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opinion LEGAL E THICS BY PHILIP SLAYTON Too many hats A There is a point of too much involvement for lawyers: you can't take direction from a CEO in the morning and then question his judgement at a board meeting in the afternoon. lawyer told me the following story (I've changed a few details to conceal identities.) A few years ago, she was a junior associate at a big fi rm. The fi rm represented a large public corporation. It also represented, person- ally, the corporation's controlling shareholder, who, as well, was the corporation's chief executive offi cer and chairman of the board of directors. A very senior partner in her fi rm was in charge of all these fi les, and the young associate (and many other junior lawyers) helped him. The very senior partner sat on the corpo- ration's board. He had the whole thing locked up and his professional eminence and status in the law fi rm depended on it. One year, things went wrong for the corpora- tion and all hell broke loose. There were aggrieved creditors and disgruntled minority shareholders. Some board members were scared and others were angry. Management was under siege. Legal threats of all kinds were fl ying around. The young lawyer was worried. She sat in her small offi ce, think- ing about courses she had taken in law school, and saw confl icts of interest all over the place. How could her fi rm represent the corporation www. C ANADIAN mag.com M AY 2008 29 ILLUSTRATION: JEREMY BRUNEEL