Skills and behaviours required for an in-house role

Before committing yourself to an in-house legal role, you'll want to consider whether it's right for you as there are some material differences from private practice. Fortunately, moving between in-house and private practice is increasingly common so, whatever you choose, your career options are not set in stone. In-house practice can be varied and exciting, opening up opportunities, including outside the law, which you may never have contemplated. At the same time, it can be less stable as businesses and organisations change, merge and discontinue. You should therefore be prepared for working for more than one organisation, perhaps in different legal roles. Then again, private practice is now also more volatile due to recent changes in the legal market. Whatever your preference, supplement your view with feedback from informed and trustworthy colleagues and, if you have a coach or mentor, even better. For further information, see Practice note, Coaching for legal professionals: an introduction and Practice note, An introduction to mentoring.

When you first move in-house, you'll notice some differences from private practice. It may seem friendly and more "real world", you'll have a sense of making a contribution to the organisation, and you may appreciate the absence of time-sheets to complete and of people auditing your work to the degree you've been used to.

On the other hand, it may feel more unstructured (and less hierarchical). You'll have to be more autonomous and flexible in your approach, and you'll have a lot of non-legal material to get to grips with as you learn about the organisation and its business. While people will be friendly, they'll have little interest in the finer detail of the law. Rarely will the in-house lawyer be at the heart of the organisation's activity compared with colleagues in product and business development, sales and marketing or finance.

You'll also have to get used to being viewed as an "expense" to the business rather than as a "fee earner". IT and other systems, which are geared up for the organisation's core processes, may be unfamiliar and not focused on the legal team's work. Similarly, you may have less access to research and other legal materials.

Try to get a feel for the culture of the organisation and its legal team before you join through research and interviews, and by talking to friends and colleagues who know the business and perhaps the legal team. You need to feel a good "fit" with the work, the team and the company. Every organisation has its own culture, which it works hard to maintain and develop. It really helps to embrace it and play a part in the life of the organisation; and it'll also help you to get known by your business colleagues.

If you've joined a commercial company, you'll soon become absorbed by the business activity, such as launching new products or services and achieving business targets. As you become more involved, it can be very rewarding to see how legal advice or other input from you or your team contributed to a real business achievement. That, in turn, will grow your loyalty to the company and will result in you identifying with its successes.

When you are between five and fifteen years into your career, it's good to take stock of where you are and where you want to go next. For example:

If you enjoy in-house practice but think something's missing, consider whether you're in the right sector. For example, there are big differences between the financial services, pharmaceuticals and public sectors. Also, think about the type, size and culture of the company and the legal department. Working as sole counsel in a small, volatile, private equity funded start-up surrounded by inexperienced and pressurised colleagues is a totally different experience from being lawyer number four in a team of 50 of a global listed company. The sector and the relevant law may be the same, but little else will be.

Perhaps you don't like the general nature of in-house work and long to become a specialist who works with a range of clients? In this case, a return to private practice may be the way to go. If greater flexibility for personal or lifestyle reasons is what you are after, a freelance role may suit you best. Consider your options carefully. Speak to people you trust and get specialist career advice if you feel it will help.

At this point in your career, you may want to think about whether you're better suited to becoming a subject matter expert (SME) or a business partner (BP). As a SME, you'll be an expert in one or more aspects of your organisation's business, either the operational side of the business (such as product design and launch, international sales or environmental regulation) or the legal side (such as applicable intellectual property, data protection, competition or health and safety law).

Your value is in your deep knowledge and ability to bridge changes in senior personnel and processes, and provide continuity and legacy knowledge. You will need to keep on top of how applicable law affects the business now and over the life of the company's three to five year forward business plan and strategy.

The risk in becoming too specialised is that, as the organisation changes, your knowledge becomes irrelevant and you may not be able to maintain enough breadth of legal or business knowledge to perform a more generalist legal role. You should regularly review and update your knowledge and skills in line with business needs and wider developments.

As a BP, you'll be the legal contact for specific business units and your focus will be on their legal issues. As with the SME role, you will need to be wary of becoming too specialised in a particular area of the business at the expense of your wider knowledge.

As part of a longer-term career development plan, both the BP and SME options can deepen your knowledge of the organisation and help demonstrate your value, and that of your team, to your organisation. It is important to note that most senior roles are generalist roles (BP roles). SMEs who take on senior roles have to widen their remit and reduce their engagement in their specialist areas. They should avoid giving too much weight to their "pet topics" to the detriment of the business and, often, of more junior team members.

The T shaped lawyer combines deep legal knowledge and skills with the ability to collaborate across multiple disciplines. This is particularly valuable, whether you become an SME, a BP or go on to be a GC. As a modern in-house lawyer, you need first class:

As a GC you're in a leadership role. Your team, and others, will look to you for guidance and inspiration. People will closely monitor your standards, expectations and how you conduct yourself. Your team will look to you to set the tone that will determine how they do their jobs and how the team is perceived within the organisation. Your team will want to respect you, so it's important to set high standards for them to follow. You'll also want to create an environment that will enable others to succeed you, either in your role or elsewhere.

GCs are enablers who advise business colleagues about legal factors and risks so that those colleagues can take appropriate account of them in their business decisions. This helps organisations to understand the level of risk involved and manage their response at the correct level. This is sometimes known as keeping the risks at (the chosen level of) tolerance. For further information, see Practice note, How to set organisational risk appetite.

A GC needs to be an excellent people manager. This requires you to establish the right framework and systems for delivering high quality work to your business clients. Your clients want consistency, clarity and impact, so your advice must be relevant, timely, concise and clear. You need to do this through your team, so you need to delegate well, be clear in your requirements and avoid unnecessary micro-management.

You need to set high standards so that your team knows what is acceptable in terms of their work and behaviour. If you adopt unprofessional or sloppy standards, so will your team. You also need to allow people to make mistakes but ensure that these are not 'business critical' and are picked up in your team processes in a way that encourages learning and does not penalise people for innocent mistakes. Make sure the harm done to the mistake maker, to the team or to the business is minimised. For further information, see Practice note, Delivering legal services: how to provide customer-centric legal services.

Hiring good people is vital. Being clear about what skills, experience and aptitudes you need to hire for can save a lot of problems down the line. If someone is not responding well to your expectations and standards, you need to reinforce these, look to help them improve and, if necessary, take action to maintain the standards and integrity of your team. Like grit in a shoe, ignoring small problems tends to create bigger issues over time, so it is best to identify and deal with any problems quickly. Setting and measuring job competencies and career development goals are worth taking time over. Not only will you want these to be aligned to the organisation’s goals, you'll want them to provide real targets and "stretch" for the individual lawyers. For further information, see Practice notes, The importance of strong people management in the legal function and Professional and career development for lawyers: six steps to shaping a purposeful personal development plan (PDP).

As GC you've attained the top legal role in your organisation. But you also need to encourage and mentor those in your team who aspire to reach the same level. Be generous in your praise, rigorous in your standards and secure enough to challenge and develop others to do what you do. After all, the mark of a true leader is to create other leaders, even if that means them becoming leaders elsewhere, or one day stepping into your role; under your succession plan, of course. For further information, see Practice notes, An introduction to mentoring and Succession planning for in-house legal teams.