For the most part, corporate counsel readers shun the limelight. It’s a rare general counsel who speaks publicly about a politically charged issue. If in-house lawyers testify before a congressional committee, chances are it’s not by choice. Corporate counsel prefer to speak through legal documents or internal company sites, or via outside counsel if they’re involved in a public dispute. Or they’ll restrict their utterances to matters that are closely related to how they do their jobs.
So it was an unusual event that a group of tech company general counsel drafted a statement criticizing spying on private citizens by the National Security Administration. And some, including Brad Smith of Microsoft Corp., Erika Rottenberg, VP–general counsel of LinkedIn and Burke Norton, chief legal officer of Salesforce.com, met with President Barack Obama (along with some tech CEOs) to voice their concerns. By most accounts, it was a contentious meeting, with administration officials trying to change the subject when the executives and their attorneys pressed them on privacy and spying.
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