Considering going in house. I have practiced for 8 years (litigation first 5 and transactional last 3). From what I can gather, in house life varies wildly. I am considering a generalist role in what appears to be a 3-attorney legal department. Is there a way to determine whether the move would be a terrible work-life balance and stress shift vs an improvement over private practice? I have a relatively good balance now and relatively low stress, but I am not sure whether I want to become partner

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3 attorney legal dept - so I'm assuming this is a startup/young company. For any startup with lean legal teams, I'd imagine wlb would be better than the extreme busy periods of biglaw and not so many high peaks and low valleys of busyness and non-busyness. But as a generalist, the day to day, week to week level of busyness may be consistently higher. Unfortunately, whether that's 40 hrs or 50 hrs or 60 hrs is hard to say

Is it a backfill or a new headcount?

I am a product counsel, and I think it is 100% better. There are busy times, but the stress is usually much lower than firm life.

I had a job that told me in the hiring stages that I couldn’t take pto during 4 months of the year because it was EoQ, Christmas/NY were company holidays but not for legal, and it was a role directly supporting sales. The wlb didn’t exist even if it wasn’t EoQ. I should’ve taken the hints they gave me in the hiring stage.

My next job I asked questions like “how are firedrills handled after hours?” and “is it ok to work my timezone hours?” (Last job I was working everyone’s timezone even though company was located in mine)

I felt a little awkward asking those questions and thought they’d think I didn’t want to work/wasn’t committed but they answered honestly and I have a much better wlb

In-house is risky in your situation. Personally, I would try my best to avoid small teams for my first role, unless I can get real insight into the team. I would aim for a larger company and team. Why? Insight and marketability. It is easier to find people on LI who can provide feedback on larger teams.

Unless you are desperate, always remember that you are interviewing the team as much as they are interviewing you. If you cant get feedback or insight into the team, IMO, I would not risk it -- especially, if you have good balance and low stress now.

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