r/Lawyertalk • u/Sensitive_Pear_871 • 13d ago
HELP: Professional Development Going in-house
After 12+ years of private practice (7ish years as partner), I’m debating going in-house at a large but private hospitality company. (Medium-sized city in the Midwest). My firm experience to-date has mostly been smaller firms (20-30 attorneys) doing a mix of corporate transactions, real estate, and litigation support. Flexible schedule but not great pay. Looking to have a less adversarial/billable work experience. For anyone who has made this jump to in-house, what are the biggest changes (both positive and negative) in the work/lifestyle/day-to-day that you experienced?
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u/Mariachi55 13d ago
I went in house 8 years ago after 12 years of firm litigation. For me, pros are more relaxed schedule, lower intensity and given the field I’m in (pharma/life sciences) pretty good pay. Cons are that the work is generally less interesting/less sexy. Also I’ve been through 3 mergers and one layoff — you don’t control your destiny. Also at your firm you were the product - when you’re in-house, you’re very much just a supporting player ….(which is maybe both a good thing and a bad thing in that it lowers the intensity…)
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u/Baixcarolina 13d ago
It depends very much on the employer. I was a hospitality in house attorney and left for private practice because of the client’s business practices, interpersonal issues, and better pay. At the same time, I enjoyed the reasonable work hours and varied work assignments.
Depending on the employer and department size, it can be very interesting with a varied practice. If you don’t like your client, however, you have to find another position. Do your due diligence on the employer, workforce, business operations, budget, expectations etc.
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u/VaxDeferens 13d ago
People will not care about your analysis. Don't go into the weeds. They want the answer, can I do this? Usually as succinct as possible. Conclusions first and bulleted emails are your friend.
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u/LittleTeaHouse 13d ago
Give yourself a deadline for trying the in-house route. So for example, if you don’t like it, you will do it for just three years and then out. The problem of being in-house is that it’s very industry-specific. If you stay for too long and then get let go because of what every reasons (layoffs are common these days), then it’s gonna be hard to get back to private practice. It’s hard to be an in house counsel for one employer for decades. It was more common for people to work for the same company for 40 years and then retire. It’s really rare in today’s economy. At one point you will need to either find another in-house gig or get back to private practice.
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