Robert Rosen comments on a new textbook of corporate law that focuses on compliance and risk management. (His comments could apply to large law firms as well.) Excerpt:
I commend to your attention Geoffrey Miller’s The Law of Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance. This casebook is a convincing argument that compliance and risk management are fields of study appropriate for legal education. It expands the law school field of corporate governance from its current restricted view, discussing shareholders and boards, to one that encompasses all the actors within and without corporations who have an impact on compliance.
In corporations today, lawyers are in conflict with themselves and others about whether the management of compliance activities is a lawyerly activity. Is teaching and inspecting compliance with the law a job for lawyers? Some lawyers answer “no;” some legal departments are happy to forsake such policing functions, preferring consultative activities. Others believe that the organizational knowledge required for managing compliance goes beyond normal legal skills. And, yet others take a dim view of lawyers as organizational problem-solvers or compliance motivators.