Contemplating an offer to go in house. Will I have an opportunity to ask questions about WLB/hours (trying to leave billable hours and big law)? And tips on negotiating comp? Prepared to take a pay cut but don’t want to leave $$ on the table!

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I did this a couple months ago and my boss was super receptive of all my nitty gritty questions about harsh realities and whatnot. Now is the time to do that since it seems you have an offer in hand. Look at salary guides (Robert half) to inform your negotiation re salary/comp

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For WLB it’s a tight rope. I asked what a typical day looks like and prefaced anyWLB questions with something like “while I have no illusions that this job—or any job worth having—will not be demanding” or something like that. Even if they work less hours, many in house people convince themselves they work just as hard. In reality, the hours for me are not that different, just the work I do is much more tolerable (quality of hours increasing, not quantity of hours decreasing was how some put it).

As to negotiation, if you can, secure a competing offer (or at least start the interview process and get details on salary). Ask your friends who have gone in house to share their exact compensation break down. Having other interviews also makes it easier to pressure a slow moving company to extend an offer.

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Definitely ask to talk to more ppl on the team as you are considering the offer.

Try and read between the lines to get a sense of WLB. Ask questions like, “Do you have any tips for someone transitioning from big law to in house?” Or “What’s been the thing that has surprised you most or that you’ve enjoyed most working here compared to working in big law?” Ppl will tell you when wlb is great.

My in house gig has been amazing with little after-hours work. Multiple ppl during my interviews freely offered up how much better WLB was compared to their big law life and it’s all been true. I barely needed to prompt their answers.

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I said this in another thread, but keep an open mind, and look at your entire compensation “package” including bonuses and benefits. For instance, I get a pension. A legit pension. We also get decent yearly bonuses (30%). If I looked at only base salary, I would be missing out on a great job that pays well when I take all the extras into consideration.

As for WLB, a strategic question to ask the people you’re interviewing with is how long they’ve been with the company. I met with so many people who had been with the company more than 15 years. That tells me that they’re not churning through burnt out attorneys.

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Agree with LC1. Be careful with how you frame it. I also went through this and asked folks what their day looked like (lots of meetings? work over different time zones? start and end of typical day? nature of work and relationships with business folks such as lots of fire drills or some routine-ness to turnaround?).

As for negotiation, I got top of base salary scale so they wouldn’t move. They gave me a small signing bonus which I traded for more equity which is where they moved the most.

Following. As someone looking to make the move and trying to navigate the WLB question these are fantastic tips

Join tech legal and avoid paycut

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