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I went from staff counsel for my local transit authority to in-house with a retail company, so it can be done for sure! A lot of the work I was doing in gov't transitioned to what I'm currently doing in-house: procurement and sales, contract negotiation, board support (i.e., drafting board meeting minutes, etc.), policy development, etc.
I know the jump from law firm to gov't usually means a salary cut, but since I started in gov't first, any private job was a salary bump haha so I was very happy! 😅
My recommendation is if you're looking to eventually go in-house, seek gov't opportunities where you're working for entities like a hospital district, school district, water authority, transit authority, etc. They essentially operate the same as a big company and will give you the transferable skillset you can brag about when you're ready to make the transition to a private company. 😊
When you interviewed for in-house role with retail company, did they drill in on reasons for wanting to leave government work etc.?
Yes, and I know many others who have done same. At some large companies, such as Google, having government experience is listed as a requirement.
Large companies (especially, those dealing with infrastructure projects, or real estate, must deal with governments, so they will see that experience as an asset. I also worked for a transit agency and I think working as a lawyer in government is very rewarding and hard work too. (Lawyers generally don’t get the “comfy gov job” memo, to the extent that it exists at all.) I have friends that have similarly transitioned to in-house at utility companies, universities or even back to firms. I actually went to work as in-house counsel in big-tech. Even technology companies deal with federal, state and local governments. I actually think government experience is helpful, for many of the same reasons as CC1..
Not at all. Never came up.
I moved to gov for job security. But it’s 2025…