Jens Drolshammer, Zur Situationalität der Unternehmensjuristen als International Lawyers im Spannungsfeld von Globalisierung und Anglo-Amerikanisierung, in In-House-Counsel in internationalen Unternehmen, ed. S. Hemblach-Glesinn, Beat Hess, Andreas L. Meier, Reto Schiltknecht, Christian Wind, Basel 2010, p. 263-297
A_2.43_DROLSHAMMER_Zur Situationalität
[The situationality of the enterprise lawyer as international lawyer as international lawyer in the tension between globalization and anglo-americanization]
a) Background
This text appeared in the first reader on the European continent on the topic In-house Counsel in internationalen Unternehmungen. It systematically deals in twenty-seven texts with a variety of aspects of the legal profession of enterprise lawyers in particular general counsels in globalization. It is a fact that this important profession, which underwent dramatic changes in the last phase of globalization, is under researched in legal sciences as well as being underrepresented in the professions of the in-house lawyers. The text at hand takes a so-called personalized approach to describe and understand the phenomenon of globalization from a holistic perspective by looking at legal professions as key actors that are marked by the phenomenon of their networks and their integration on an international scale. It is a further step in the generalization of the proposed approach to conceptualize the legal process of globalization by describing the activities of the key legal actors. This is of particular relevance in the worldwide interdependent economy of Switzerland since there are an above average number of multinational enterprises based in Switzerland.
The text of Jens Drolshammer should be read in conjunction with the text A College of International Lawyers in a networked society? (2.15 in the part of Globalization). The need for conceptualization of a new international lawyer from a global perspective and the text 3 The Global Groove of the Harvard Yard – Personal aspects of the person in the “Globalisation and the Anglo-Americanization of law and legal professions”.
b) Summary
The text addresses a legal profession that has the privilege of usually being the most and earliest exposed to the legal process of globalization owing to the fact that the activities of their enterprises are directly exposed to the effects of a multiplicity of legal systems.
The text situates the legal profession of enterprise lawyers and general counsels in the legal process of globalization through a personal approach, which has a longstanding tradition in other humanities and social sciences. It further situates this profession in a new interdisciplinarity arising at the legal process of globalization. The text analyses the reasons why in the past this legal profession has not been analysed in legal science and has not been written about by enterprise lawyers and general counsels themselves. It describes the fact that legal profession in all its aspects and dimensions by large after World War II has been Anglo-Saxon and particularly American driven. The text identifies the major aspects of the changes of the legal process of globalization with respect to enterprise lawyers and brings to the foreground special characteristics of this change for this legal profession. The text states guiding principles for the future development of the international lawyer and in particular the international enterprise lawyer and stipulates a list of desiderata for further conceptualization of this profession.
The text ends by stating the need to develop a guiding vision of lawyering internationally in the various key professions. It moves from the vision of “a Visible College of International Lawyers” to the vision of “the Invisible College of International Law”.