What would you do if your GC doesn’t think we need outside counsel support for contracts when entering a completely new industry area in which none of us are specialists and feels comfortable handling these new commercial agreements but you don’t think the GC has the industry expertise or insight necessary and shouldn’t be so comfortable?

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Lol found the big firm transfer. Welcome to in house.

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What ACIP1 said. Give your advice, make sure it is well-documented so you have something to point to if anything goes sideways, and move on to the next fire drill. That’s all I would consider doing unless the bad contract terms implicate the company in something fraudulent or criminal.

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Do some research about contracting in the that area to identify what considerations may come up and see if you can or cannot address them.

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I feel the frustration! Good luck, and you’ve got this!!

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Identify the risks and rough likelihood of them happening. (Small fine? Breach of agreement and destroying major supplier relationship? Massive PR disaster? Probably nothing?) Then evaluate again if you need to push on your GC further.

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Effing learn as much as I can as fast as I can.

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Gently document concerns to GC via email and save to file. Then just do your best. If issues arise, you’ll have documentation you raised the issue and were told to go forth and do. If there is a particularly large dollar value contract or one that subjects the company to higher than typical liability exposure, document same via email mail to your GC. File the response. Go forth and do your best. Rinse and repeat. I know this advice will leave you in an uncomfortable place, but I think it’s the best you can do here.

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CYA. I’d spend time learning about the industry at a high level and what the risks are, have a meeting+send email to highlight the risks, including that you don’t know the area

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Do what you can to get the GC saying no in an email. Create a special “personal” folder for stuff like this. You will use it regularly.

Yep. It’s just peace of mind knowing you have it in your back pocket. Further peace of mind is that.. yeah, none of you are experts in that field, but you are competent attorneys, so you can’t mess it up too spectacularly.

Look to ethics code and maybe gently go over gc head to a cxo to express concern that there is a situation may lead to unacceptable risk to the company?

Yeah - don’t do this unless there’s securities fraud or something of that level going on. Unless you don’t mind getting fired or working in unpleasant conditions going forward.

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Depends on the area. If this is your first foray into ERISA, I would be really careful. I am knowledgeable enough with ERISA to handle most issues, but have seen inexperienced people get mauled by ERISA.

So if it is something high risk and you are unfamiliar with the area, do what others here recommend and have the outside firm review your edits before sending to the otherside. Firms should be able to review most things relatively quickly.

If business gets upset at the delay, I have said,

"Unfortunately your timeline doesn't provide enough time to perform a review of (contract / issues)."

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