I work for the Federal (US) government and we have rules like your corporate counsel. How we work around it is to simply list "team work" or "individual initiative" or "personal communication" as necessary skills along with programming languages and hardware knowledge. We also must ask everyone the same questions so we come up with a list, one of which is a list of hobbies. That question is definitely not work-related but as long as we ask everyone the same questions and don't discriminate by race, religion, etc., then we are allowed to do it. This question has often allowed to see the most nervous "geek" types relax and talk animatedly about something non-computer-related and makes us more comfortable with their softer skills.