Counsel
Counsel takes three forms. Each is authored. Each is signed.
Commissioned memorandum
A written analysis on a defined question, commissioned by a principal and produced under a single signature. The document is intended to be read carefully, marked up, and kept on file. Conclusions are stated, reasoned, and owned by the author whose name appears at the foot of the page.
Single author, fixed scope, board-ready
Review before commitment
Independent scrutiny of a decision close to signature: a transaction, a capital programme, a change to the operating structure, a shift in strategic posture. The memorandum reads the internal case against itself, identifies the assumptions that carry the weight of the conclusion, and states the conditions under which the present view should be reconsidered.
Dissenting read before signature
Standing counsel
A continuing relationship held by a chief executive, a chair, or a board committee navigating several related questions across a six- to twelve-month horizon. Short memoranda are written as the questions surface, each treated with the same discipline as a standalone engagement. Governance transitions, reconstitutions, and succession sequences are familiar contexts.
Rolling brief, capped hours, one named author
Standards
Four standards the firm agrees to be measured by.
These are the conditions under which the firm accepts an engagement and conducts it. Written here because a principal is entitled to refer to them after the memorandum has been delivered.
The document is the record
A memorandum is written to be read with attention, disagreed with in the margins, and kept on file. Meetings, telephone calls, and working sessions are in service of the document. They are not substitutes for it, and they do not exist to justify its length.
Short where short will serve
Length is a cost paid by the reader. A seven-page memorandum that resolves the question earns its place where a forty-page presentation would only surround it. The firm resists the instinct to inflate scope into the appearance of thoroughness.
Confidence kept
Material shared during an engagement is not repeated in pitch documents, public writing, or professional conversation. Discretion is not a clause to be negotiated into an engagement letter. It is the condition under which the firm operates.
Signed by the author
Every memorandum carries the name of the person who drafted it. There is no project team to stand behind. If a conclusion proves wrong in twelve months, the author is the one who answers for it. That exposure is what keeps the writing honest in the first place.
Notes
Short notes on decisions, governance, and the writing of both.
The Cost of Premature Alignment
The impulse to secure consensus before analysis is complete often produces decisions that satisfy the process while evading the question. When alignment becomes the objective, the objective disappears.
What Restructurings Actually Change
Reorganizations reliably produce new org charts. They less reliably produce new behaviors. The gap between structural change and behavioral change explains why most restructurings underperform their business case.
Deferred Decisions and Compounding Cost
Postponing a difficult choice rarely makes it easier. It usually makes it more expensive, both in direct financial terms and in the accumulated confusion that gathers around an unresolved question.
First exchange
Put the question in a paragraph. We will reply in kind.
A short written description of the situation is more useful than a form submission. State the question, the timing, and any constraints bearing on the conclusion. A reply typically follows within a few working days, with a proposal for a call only where the question warrants one. First exchanges are held in confidence and commit neither side.
