Story of Don't Ask, Don't Tell

• Author: Adam Newhouse
• Pages: 23-28

23

CHAPTER 3

Story of Don’t Ask, Don’tTell

While “there was a time in the first half of the 20th century, before

the proliferation of MBA programs, when law school was a common

path for corporate leaders,” today only about 10 percent of CEOs

of companies listed on the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index hold

legal degrees. “Nearly all of these executives have had to overcome a

common prejudice: that lawyers make bad corporate leaders. Often

unschooled in core skills such as accounting or finance, lawyers start

their careers in a strange world where risk is frowned upon, colorful

marketing is unethical, people rarely work in big teams, and nobody

makes a decision without reviewing stacks of paperwork first. Business

attorneys are often considered the ‘vice-presidents of No,’ says Jeffrey

A. Sonnenfeld, associate dean of executive programs at Yale School of

Management.”89

In the years leading up to the Great Recession I sometimes wondered

why various technically non-legal advisory services were offering de

facto legal services while most of us in the legal profession shunned

expanding into non-legal fields. If we found comfort keeping our legal

offerings pristine, we are no longer amused.

Despite the controversial90 ban on nonlawyers’ holding own-

ership interest in law firms,91 investors have been making gradual

inroads on lawyers’ monopoly. William Henderson predicts that

in several years, deregulation will take place without any formal

89.Mike France & Louis Lavelle, A Compelling Case for Lawyer-CEOs, Bloomberg

Businessweek, Dec. 13, 2004, http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2004-12-12

/a-compelling-case-for-lawyer-ceos (visited Mar. 29, 2016).

90.See, e.g., Robert C. Weber, Law Firms Should Spurn Outside Investment, Bloomberg

Businessweek, Sept. 21, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com/management/law-firms

-should-spurn-outside-investments-09202011.html (visited Mar. 29, 2016); and Robert C.

Weber, quoted in Joe Palazzolo, IBM General Counsel: Nonlawyer Ownership Is a Nonstarter,

Wall St. J. (Law Blog), Feb. 14, 2012, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/02/14/ibm-general

-counsel-nonlawyer-ownership-is-a-nonstarter/ (visited Mar. 29, 2016).

91.SeeModel Rules of Prof’l Conduct R.5.4 (Professional Independence of a Lawyer).

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