The In-House Counsel's Identity Crisis: How Inhouse Counsel Can Improve Their Value

Abstract

“When are you coming back to legal practice?” This question, from a young associate surprised me. I was called to the bar twenty years ago (when he was seven years old). I had worked in a big law firm, then ran my own boutique law firm for five years before becoming a General Counsel for a listed company. However, in his view, I stopped practicing law when I became in-house counsel, and I was merely a client. Ironically, this was at a session where I had been invited by the partners of the law firm where he worked to speak to the associates about the relationship between inhouse counsel and outside counsel and what outside counsel should do to be more effective.