I noticed that this particular folder needed a post, so I came up with some questions.  As HR professionals, how often do you consult with your outside/litigation counsel before making HR decisions?  Have you found such consultations to be helpful in the decision making process?  Do you consider it important to consult legal counsel before making decisions? And finally, do you keep outside/litigation counsel on retainer?  I would be interested to hear what people and businesses are doing.

My dependency on legal consultancy has changed depending on the companies I have worked for.  The smaller companies with around 5000 employees required more consulting.  My current employer has over 15000 employees.  The upper management has seen so many situations they only consult in more extreme situations.

We consult with our legal counsel only on more severe matters, other than that, we follow our policies to enforce our rules.

Do either of you have inside HR or legal personnel that you can consult with?  General Counsel? Or someone similar?

We have our General Counsel we consult with when we have any situations we need legal input on. Our General Counsel is part of our corporate employee.