A mentee of mine recently started his first job in-house and asked me if I had any tips for success for the transition, especially coming from a law firm. In case it is helpful for others, here are a few of my suggestions based on my personal experience for starting off strong in-house.
Relationships are everything.
While relationships are probably important to the practice of law generally, I have seen how they are crucial in-house. From a very practical perspective, the difference is this. You could be a jerk but a very smart jerk and still have a job at a law firm, if you bill a lot of hours or have a book of business. At a company, however, if you are a jerk, your clients will simply not come to you and will seek advice from someone else (also known as internal forum shopping) — or if they have to come to you because their manager said so, they may not come as timely or may withhold information from you and essentially undermine the value you can bring.
So what this means is that while chatting about your weekend while getting coffee or grabbing lunch with colleagues (not potential clients) was generally frowned upon or seen as inefficient at a big firm, it is fundamental to building relationships at a company. You should be introducing yourself, getting to know others and engaging in small talk. While this sounds a bit simplistic, you need to be generally liked in addition to being respected as a subject matter expert.
Which is why my first suggestion is that while you are not yet overwhelmed with work, schedule 15-20 minute coffee chats with various people you meet – whether colleague or client, especially if they have been at the company for awhile. You want to get a sense of what the company culture is really like, what they love about what they do and what they love about the company. Maybe ask them who their favorite lawyer has been to work with and why – and if there was a least favorite, why. And as you close out – ask if they have any advice or resources for someone new like you -and of course, show immense gratitude and offer yourself as a future resource.
Listen, Learn and Take a Lot of Notes.
While this may sound very novice or obvious, my second tip is to bring a notebook and pen that is easy to carry and carry it with you to every meeting so you can jot down notes. I would probably do this for any new job, but I especially recommend it because going in-house itself is completely new. The first 90 days may feel like you’re drinking from a firehose, especially as you are trying to learn about the company, the legal department, your specific team and what your role is – all at the same time – and the reason for taking notes is that you will receive a lot of information – and you won’t have the experience or context to know if it’ s important or not, whether you should remember it or not. So for now, just jot it down. You can organize and understand later. For now, you want to listen and learn as much as you can (which is also related to no. 1 above – scheduling those 15 min chats).
What are some of things you may want to jot down?
- Names and roles of the people you meet.
- Acronyms, terms and jargon commonly used.
- Facts about the company generally – like how many employees there are, how many locations, what the different parts of the business are
- Resources you hear of that you can explore later
Take time to explore resources and set up your systems.
My last tip for setting yourself up for success is to take the time to explore internal and external resources (while you have the time to do it) and set up your systems. Some resources you may want to find, explore or flag for future use:
- Sign up for law firm alerts, blogs and publications. This is a great way to stay on top of developments in the law that your clients will expect you to know.
- Sign up for any subscriptions (like industry publications) or bar associations that your company pays for. For example, the Association of Corporate Counsel has been instrumental for me.
- Sign up for Google alerts for your company
- Company policies, procedures, practices
- Explore & learn the document management system
- Sign up for Business Partnering Groups or Employment Resource Groups or company Slack or Yammer to stay plugged in and explore if there are any formal mentoring programs so you can learn more about the company
And what I mean when I say invest some time in setting up your systems is how do you envision organizing and managing your work? This will evolve over time, but it helps to think strategically about it. Will you have separate notebooks (whether virtual or hard copy) for each of your clients or projects? Will you use Microsoft Tasks, Planner and To-Do (or other apps) to stay on top of your growing to-do list? And where and how will you keep your Done list? A Done list is especially helpful when you are in-house because you will likely no longer have billables or a 20 page brief or motion to show how you’ve been spending your time. How will you demonstrate your value?
And before I forget, congrats on joining the in-house profession!
It is definitely different but can be immensely rewarding – getting to see how your legal advice is implemented and preventing problems in the first place.
-Originally posted on Attorney at Work on March 9, 2021
