Community Perspectives: What advice do you have for a recent law school grad starting their first in-house position?

In-house legal professionals share their advice for recent law school graduates in their their first in-house positions.

I started my first in-house job out of law school a week ago. I previously interned at this company twice, so I already know a lot of the attorneys, thankfully. Any general advice?

Counsel Responses:

My first job out of law school was in house as well. There was poor (basically nonexistent) training on the job. The best thing that happened to me was joining the Association of Corporate Counsel (your company will usually pay for your membership). This membership has been worthwhile. I can only speak on the Atlanta network - we are back to in-person events monthly. The in-person events have been a tremendous networking boost for me and the CLE offerings are interesting. On the other hand, the DC network is still strictly remote and my colleagues there have not found the ACC as useful to them. In summary, I’ve found the in-person events worthwhile. They offer online CLE as well, but those are no different than the offerings you’d find through the ABA. I wouldn’t come out of pocket for a membership, but I am thankful that my company paid for my membership. - Best of luck!
Another option is getting involved in your state bar or the ABA (especially one of the sections). There are lots of opportunities for good CLE and many sections have mentoring or fellowship programs. That said, a lot of ABA CLE’s are expensive, so look around for the free programs.
Hopefully not an issue at your company, but most companies do a pretty poor job of training young attorneys compared to firms. You should do a lot of reading in your practice area to self-train and attend cold CLE’s. Lots of free CLE are offered by firms to in-house lawyers.
Aside from professional development, start building good relationships with all the other internal stakeholders.

In-house? Join the conversation on Fishbowl (anonymous).

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