Benefits Of Working As An In-House Lawyer

What Is An In-House Lawyer?

Lawyers are often categorised into two groups. Those who practise privately and those who work in-house. Both are fully qualified solicitors, with the similar educational background, just in varying positions of employment.

Private practise lawyers work in much smaller scale firms. They specialise in one or two particular areas of the law, such as Family Law dealing with wills and divorce, or Property Law dealing with conveyancing. They work closely with a large caseload of clients monthly and often have various legal issues on the go at once.

As an in-house lawyer, you are hired by companies, such as ‘Google’ or ‘Amazon’, to provide them with legal counsel. The company you work for therefore becomes your sole client. Your purpose is to aid them through whatever legal issues they face and ultimately positively progress the business.

Benefits Of Working As An In-House Lawyer:

• Large companies usually mean departments. An in-house lawyer, you will join the ‘legal department’ and work together with other like-minded employees towards same issue. This close-knit style not only boosts workplace efficiency, but also allows you to focus and perfect important teamwork and people skills, making you an extremely desirable lawyer.

• You won’t just be expected to deal with the legal side of things due to the fact that you are employed by a business. You will have a variety of responsibilities and will be expected to liaise with other departments, from ‘Public Relations’ to ‘Finance’, especially when something goes wrong. Such events cannot be predicted and forces the in-house team to think creatively, homing in on vital problem-solving abilities in order to quickly fix public issues. You make up the company’s collective vital line of defence. As a result, in-house lawyers are often described as fantastic ‘generalists’ due to their ability to work well on all matters.

• It is great for networking. Moving between different departments comprised of hundreds of employees allows for greater connections. As a result, in-house lawyers typically find it easier to obtain their ideal roles in the company or position they desire. There is also potential to move up to more senior legal counsel roles within the company such as ‘Chief Legal Officer’ (CLO) overseeing the legal department as a whole.

• On average, the salary of an in-house lawyer can range from £70,000 - £80,000 per annum with the ability to receive a generous bonus at the end of each year. This is of course, dependent on location, company size and the individual experience of the lawyer. The benefit here is that the pay is significantly higher than the starting rate for a lawyer at a private practise firm where lawyers typically have to work their way through the ranks in order to achieve a pay rise.

• Forget about overtime and tedious time-sheets! As an in-house lawyer, you can ditch the late nights and mountains of paperwork. Each individual gets a set work week (overtime is up to the individual) but it is no longer expected.