Publicly-traded, multi-billion dollar industrial manufacturing corporation seeks immediate interim general counsel to fill role.

The Challenge

A publicly-traded, multi-billion dollar industrial manufacturing corporation was faced with the unforeseen and untimely departure of their long-time general counsel.  This GC guided the corporation through many vital acquisitions, litigations and corporate growth.  S/he was a consequential executive to the Board and oversaw wide-ranging and comprehensive EHS, public company reporting and acquisition planning programs.  Due to this departure, the CHRO and CSuite was faced with immediate decisions due to mounting litigation and lacked true internal options and only viewed costly yet reliable outside counsel relationships as their only resource.

The Solution

Thanks to career-long relationships the CHRO held with Major, Lindsey & Africa, the CHRO connected with an individual s/he knew within MLA’s In-House Counsel Recruiting (“IHCR”) business line.  The urgent nature of the situation required immediate solutions and therefore the CHRO was connected with MLA’s Interim Legal Talent group, while also exploring longer-term game planning for running parallel searches. MLA Interim proposed an urgent, one-week timeline for interim general counsel profile submissions, interviews and on-boarding.  This timeline, approach and focus on specific profiles would satisfy the pressing needs of the legal department.  More specifically, given public company reporting needs and litigation, the CHRO and MLA Interim committed to focusing on former, semi-retired general counsel that could counsel the company through both aspects.

The Results

Meeting the profile, budgetary and timeline requirements, MLA Interim placed a former general counsel in one weeks’ time to oversee the general counsel’s responsibilities and address the SEC reporting and litigation matters. This also allowed the CHRO, CSuite and Board the opportunity to comfortably follow MLA’s IHCR retained search process for the company’s next full-time general counsel.  This resulted in that hiring and the interim general counsel would then assume the role of Company Secretary in full-time capacity.