Andrew Hendry, former general counsel of Colgate-Palmolive.

Behind the Columbia in-house counsel program lies a powerful bond between Reuben Mark, the former CEO of Colgate-Palmolive Co., and his general counsel for 16 years, Andrew [Andy] Hendry.

The two men formed a highly successful partnership in which they made strategic business, legal and ethical decisions together. Reflecting on this partnership led Mark to ask the Columbia Business School to expand his initiative into a joint venture with the law school.

Hendry feels honored that his friend included him. "From the day I walked in the door at Colgate, [Mark] was extraordinarily supportive," Hendry recalls. "It was a very healthy, back and forth, kind of partnership. At the end of the day he always called the shots, but he took my views into account and we usually ended up at the same place."

Hendry says Mark brought him in on the Columbia project from the beginning to help hammer out the goals. The former general counsel continues as a member of a working roundtable made up of professionals and academics from various points in their careers and from a range of industries. This roundtable continues to shape the initiative's future.

The program, Hendry says, could make Columbia Law School a real thought leader in the in-house counsel world.

One concept he hopes the program tackles is what he calls short-termism in America—that a corporation's first duty to shareholders is to maximize short term profits.

"That is a very sad turn in corporate governance in America," Hendry says. "There have been many corporate failures [and] it's clear that these companies that once were hallmarks of America were floundering because not much was done to build and protect the business in the long term."

Retired since 2015 and living in Pinehurst, North Carolina, Hendry serves as a commissioner on the state's Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission, and as an adviser on the compliance risk management project for the American Law Institute.

Before joining Colgate, he had served nine years as general counsel at Unisys in Detroit and Philadelphia, and three years as a corporate attorney at Reynolds Metals Co. in Virginia. Hendry says when he left the New York law firm Battle Fowler (now part of Paul Hastings) in 1979 to first go in-house at Reynolds, "it was a different world and all my friends told me I was crazy. That has all changed now."

Now, he says, in-house law departments "are the equal of, and in some cases better than, fine quality law firms."

Increasingly talented lawyers want to work in corporate legal departments, he adds, "and Columbia is preparing ­students for that reality."

Hendry adds, "I hear it (the initiative) is bringing the law and business schools closer. And that's a good thing, too."