GCs: In-House Life Overloaded With Meetings, Bureaucracy

Katheryn Hayes Tucker
Fulton County Daily Report

Establishing trust with businesspeople is a key to success for a general counsel, according to a panel of GCs who offered advice and tips in a program for the Association of Corporate Counsel Georgia chapter last week at the Cumberland Maggiano’s Little Italy.

Keith Scott, senior managing attorney for Rollins Inc., parent of Orkin Exterminating, said when he joined the company 11 years ago, his first assignment was to spend a hot June day in Florida drilling holes in concrete to insert chemicals to kill termites. He said he quickly developed empathy for people working in other departments of the business.

Teresa T. Kennedy, assistant general counsel for Cox Communications Inc., said she studied the culture of the company and the different departments within it to learn how to communicate. She also learned to follow the word “no,” with “but…” and offer alternatives when she had a legal issue with a business goal.

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