Survey Says: Keep Lawyers Out of the Boardroom. Melanie Wadsworth Challenges This Belief in The Law Society Gazette

An annual survey of corporate directors conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) found that legal expertise isn't a very important quality when directors are considering bringing on new members to the company board. Financial expertise was by far the most important quality, regarded as ‘very important' by 93 percent of respondents. Legal expertise was thought of as ‘very important' by a paltry 21 percent of those polled.

As Melanie Wadsworth explained in The Law Society Gazette, many corporate board members have a false belief that legal expertise can bring negativity to a board because "inexperienced or less able lawyers sometimes hide behind the law to allow themselves to sit on the fence or say ‘it can't be done.'"