Becoming a professional Chief Legal Officer in 6 steps

Table Of Contents

Legal affairs are always of special interest to businesses, because this greatly affects the operation and development of enterprises. And the person who is responsible for these matters of the business is the Chief Legal Officer. So who is a Chief Legal Officer? How to become an excellent Chief Legal Officer? Let's explore the following secrets revealed by Navigos Search.

1. General Duties of Chief Legal Officer

Chief Legal Officer – CLO is a senior management position in charge of legal affairs of the business. They are also the protectors and representatives of the business in terms of legal matters.

Depending on the structure of each business, the specific duties of the Chief Legal Officer will be different. But in general, a Chief Legal Officer will be responsible for the following tasks: 

  • Operating and managing the legal department.
  • Updating new laws and regulations and disseminating the law to employees in the enterprise.
  • Formulating and delivering legal strategies.
  • Consulting and assisting the Production Manager in ensuring the development and launching of new products to the market without being involved in any legal problems.
  • Giving advice and consulting on legal issues with the Board of Director and involving in matters such as deals, contracts, taxes.
  • Being the representative to handle legal cases and looking for a lawyer to take on the case when an unfortunate incident happens related to the law that could affect the development of the business.
  • Drafting contracts and documents issued by enterprises.

General duties of a CLO

General duties of a CLO

2. Becoming a professional Chief Legal Officer in 6 steps

Most businesses need support from personnel in the legal department. However, the position of Chief Legal Officer is often found in large corporations or businesses that involve a lot of legal affairs.

Therefore, if you are orienting yourself to become a chief legal officer, you should start at the bottom and work your way up. This will help you accumulate practical experience and insight into the legal affairs in today's business operations.

In order to help you make steady progress on your career path to becoming an excellent Chief Legal Officer, Navigos Search would like to share with you some of the following tips:

2.1. Understand and be aware of the business

The Chief Legal Officer should ensure that every legal aspect of any agreement, regulation or dispute is viewed from the perspective of the business goals of the business. Therefore, the CLO must have a clear understanding of the economy, the business and the field in which the business is operating in order to provide effective legal solutions and strategies. The legal director also needs to skillfully use his legal role to reap many benefits and profits for the business.

2.2. See yourself as a business owner

Someone once said, as a Chief Legal Officer for a business, don't work like a lawyer, work like an entrepreneur. A good Chief Legal Officer needs to know which issues to prioritize, which are important in the business operations of the enterprise. At the same time, promptly warn and effectively solve potential legal problems without wasting time of the Board of Director.

To do this, the Chief Legal Officer needs to constantly learn, enrich his knowledge, spend time with entrepreneurs, talk to them and understand their relationships as well as their network. Only then can you come up with effective long-term legal strategies for the business.

CLO should see yourself as a business owner

CLO should see yourself as a business owner

2.3. Cultivate analyzing and evaluating skill

The ability to judge (also known as the “sixth sense”, “the ability to see every detail”) is one of the important qualities required in a great CLO, helping to accurately assess the impacts of any particular decision or action in relation to a legal matter.

Judgment, analysis and evaluation is difficult to learn, so the Chief Legal Officer needs practical experience in handling complex issues related to business processes, disputes, litigation, etc. The more practical experience, the more judgmental ability of the legal director is cultivated.

2.4. Being confident and humble

In business, there are many cases where sometimes the Board of Directors will not make a decision according to the CLO's legal advice. At this time the Chief Legal Officer needs to be calm, do not fire back just because you would like to keep your image. Make sure you have clearly presented and warned about legal issues to the Board.

The Chief Legal Officer is responsible for protecting and representing the business in terms of legal affairs. And a good CLO must always remain humble and calm when disputes or lawsuits arise.

2.5. Always learn and accumulate experience

To become an excellent Chief Legal Officer, you need to have in-depth knowledge of legal expertise as well as business administration, which will be applied frequently in the course of your work.

To be successful in this role, in addition to professional knowledge is a sufficient condition, the Chief Legal Officer needs to grasp a lot of information continuously, domestic and foreign legal documents; all fluctuations of the market must be captured in order to have a timely response. To do this, every CLO needs to have courage, professional and dynamic style, etc, to have achievement in the industry.

 

Accumulate experience and enrich knowledge

Accumulate experience and enrich knowledge

2.6. Know your team members 

As a senior manager in the enterprise, in addition to cultivating personal abilities, the Chief Legal Officer must also know how to manage human resources in the department. Combining the strengths of each individual will create a strong team.

Knowing how to use and promote the capabilities of available human resources will help you easily control and save costs for your business. At the same time, the connection between employees and leaders is also more effective. To do this, the Chief Legal Officer needs to define the duties and authorities of each employee; propose clear and transparent salary as well as reward policies; cooperate with other departments in the enterprise to build a professional working environment; And more importantly, CLOs need to hone your management skills.

3. Recruiting Chief Legal Officer at Navigos Search

Chief Legal Officer is a senior employment position in an enterprise. Therefore, recruiting talent for this position is not easy if the business does not have the right recruitment strategy. The most optimal solution for businesses is to choose the headhunter service of Navigos Search.

The biggest advantage of Navigos Search is that it belongs to Navigos Group, which is the owner of the number 1 recruitment website in Vietnam - Vietnamworks. With a huge data volume of 375,000+ senior candidates, 85,000+ senior management candidates (Senior manager, C-level) and more than 5,000,000+ accounts from VietnamWorks data, it has become an extremely fertile resource for  headhunters to support clients in all industries.

In addition, a team of dedicated consultants will always be with the business from the time of searching until receiving candidates. Navigos Search's dedicated team can accurately capture the recruitment requirements of businesses to find, interview and recommend exactly the most suitable candidate for the position of Chief Legal Officer or any middle & high-level job position.

Recruiting Chief Legal Officer at Navigos Search

With more than 20 years of experience in the field of professional headhunter and constant efforts, Navigos Search is the best connection for businesses and candidates. If your business is looking for a Chief Legal Officer or other senior personnel position, please contact Navigos Search with the information below:

  • HCM Headquarters: 20th Floor, e.town Central Building, 11 Doan Van Bo, Ward 13, District 4
  • Hanoi Branch:V. Building - 125 Ba Trieu street, Hai Ba Trung District
  • Hotline: 1800 585 826
  • Email: contact@navigossearch.com
  • Website: navigossearch.com
  • Fanpage: facebook.com/NavigosSearchVietnam

Navigos Search - Vietnam's leading

middle and high-level talent hunting company

 
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