The recognized social-policy study of the disparate roles corporate lawyers play in representing and advising their institutional clients. Long passed around and cited by scholars and lawyers as an unpublished manuscript, the book explores the choices lawyers and executives make about how they are involved in corporate decisions. It is accessible to a wide audience and includes inside interviews.

In the companies studied, Rosen showed that corporate lawyers were repeatedly intertwined in decisions—beyond those regarding mere legal compliance—ranging from finance to production to sales to returns to litigation. But the how, when and consequences of their involvements varied. The book analyzes these variations. It examines relations between inside and outside counsel and the management of the corporate legal function. It locates them in a taut framework of organization theory and institutional behavior, a frame and application since referenced for its cogency and explanatory power.