INHOUSE INSIDER Forum, News, and Career Center for In-House Counsels

Why Are Women Attorneys Unhappy

Have we come a long way baby?  When it comes to female lawyers at law firms, the answers may be a resounding no.  While women represent approximately 45% of associates, the only represent 20% of partners.

Vault took a look back at its most recent Associate Survey, in which nearly 17,000 associates at law firms from across the country rated their firms in areas such as satisfaction, hours, compensation, diversity, and associate/partner relations. And in nearly all of these areas, women rated their firms lower than did men.  While that’s not new, what is interesting is that the same issues that have plagued women’s careers over the last few decades endure:

First, many female associates feel that it is impossible to have a family and make partner—and so they take themselves off the partnership track, even before they have children. 

If that’s true, so what can firms do about it?  How many progressive law firms offer on-site childcare or reduced hours with the opportunity to make partner?  Not many.  At the end of the day, it’s about billing a lot of hours and bringing business to the firm, and if you have other responsibilities, such as child rearing, and don’t want to have a partner or third parties to do it for you, the chances of making partner are slim to none.  Unless firms change the rules of the game, the choices for women will be the same.

Second, female associates complain that their male counterparts have different—and better—opportunities for business development, important assignments and mentorship.

Is this a case where men prefer other men in terms of providing assignments, either consciously or subconsciously?  Could this be related to the fact that women are not perceived as available or motivated to become partner?  Given that a majority of women are leaving before partnership there is some truth to that assumption, and this could be a catch-22 issue.  Would women partners be more likely to provide other women more opportunities?  That’s not necessarily true.  Perhaps this is a case where women may have to be more proactive and actively seek opportunities, rather than wait for them to be assigned.

Finally, a common complaint among senior women associates is that their potential for making partnership is not clear enough.

That gripe is equally true when it comes to men.  What it takes to make partner at major law firms is as clear as mud, whether you are a man or a woman.  However, the fact that men represent 80% of partners may means that the message is not necessarily what is making the difference.  At the end of the day, you have to stand out.  To do that, you have to work on the big transactions and litigation, put in the hours, and bring in the clientele.  There is no one way to do it, and firms are not keen to give its associates clear directions on how to make it, simply because there isn’t a whole lot of room at the top.

While law firms have been creating more innovative and far-reaching programs and policies, the rub is in the lack of action.  The numbers speak for themselves.  The good news is that these are issues that are being talked about, but the bad news is that old stigmas, gender assumptions, and business practices endure.

Foreign Attotneys May Now Work In the U.S. as In-House Counsel

It looks like in the midst of immigration reform by the Obama administration,things may be looking up for foreign lawyers.  Under a resolution approved on Monday by the ABA House of Delegates, foreign lawyers will have limited authority to serve as in-house counsel in the United States.

Resolution 107A is among a series of proposed amendments to the ABA model ethics rules that acknowledge the globalization of law practice. It amends Rule 5.5(d) of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct concerning unauthorized practice and multijurisdictional practice.  The amendment states that foreign lawyers may work as in-house counsel in the United States, but they may not give advice on U.S. law unless it is based on the advice of a lawyer who is licensed in the appropriate jurisdiction. A related resolution, 107B, requires registration for foreign lawyers working as in-house counsel.

Seven states already expressly permit foreign lawyers to work as in-house lawyers in the U.S. offices of their clients.  This will likely open the gates to foreign lawyers looking to practice in the U.S.  But how does that bode with our current economic climate?  The legal market has yet to bounce back, and employment numbers are still low.  With thousands of U.S. lawyer unemployed and many more U.S. law graduates still seeking employment, how will this impact our market?  The answer remains to be seen.

Career Malaise: Reassessing Your Career Choices In Your 40′s

The road to partnership has become more arduous and the attrition rate at law firms is at an all-time high − 80% of lawyers are leaving large law firms by their 5th year.At the top of the list of complaints are business-development demands − not to mention billable hours and the collection pressures of junior partnership. As a result, many attorneys are prompted to re-examine their career path midway.

The good news is that switching jobs mid-career may be easier than for attorneys in other demographics. Partly due to the high attrition rate, attorneys with more than 5 years of experience are in high demand in law firms. This is also the benchmark experience level usually required by in-house legal departments. Experienced attorneys have a variety of career alternatives available (see our previous blog, Why Are Unhappy Lawyers Hesitant to Leave the Practice?).

