP Management: Protect and manage the intellectual property portfolios and rights under Mighty Jaxx, including those related to trademarks and copyrights.
Due Diligence: Act as the main point of contact for any legal due diligence.
Contract Management: Review, analyse, draft, amend, and coordinate the execution of commercial agreements, including service agreements, confidentiality agreements, and any agreements related to company transactions.
Negotiation Representation: Represent the company in contract negotiations with stakeholders.
Legal Research: Conduct legal and business research related to the business and disputes.
Regulatory Assessment: Assess and advise on potential legal and regulatory implications and exposure in proposed projects and initiatives.
Regulatory Awareness: Maintain awareness of regulatory environment changes across different geographies.
Policy Implementation: Implement and streamline legal policies and workflow initiatives that support overall corporate objectives.
Compliance Oversight: Ensure compliance with internal controls, statutory regulations, and other corporate formalities.
Commercial Counsel: Counsel the business on a broad range of commercial, operational, and regulatory matters.
Business Partnership: Work directly with business process owners, provide day-to-day advice, help shape key aspects of products and services, resolve issues that arise in commercial relationships, and handle regulatory inquiries and pre-litigation disputes.

16. In-House Counsel Key Accountabilities

Legal Advisory: Provide accurate, relevant, and timely legal advice to business leaders and stakeholders on a wide range of legal topics.
Contract Management: Draft, review, and negotiate contracts and agreements to safeguard the company’s interests.
Risk Management: Manage and mitigate legal risks by contributing to the design and implementation of company policies and procedures.
Regulatory Compliance: Ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations governing the business.
Best Practices: Promote best practices in legal, compliance, and risk management across the organization.
External Counsel Management: Communicate with and oversee external counsel to ensure effective and efficient legal support.
Commercial Support: Provide legal advice and support to underpin commercial outcomes.
IP Protection: Manage and protect the local intellectual property portfolio.
Issue Escalation: Identify and escalate legal issues and risks, ensuring adherence to group policies.
M&A Support: Support the team on M&A and other strategic business projects.

17. In-House Counsel Roles and Details

Commercial Contracts: Draft, review, and negotiate a wide variety of commercial contracts with the company’s international customers, suppliers, and vendors.
Cross-Functional Coordination: Coordinate commercial and contractual issues with other groups worldwide (Finance, Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Security, IT) in furtherance of corporate policy.
Legal Advisory: Develop a strong understanding of the company's technology and provide timely, practical, business-oriented legal advice and recommendations on a variety of commercial and regulatory issues.
Regulatory Compliance: Monitor and guide applicable laws, including data privacy and other regulatory compliance issues.
Policy Development: Develop and maintain company contract templates, business processes, and internal policies to help scale the business.
Employment Advisory: Advise People Development teams on labor and employment issues and coordinate resolution of disputes with outside counsel and insurers.
Claims Management: Manage outside counsel and coordinate the resolution of personal injury and property damage claims with insurers.
Risk Mitigation: Serve as a liaison to the corporate team on risk mitigation, dispute resolution, and insurance matters, and communicate contract policies and procedures to staff.
Reporting: Report to the VP and Corporate Counsel, and the CFO.
Corporate Law Support: Perform other general corporate law functions and contribute to other legal projects from time to time.

18. In-House Counsel Responsibilities and Key Tasks

Stakeholder Support: Provide legal support to internal stakeholders, including R&D, Business Development, Marketing, Sales, and senior management.
Technology Agreements: Draft and negotiate a wide range of technology agreements with domestic and international companies and universities, including material transfer, license, data transfer, data processing, services, and collaboration agreements.
Privacy Compliance: Apply knowledge of privacy laws and regulations, including HIPAA, GDPR, and CCPA, while coordinating with cross-functional business and technology teams at all levels of the company.
Risk Advisory: Advise on contract terms, legal risks, and liabilities associated with transactions, including the protection of confidential and proprietary business and technical information.
Legal Services: Deliver professional legal services by communicating effectively, promptly responding to legal document requests, and completing assigned projects.
Stakeholder Engagement: Engage with internal and external stakeholders to ensure the timely initiation and completion of legal matters.
Entertainment Contracts: Draft and negotiate contracts with artist managers/agents, venues, and other suppliers.
Fund Advisory: Provide legal advisory in the establishment of new fund structures and ongoing support for existing fund structures.
Fund Agreements: Review and negotiate fund agreements and documentation.

19. In-House Counsel Duties and Roles

Legal Support: Work across the organisation and be a "go-to" person (with support) on legal matters.
Document Drafting: Draft all manner of commercial legal documents and contracts.
External Counsel Management: Liaise with and help manage external lawyers.
Planning and Prioritisation: Actively plan and prioritise to ensure deliverables are met on time.
Risk and Compliance: Identify and manage legal and corporate risks and assist with compliance/governance matters.
Legislation Interpretation: Interpret legislative obligations.
Training Delivery: Arrange and present training and legal seminars on occasion.
Branding and Marketing Counsel: Provide counsel on branding, marketing, and advertising matters.
IP Management: Manage IP portfolio.
Agreement Negotiation: Structure, draft, and negotiate commercial agreements, including partnership agreements, joint ventures, vendor contracts, employment agreements, and service contracts.
Contract Advisory: Provide counsel and risk analysis to internal business teams on contract terms and conditions.
Insurance Review: Review insurance agreements for risk and provide counsel to internal leaders on potential coverage and liability issues.

20. In-House Counsel Roles and Responsibilities

Regulatory Advisory: Provide advice on legal and regulatory issues related to the structuring, marketing, and managing of new real estate investment and other products.
Product Development: Support product development activities, including the structuring of investments.
Portfolio Support: Support portfolio management teams with ongoing management issues.
Investment Transactions: Provide advice related to joint ventures, compliance, and other investment transactions.
Fund Governance: Provide advice on regulatory issues, fund governance, and litigation matters.
Outside Counsel Management: Retain, manage, and coordinate outside counsel.
Diversity and Inclusion: Support and drive diversity and inclusion efforts, including the retention of diverse outside counsel.
Contract Management: Draft, negotiate, and review NDAs, engagement letters, master services agreements, and other commercial contracts.
Corporate Advisory: Provide legal support and advice in connection with partnership issues, corporate structuring, licensing, and regulatory matters.
Litigation Support: Support General Counsel in the management of litigations, third-party subpoenas, and regulatory investigations, and negotiate and respond to third-party subpoenas.
Operational Support: Work with internal operational and professional services groups in matters requiring legal support.

Relevant Information

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