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Old 19-04-2024, 11:57 AM
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Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
OP here, I appreciate that you tried to help. I understand that the "tried and tested" way of going in-house is to get a few years of experience in practice and then moving in-house.

My premise is, however, different in that I think of such in-house experiences as a way to understand legal/operations from the client's perspective (where they focus on the commercial drivers and deal with stakeholders coming from different backgrounds- e.g. management, commercial teams, technicians such as engineers, etc.) which is contrasted from the regular trainee/assoc-partner relationship and dynamic.

My thinking is that gaining experience in such a setting (as well as developing a working relationship with the in-house team there which you could hopefully bring back to your firm) will stand you in good stead for private practice in which you can be distinguished from your pure pp peers who have no such experience, or alternatively give you the chance to move in-house from then on.

My questions (1) and (2), and particularly (2), therefore relate to the above premise which would be helpful to all involved.

This is especially prevalent in that future PTC trainees can now seek in-house stints as part of the PTC requirement. So, as someone interested in potentially taking up that path, I was curious if anyone has heard of how law students/trainees in particular have managed to land such roles (in contrast to young assocs who have worked with such in-house teams in their capacity as external counsel, and thereafter move to join them).

Get your grounding in private practice first. It is a "tried and tested" route for a reason.

Speaking as a fairly senior in-house counsel, over the years we have hired very junior counsels who have joined after just 1 to 2 years of practice.

Many of them are not up to scratch and don't last during probation. The runway is short. We need people who can hit the ground running and communicate with externals, senior management, internal business teams and stakeholders with some confidence and authority.

Things move very fast commercially and Legal has to match the pace to deliver the advice and services that the business requires.

I don't have time to teach a new team member how to speak to a committee chairman or the deputy MD or a business unit head, let alone vet his or her emails to them. I need them to be able to do that and hold their own from day one.

The law firm environment will go some way towards giving you that grounding. I would say the sweet spot for the move inhouse is 4 to 5 PQE.
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