The business world it seems has been buffeted by scandal after scandal since we’ve entered the 21st century.

Corporate fraud is the biggie, of course, which led to Sarbanes-Oxley and a raft of other “reform” laws and regulations.

Of more recent vintage, we apparently have some funny business going on with backdating stock options, and Hewlett-Packard’s “pretexting” scandal has certainly turned a few heads.

In this issue of In-House, we examine these recent developments and what it means to in-house counsel.

The backdating of stock options threatens to ensnare a number of in-house lawyers because they may have been directly involved in papering the deals, or have even been the recipients of questionable stock options themselves.

The Hewlett-Packard mess teaches broader lessons of how in-house lawyers can properly handle dissension in the boardroom before it gets to the point of having to snoop around for phone records and the like.

We also take a look at the new executive compensation disclosure rules issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is yet another batch of regs designed to increase corporate transparency in the wake of Enron and other financial shenanigans. Placing the pay of high-level executives “under the microscope” will pose its challenges to in-house lawyers to say the least.

As usual, we have a fine array of guest articles from experts filling you in on a range of pertinent topics, from waiving privileges in the audit context to curbing employee abuse of intermittent FMLA leave.

One final note: Next year New England In-House and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly will be honoring in-house attorneys who have really shone over the past year. Our first-ever In-House Leaders in the Law will spotlight those in-house counsel who have demonstrated extraordinary skill and leadership on the job.

If you have someone in mind that you’d like to nominate, feel free to give me a shout at (617) 218-8141 or [email protected].

Details of the event are still being ironed out, but mark your calendar for April 2007, when we expect to host this terrific event.

Paul D. Boynton

Publisher