What one word describes the best in-house lawyers?
You can list off dozens: intellectual, ethical, experienced, trustworthy, communicative, balanced, wise, principled, etc. The list goes on and on.
There is one word, however, that I think reflects what clients mean when they speak about the best lawyers. It’s a word that encompasses all those important attributes because it reflects what the client sees when a great counsel is at her side:
Credibility.
Great in-house lawyers are great because they are credible. And they are credible because they are smart, skilled, ethical, communicative, and more.
Credible lawyers are not just problem-solvers and consiglieres. They are not just dealmakers and litigation masters. And they certainly are not credible just because they act, sound, or hide behind a façade of self-confidence.
A credible lawyer is one who shares his insights, intellect, and experience, but also admits he doesn’t know the answer, has not seen this novel problem before, and who listens far more than he speaks.
So what is ACC doing to help you improve your credibility?
It turns out, a lot more than you realize. ACC just published its new five-year strategic plan. While every government, charity, and company around the world will dust off old plans and rehash used tag lines, the new ACC strategic plan is fresh, tailored, and designed to serve you.
This short document — created with input from thousands of our members — sets out the future of ACC for the next five years and is appropriately called Strategic Plan 2.0 (SP2.0).
SP2.0 is all about your credibility: education, certification, networking, expansion, and connections, tailored to your personal needs. The goal of SP2.0 is not to make ACC great, but to make you great and to help you build credibility as a professional.
Please go to ACC.com and read the four concise SP2.0 strategic themes. Dig deeper to learn exactly what ACC is doing now and what it will do to serve you in the future. Read the substantive reasons behind each goal and the reasons why these are ACC’s priorities.
SP2.0 builds on five years of hard work and the success of ACC’s first five-year strategic plan. The ACC board and the staff kept that original plan in mind, and their daily work, each and every task, delivered on some part of that plan.
And that first strategic plan worked because of the credibility of the ACC leaders who guided the organization through five years of tremendous growth and change. These truly great lawyers include people like President and CEO Veta T. Richardson, as well as former chairs of the board like Tom Sabatino, David Allgood, John Page, Sabine Chalmers, and Iohann Le Frapper. As your new ACC chair, I hope to inspire the same level of credibility as the great leaders that came before me.
In fact, that’s exactly what SP2.0 is all about — helping us learn, develop, and connect, so that we can stand out as great in-house lawyers, too.
