A lawyer who specialises in business or corporate laws is referred to as a corporate lawyer. Corporate or business lawyers ensure that commercial transactions are conducted in a legal manner, advice organisations on legal duties and rights, advice corporate officers on their legal rights and duties amidst other aspects of business law. For a business lawyer to do so, he should have expertise and knowledge in various facets of licensing, bankruptcy, securities law, intellectual property rights, contract law, accounting, tax law and zoning laws. Also, it is important for the lawyer to be well versed in the laws that concern the business of the organisation that they are working for.
Compared to that of a trial lawyer, the practice of corporate law is far less aggressive or hostile. When dealing with both sides of the commercial transactions, corporate lawyers engage less as adversaries and more as enablers. In corporate transactions, rarely are there aggrieved parties, failures, or injustice in the financial means of the associates involved in the arrangement.
Corporate lawyers in smaller cities of districts engaged with local or regional firms may deal with a number of short-term assignments such as real estate transactions, drafting probate laws or settling internal matters of the company. Whereas, a corporate business lawyer in a large city institution may be engaged in spending a number of months focused on negotiating large business transactions with multinational repercussions.
In the United States alone, it is reported that there are over 70,000 corporate lawyers and the number is slowly rising.