The key; however, is to make that career re-assessment at the right time. Made too early, the opportunities tend to be either too few or too limiting to be appealing. Made too late, after 10 years of practice, the opportunities tend to not only be more limited, but also less financially attractive. The ideal time for attorneys to make the transition falls within the 5-10 year window. This is a small window of opportunity that leaves little time for procrastination...Have you re-assessed your career lately?

Are You Ready to Go In-House?

What Does It Take To Become An In-House Counsel?

The number of attorneys who are interested in making the transition in-house is increasing, despite current economics. While securing an in-house position has always been difficult because of supply and demand, doing so in this economy is even more challenging. There is a significant distinction between wanting to go in-house and being ready to go in-house – something that many attorneys tend to miss when conducting their job search. In this article, we discuss what it takes to become a strong candidate for an in-house position in today’s marketplace.

Experience

The ideal in-house candidate is an experienced attorney with at least five years or more of professional practice experience, who can operate fairly independently. Why five years or more? In-house legal departments are not good training grounds for recent law graduates and junior-level attorneys. Companies generally do not have the resources available to train attorneys. Moreover, in-house attorneys, unlike their law firm counterparts, are viewed as part of overhead. Therefore, while attorneys are a necessity, they do not contribute to the financial bottom line of the companies they serve. Therefore, in-house legal departments have every incentive to want to hire experienced attorneys who require little training or supervision.

Is there such a thing as too much experience? In some cases, there is. Companies tend to value hiring attorneys who have both law firm and in-house experience. Partner-level attorneys who only have law firm experience are at risk of being passed for positions, junior-level or otherwise. They tend to be viewed as too specialized, not business-oriented enough, and lacking in industry experience. That prejudice tends to grow in accordance with the length of time they have remained in private practice without ever having held an in-house position. Partner-level attorneys are often viewed as too “inflexible” and expensive to successfully transition in-house. In an employer-driven market companies get what companies want, whether or not these preferences are justified. Therefore, the best time to consider an in-house transition is after five years of practice and before partnership.

Practice

When it comes to the type of practice area in-house legal departments are interested in when hiring, it is important to remember that not all practice areas are created equal. While corporate law departments do hire attorneys in a variety of specialized practice areas, including litigation, labor and employment, intellectual property, real estate, and tax – to name a few, these positions are few and far in between. In other words, there are very few in-house legal opportunities available for these practice areas. Moreover, because of the type of competition that is generated for these few position, outstanding candidates are often kept from ever making the final cut.

If you are playing a numbers game, which is what you have to do when considering an in-house attorney position, and you are interested in moving up on the in-house totem poll, you should have general corporate and commercial contracts experience. In other words, transactional attorneys have an edge in the number of positions available to them, not to mention improved prospects for advancement within law departments, including general counsel positions.

To improve your odds even further, you should supplement your transactional practice with some exposure to litigation, employment, corporate governance, finance, intellectual property, and governmental regulations, to be able to assist a company gets its goods or services to market. Corporate law departments tend to look for “generalists,” or attorneys who are able to spot issues and handle matters in a wide variety of areas. In other words, most in-house counsel act like ER doctors conducting triage when the ambulance gets in. They have to quickly identify the problem, establish priorities, determine what they can handle themselves and whether they will require the services of a specialist, or in this case an outside counsel.

Aptitude

Even if you have the required experience and practice area to be a good candidate for an in-house position, there are a number of “soft skills” you need to be competitive and successful for these positions. First, as an in-house attorney you need to have business sense. When a company hires in-house counsels, they are expected to provide legal advice in a business context. The ability to understand business objectives and provide legal advice to non-lawyers is crucial to succeeding as an in-house counsel. Along those lines, the ability to persuade is also an important quality to have, as counsels often have to defend their positions. This assumes strong negotiation skills, as well as superior oral and written communication skills.

In-house attorneys are also required to work with a wide variety of people, from senior executives to employees on the floor. Therefore, having strong interpersonal skills and the ability to be comfortable in a variety of situations, from conducting formal board meetings to dispensing informal hallway advice, it very important as well. Finally, a successful in-house attorney must be able to provide practical advice. In other words, companies tend to turn to their counsel for solutions to their business problems, rather than for textbook advice or opinions. To be an effective problem-solver, an in-house attorney must not only be familiar with his company’s business, structure or industry, but also its culture and its risk management standards. Of course, these are but a few of the soft skills that are required to be an effective in-house counsel; there are others, many of which are company and industry-specific. What is to be remembered is that being an experienced and skilled legal practitioner, while a requisite, is not always sufficient to become a strong candidate for in-house positions in today’s marketplace.