Legal Department Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Legal Department - Essay ExampleAs Adoranti (2006) explains, seam to business and commercial guides explicitly define the obligations of sellers and buyers. This includes the specifications of the contacted for products/services, their quality and time/place of delivery. The violation of contractual obligations, on either side, can be cause for the invalidation of the contract and grounds for the payment of financial penalties (Adoranti, 2006). As our organizations legal councilor emphasized, the binding form of contracts implies that it is incumbent upon the organization to ensure that a contract works in its privilege and not against it. Hence, within the context of our organization, the policy is that no sales contract is signed prior to the formulation of an inter-departmental business plan which details how the organization volition fulfill the contract and whether, indeed, it can. Only following a thorough review of this plan does the legal department authorize the signatur e of the contract.The regulations which the legal department has impose upon contractual commitments are an outcome of prior negative experiences. Two years ago an overenthusiastic sales department committed the company to the supply of more(prenominal) than it could produce within a specified time period. As the Sales Director had the authority to conclude contracts, the outcome was the overextension of collective resources in a wish to satisfy its contractual obligations and, ultimately, a failure to meet the time of delivery, resulting in the imposition of fines upon the company. This incident, as the corporate legal councilor informed me, instigated a revision of corporate policy, whereby contracts could only be entered into following inter-departmental meetings and the formulation of business plans which outline strategies for the fulfillment of contractual obligations.Contracts, however, do not represent the extent of the legal departments involvement in corporate and busi ness processes and relations. Indeed, one of the departments primary concerns is employee relations, the implementation of corporate policy and the assurance of adherence. Insofar as the aforementioned is concerned, Poole (2004) identifies it as one of the more authorized of any corporate legal departments responsibilities, comparable to the implementation of law and order. As such, the legal department governs/supervises employee relations and ensures adherence to a specific label of conduct. This code of conduct extends to company-related behavior following the termination of the employee-employer relation. For example, in the event of an employees dismissal for non performance of job related responsibilities, he/she is, as per the employment contract signed, warned against twain defaming the company and exposing company business secrets. This, as the legal councilor advised me, was standard practice in most organizations but, without doubt, one of the more important of the leg al departments responsibilities as it involved the safeguarding of the company from disgruntled former employees.The protection of the company against defamation, not just by former employees but by competitors and the media consumes much of the legal depa