In this piece from inhouseblog.com, Valerie Fontaine, a legal search consultant based in Los Angeles, looks at the key attributes of “ideal” candidates for in-house roles, and how those can be starkly different from what law firms require.
“In-house employers usually don’t value academic credentials such as law school prestige and the candidate’s class rank as highly as law firms do,” she writes. “Rather, they weigh legal experience, business sense, and interpersonal skills much more heavily.” In fact, she continues, the ideal candidate is a business-minded generalist and a juggler, ready, willing and able to tackle anything legal that comes her way. Moreover, in-house roles require a different type on interpersonal skills than law firms. “Corporations usually don’t have attorneys, even junior ones, who work in back rooms, isolated from the businesspeople,” she says. “You share office space and meet with your client on a daily basis. Effective in-house lawyers get out ‘on the floor’ to see how people do their jobs and the issues they face, so they can give advice based on a thorough understanding of how the business really works.” Check out the full article at InhouseBlog.