Benjamin W. Heineman Jr. (born 1944) is an American journalist, lawyer, government official, business executive, academic and author.
His works covers such subjects as law, government, public policy, international affairs, anti-corruption and integrity in large institutions.
[3] Heineman started his career as a reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times in 1968 where he covered, among other things, civil disturbances relating to SDS protests, gang wars, the assassination of Martin Luther King and police-protester confrontations at the Democratic National Convention.
[7] Heineman is credited with transforming the role of General Counsel in the modern global corporation into a core member of the top management team.
At GE, the following functions reported to him: law, environmental health and safety, public policy, tax and security and crisis management.
In doing so, Heineman writes that the general counsel must be a "lawyer-statesman" who "must resolve the most basic problem confronting inside lawyers: being partner to the board of directors, CEO and business leaders but ultimately being guardian of the corporation."
[12] He has been a member of the board of trustees of Central European University; the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science, Technology and Law; the Board of Trustees, Committee for Economic Development; the Advisory Council for Millstein Center for Governance and Performance, Columbia Law and Business Schools; the External Advisory Group for World Bank Group's Governance and Anti-Corruption Strategy; the Independent Review Panel on World Bank Group's Department of Institutional Integrity; and the Board of Transparency International-USA., He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Law Institute.
His work has been published by, inter alia, The Atlantic,[14] The Washington Post, Yale Law Journal, Harvard Business Review,[15] and Corporate Counsel.
He explains how in the past 30 years, general counsel have risen in power and status within the profession, becoming core members of top management and being intimately involved in complex, multi-faceted problem solving and strategy setting that involve a broad range of considerations in addition to law: ethics, reputation, risk management, public policy, politics, communications, citizenship and institutional structure and culture.