Why the Best General Counsel Is a Business Partner First, Lawyer Second

Early in my practice, a client called me frustrated. He had taken a contract to another attorney before coming to me, and that attorney had handed it back with seventeen redlined changes and a bill — but no clear answer on whether to sign it. "He told me everything that was wrong with it," my client said. "He never told me what to do."

That is exactly the wrong kind of lawyer.

I have been practicing law for awhile now, though I went to law school in my 30's — real estate closings, municipal governance, business contracts, estate plans. The clients I work with are not looking for someone to recite risks back to them. What they need is someone who can look at the full picture and say: here is how we get this done.

Legal advice that ignores reality is not advice

The cleanest legal position is not always the right one. I have seen deals die because counsel was so focused on eliminating every conceivable risk that they forgot there was a transaction to close. Risk does not disappear when you say no. It just shifts — sometimes to a worse place.

My approach has always been to understand what the client is trying to accomplish before I say anything else. A zoning issue looks different once you understand the development timeline. The legal question and the practical question are almost never separate, and treating them that way is where a lot of lawyers go wrong.

I am not the last word — I am one voice at the table

What I am interested in is being genuinely useful. That means giving a clear-eyed read on the exposure, laying out the real options — not just the safest one — and trusting that the person I am advising is capable of making a good decision with good information. A college president, a nonprofit board, a business owner: they are not asking me to decide for them. They are asking me to make sure they are not deciding blind.

What I have learned from doing this work:

The clients who come back are not always the ones whose matters went smoothly. What those clients remember is not whether everything went perfectly. It is whether their attorney was honest, stayed in the room when things got complicated, and helped them find a way through.

Not bulletproof. Not frictionless. Just steady, honest, and focused on the right outcome — not just the safe answer.

James E. Schroeder is the founder of Schroeder Law Group/Ohio Legacy Law, an Ohio law firm practicing in real estate, business transactions, and estate planning.