Английский язык. Мачнева В.В - 18 стр.

       5 Unit 5 The Legal Foundation for a Business

      5.1 Read the text, consult the vocabulary notes it that follow

                                    The Firm and its Attorney
       (1) With the advent of increased government regulation, business have become
more apt to call upon lawyers to assist them through the “red tape”. In the past a
business usually did not contact lawyers until a problem arose, for example when it was
sued or when a distributor would not pay an outstanding debt. However, more and more
businesses are concerned with preventive law, attempts to avoid the unfavorable
consequences that accompany uniform business practices. Business managers today
have a more ongoing relationship with the lawyers than they had in the past thus need to
know exactly how lawyers function.
      (2) Lawyers have a common base of training: law school. In law school a lawyer
receives generalized training enabling him or her to adapt to a wide range of tasks. The
average person thinks lawyers know the law. It is more accurate however, to say that
lawyers are generally versed in an array of legal principles and they know how to find
the relevant law to apply it to particular circumstances. It is this general training and
ability that equip a lawyer for various specialized tasks.
       Counselor
      (3) The lawyer practices preventive law by counseling the business client. Wise
counsel can avoid a host of problems; for example, advising a corporation regarding the
legal consequences of a merger might avert potential antitrust problems. As a counselor,
the business lawyer must be imaginative and perceive the range of alternative courses of
action and foresee the probable legal consequences that attach to each. To do this the
business lawyer must be versed the multidimensional operations and of the business
firm.
       Investigator
      (4) The role of investigator is often preliminary to the role of counselor or
advocate. The lawyer needs to accumulate potentially useful information and the to
extract the data pertinent to the particular task. This takes cooperation with the business
client who knows the intrafirm operations and where to find specific documents. During
the course of the investigation the attorney may uncover damaging information or even
evidence of criminal activity. The attorney owes an allegiance to the client. Although an
attorney is deemed an officer of the court and cannot counsel a client to participate in
illegal activities, nonetheless the canons of ethics, as constituted at present, do not
require the attorney to “blow the whistle”.
       Drafter
      (5) The business lawyer drafts documents for the firm. Contracts, deeds, corporate
instruments, and securities registration statements are just a few of the documents that


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