Contract Review

Officially, I am "International Corporate Counsel" - how cool does that sound? :) And although I have some pretty cool sh** that I get to do, most of my job is contract review.

In the states, I think, corporate counsel will directly negotiate a contract. Here, however, that is rarely done. Rather, Mr. X from Y department gets a contract from Company Z. I look at it, revise it, and give it back to Mr. X (and yes, it is always a Mr.). Then he goes to Company Z, which hands it off to their in-house counsel, etc etc.

I actually got an email today explaining the appropriate process to have a contract received from a subsidiary signed by someone here at HQ. It involved no less than 8 people. 8. And this is after the dang thing has already been negotiated, reviewed, edited, etc.

I think the biggest thing I am learning is how a big company - especially a big Japanese company - works. Heaven forbid we actually insult No. 3 of 8 and go directly to No. 4 instead. horrors! loss of face! impropriety to the extreme!

And people wonder why it takes us so long to get things done...