Ben Heineman, Jr., General Counsel and VP of General Electric, writes eloquently about the need for in-house counsel to be great leaders. He states that integrity is essential, but it is not the type of integrity that is a solitary effort. Mr. Heineman knows that the job of in-house counsel is to insure that everyone in the organization acts with integrity. In-house counsel stand as the “conscience” of the organization, and yet, they are often not highly regarded by the other “C” level officials of an organization. In-house counsel offices must function brilliantly or they serve as a stumbling block to getting the work done in the organization. Long waits for contracts to be approved by legal counsel is a leadership failure that often accompanies the work of the in-house counsel’s office. In the in-house counsel office the lawyers must be leaders who understand both the business and the law. They must be committed to speed while they know that if they put a comma in the wrong place in a contract, it can cost their company a million dollars or more. Improving the leadership skills of lawyers in the in-house counsel office is the only way to put these lawyers on par with the other senior managers of a large firm.