In-House Lawyer - What it takes

Anything is possible. Its America afterall. And yes, it happens, I had a good friend who got a job as an inhouse council for a drug company right out of school. She makes it sound like its pretty crap work but she enjoys it.

While it's true that anything can happen, the answer is, in practice, no. It is almost always a lateral move.

In-house doesn't want to train you; they want somone who can hit the ground running, and that means you have to have previous experience.

One of my mom's friend had a son that graduated from Northwestern University law school and got an in-house lawyer job at the accounting firm KPMG. Supposedly he only made like $70k. Out of all the in-house lawyers I've met, they've all had previous big law experience.

I don't know why so many young folks are obsessed with the law. There are other ways to make a lot of money you know. In fact, law isn't a profession in which high incomes are guaranteed.

I thought in-house lawyers are basically associates who didn't make partner so they got out of the cut-throat/billable hour thingy?

The answer is an unequivocal no. To go "in house" at the type of place one would consider an improvement over a market-rate firm now one must have a minimum of five years experience and that experience must be substantive. Not only are internal law departments looking for experience but they are poaching those associates that could in fact qualify for partnership. If you do obtain such work you will undoubtedly have to consider hiring outside counsel for matters you are unable to handle and will wind up paying big bucks so that your bosses will not blame you for failing to select the supposed best firm there is to defend or prosecute an action on behalf of the corporation. The only possible way I can see this changing in the near future is if internal legal departments do in fact realize that they can hire and train two or three "associate" type lawyers for less money than it would cost to have some know-nothing first year do mindless research at $400 p/h. I strongly urge that you read some of the law related posts on this forum. As a recent grad I cannot in good faith recommend that you pursue law unless 1. you go to school for free and/or go to a top 10 school and/or 2. have a job waiting for you. Even then you may find that reality is far different than you might think. Last night I went to a baseball game with nearly a dozen lawyers, most of whom are one class year ahead of me. To a man EVERY one said they were trying to or already had left the profession. There are far too many new lawyers and jobs are hard to find. Those that are available are often temp gigs, PI or insurance defense work or if you are lucky low level government work.

Accounting firms is whole different ball game. Wouldn't call that in-house.

You could switch to government law but the pay is pretty low: about $60k a year. However, the work is good and the hours are very manageable, so if you don't have $100k in debt, it should be a viable option. Do that for a few years, and depending on the field (trade law, labor law, anti-trust, tax) you may be able to lateral to in house for any number of firms and make more money with still manageable hours.

I work for a large corporation with a sizeable legal department to support the usual range of affairs - corporate development, labour, contracts, regulatory, etc.

All the staff I've met had medium-large firm experience. Some at the executive level were actually partners previously, while the mid-level lawyers all had considerable firm experience. We don't have 'junior' lawyers per se, but other companies obviously could have a different structure.

At one time, ExxonMobil would hire new attorneys "in-house." I looked into this after law school a few years ago. However, it required an initial stint in their litigation section (which was fine by me). I suspect only the largest corporations can afford to train new attorneys for in-house work.

The norm is a lateral move.

I know a few Fortune 500 companies that used to hire right out of law school, but I don't think many do anymore. At current salary levels, the cost to train a new lawyer is just too high. It's better to let a law firm do the training. With the high turnover among associates at larger firms, it's relatively easy for a corporate law department to find an experienced young lawyer. Right now, it's a buyer's market.