(Author) an Associate Attorney

Starting my first in-house counsel role after five years in BigLaw on October 31. Any best practices tips or other pointers would be so appreciated.

General Counsel Responses:

• Being pleasant to work with goes a long way.

• We don’t like gunners.

• American Corporate Counsel Association has the best CLEs for practical practice tips. And they don’t have too many law firm people chasing you down; just the ones who are giving the presentations.

• Your job isn’t to bill time or give legal advice. Your job is to use your legal advice to help the business achieve its objectives.

• If it’s not part of your onboarding, ask to set up meetings/intros with your primary stakeholders and leads within the legal department to understand what they do, how you will interact with them and how you can be most effective. Ask lots of questions and don’t be afraid to not know much starting out. With that said, try to Google some questions before asking them if you can 😀. Ask if you can shadow people within your team in the legal dept (join negotiations to listen, ask for their templates, etc.). If you are doing commercial work, ask to walk through the templates you will use a lot to understand why they push for certain terms. Again, ask lots of questions, even generic ones like “what do you wish you knew when starting out here?” And “any tips on how I can get up to speed and start to help as quickly as possible?” Being eager to help, kind, humble and curious will go a very long way. Show you care and want to help.

• Engage early and often, across the organization. Be super responsive, and if you can’t be, make sure they know ASAP! Whenever possible, give your boss and business partners the option to answer your emails with just one word - yes, no, approve, etc. Make sure your boss is never surprised. Report out/up weekly.

Counsel Responses:

• But why are they all so expensive?

• ACC is great. (I’m a local board member).

• Realize that you’ve probably been operating at a capacity that isn’t normal. Everything is much slower. I basically just had to reset my nervous system. 😂

• I’m in a tech startup and it’s fast chaos.

• That’s been my experience but I’m with a fairly large insurance company and it’s so much less chaotic than private practice.

• Learn the business. Bookmark the org chart. Ask lots of questions.

• You’re now a business partner. You are not opposing Counsel. Think about how you can help move the business forward. When they come to you with a legal issue (or an issue they think is legal) don’t just give them the legal answer, give them the answer that helps them move the business forward. Be a good business partner.

• If you’re giving legal advice, start your email with something like ‘based on the facts as I currently know them’. You’ll never have all the facts so this gives you wiggle room when things change. This seems silly, but it’s a nice card to play, “Well I didn’t know that, this changes everything”.

• As another poster said, spending your first few months learning the business, the players, the personalities, and the playbook. Be a partner, not a roadblock. https://www.amazon.com/Workplace-Strategies-Technology-Lawyers-House/dp/B08WSFVBZG 

• Absolutely do not buy this book. It’s like 30 pages in size 16 font, with some of the most generic “advice” you can think of: obvious things that are in essence like “be a good business partner”, “be business minded” or “calibrate risk”. All things you can read for free either here on Facebook or other publicly available sources. I’ve seen this book recommended a few times here, but I found it to be an absolute waste of money. (Side bar: Could it be the author himself shilling his e-book on an anonymous platform?).

• Don’t flex that you were at a big firm. Learn the business, how it operates and makes money. Get to know people from each area of the business, you want to have a reliable internal network that you can raise even the dumbest questions to while you’re learning. Generally, people have outside lives more than BigLaw. Understanding that and getting to know people goes a long way.

• Learn to communicate with business people. Drop legalese and memo-style communication. Emails should not have blocks of text but rather high-level bullet points. Frame issues and recommendations in a way that meets their needs and understanding. Come with solutions (never just problems or “no”s)!!

• Get aligned with your boss on outside counsel spend and the approval process? For example, is there a certain threshold below which you have authority to approve use of outside counsel? Meet with the business leaders that you will be supporting and pick their brains about what is working well and what can be improved upon. Try to address some of their needs early on and you’ll have friends in high places.

• Be respectful of everyone regardless of their title. This should be the norm everywhere, but I have noticed a couple attorneys coming from Big Law who treat our paralegals like crap. Maybe that’s considered okay at some companies, but at ours it did not go over well. Learn to give legal advice in layman's terms. i.e. explaining things in a way a non-lawyer could understand and give advice that’s practical/that the business can actually act upon.

Attorney and Associate Responses:

• Join national/local organizations for in-house counsel. You can get a lot of great advice and continued support from them.

• Sorry, I’m a totally dummy on this topic—what are some reputable national organizations for in-house counsels (tech-focused ones would be great as well).

• I actually don’t know any either because I’m not in-house, lol, I only know one for minorities that are in-house and attorneys but it’s limited to employment work. Check out the ABA website, but you might have to do some digging.

• Get your job to pay for it but if you find one that seems great, attend a conference or a few events and see if it’s worth it to pay out of your pocket (if your job won’t).

• It depends on what business unit you support, but I’d definitely focus on at least the first three months on learning the business. I made the mistake of wanting to jump into work to “prove” my worth, but missed a lot of aspects in that rush that I had to relearn (and often look slightly out of touch) later.

• This is incredibly helpful, for someone else also who just started in-house. Thank you!!

• Make sure your Halloween costume is over the top to make a statement.

• I’m starting in0-house on the 31st, too. Best of luck to you!!

In-house? Be a part of the conversation on Fishbowl (anonymous).