The lawyer's mindset
What’s the view like from Lawyerland? Paul Teta, vice president and general counsel of international trading and marketing company Kolmar Americas, probes the unique lawyer mindset.
Recently, one of my colleagues who works in Kolmar’s treasury department asked me whether I liked being a lawyer. I found it curious that the question did not contemplate working in a legal capacity or doing legal work, but instead, being ‘a lawyer’ as if it is a thing.
Based on that question I began to think about the differences between the business side of what we do and the legal side of what we do. In the end, I concluded that the overlap is about how we each see and manage risk. Therefore, that is the foundation on which I have written this article – how risk is navigated through the eyes of the law department; that lens being what I call ‘Lawyerland’.
