Has anyone recently made the switch to in house and now feel unorganized and less productive than when billing hours? For what it is worth, I’ve received good reviews and my superiors seems to be pleased with my work. Litigation was just so task based because of needing to hit billables, so without that requirement I feel a little like a fish out of water.

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Enjoy the freedom. Don’t stress about not filling every minute of every day. Focus on building relationships, and don’t hesitate to spend 10 minutes asking about your colleagues’ weekends. The work will probably come. Also, consider reading “The Corporate Counsel Survival Guide” by William Kruse.

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Not OP but starting my first in house role in a few weeks and picked this up on your recommendation. Still reading through it but it’s been really helpful and approachable so far. Thanks.

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You don’t need to bill, but you need to track asks and their deadlines

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100%. I'm in my third week and I kind of miss feeling like I'm actually practicing law tbh. I'm doing way more admin stuff or just reviewing outside counsel work. It's a bit unsettling.

Basically more of a management role so far when I was hoping to do more hands on stuff.

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Yeah wlb is unbeatable. I have no real intentions of leaving to go back to firm life on that basis alone. Only thing I wish for is for them to go back to fully remote.

Otherwise I'm hopeful I'll get to do more hands on work instead of just management once I've been here longer. We certainly don't lack deals.

I feel the same way. I’m so used to trying to fill every minute of every day with productivity in the name of billing that the transition has been difficult in that regard. The job itself is just much more nebulous than I was used to because there are often no clear roadmaps of what I should be doing with my time, which is just so different.

That said, I’m taking the oft repeated advice I see in this bowl that it gets more comfortable over time and I’m trying to enjoy some of the down time as I think that I definitely paid some dues to get to experience the [hopefully] nirvana of a better balanced, less stressful life!

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I feel the same way and I’m honestly considering transitioning back out (which is crazy). Anyways, you should track large projects or at least metrics. Ex: keep an excel or a doc and document contracts negotiated/projects completed. Not sure if your company requires that, but it helps you to keep track of what you have done and will ultimately help you prove value if you want an raise or additional stock grants. This won’t help in the traditional billing sense, but it helps you to realize that you are accomplishing things.

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I feel exactly the same - I’m on the transactional side. I’m starting to wonder if I should go back to a firm, which I never thought I would say.

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It took me two years to get used to not billing. Give it time!

So good to hear I am not alone! Thanks for all the advice!

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