Joe Murphy (joemurphy@gmail.com) is a Senior Advisor at Compliance Strategists, SCCE’s Director of Public Policy, and Editor-in-Chief of CEP Magazine.

The company CEO calls and asks you, as counsel for the company, whether she can do something that is clearly offensive. You look into it and conclude that while this is very aggressive and unethical, it is not illegal. So, as counsel, you tell the CEO she can go ahead.

But what does the client want? If a lawyer represents an individual, then it is clear who is the client—that one person. But when we represent an organization, it can be much more difficult. Unfortunately, lawyers may incorrectly identify with the individual managers and not focus so much on the more abstract notion of the client.