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Some product counsel are former litigators, especially IP or tech/privacy litigators. You know how to learn an area of technology and become fluent in it, layer on legal analysis and spot issues. It’s less a matter of being deep on one area of law, because the role is so broad: privacy, content, commercial, litigation, competition, etc. Having good judgment and exhibiting strong ability in tech, plus maybe some working knowledge of one or more of those key areas, is a good recipe.
Yea 100%. Easiest way to transition IMO would be internally. All you need is the words “product” “privacy” or “ai” in your title and you’ll get a flood of LinkedIn outreach for PC roles. I’d fight for that
Also privacy big law to tech product counsel. Left as a mid level. The background in privacy regulations is nice, but the real portable skills are the ability to understand product/feature data flows on a granular level and flag risks from there
Product Counsel is more of a mid-senior role because of how interdisciplinary it is.
Did some privacy work in Biglaw, made the jump as a junior to a startup as privacy counsel. That’s a natural transition to product counsel. Startups are more likely to take a chance on you. Now I’m a product counsel in big tech, it’s a great gig. Have not seen anyone successfully make the commercial counsel -> PC jump, but it’s theoretically possible.
Pro
I did 4 years of healthcare corporate, regulatory, and transactional work and then 2 years in house in a Compliance Counsel role in Pharma mainly advising on fraud and abuse, healthcare laws and regulations as brand counsel, before moving to a Product Counsel role at another pharma - I am also privacy officer for the U.S. and Canada. My JD has a concentration in Health Law and I got certified in healthcare compliance prior to graduation.
I started in tech transactions and moved to healthcare privacy, AI, and cyber
I applied to a ton of jobs for months (like hundreds). I kind of got lucky because I was the first cyber attorney where I currently am and was able to expand the role into what I wanted in a way. The job description was pretty broad but a lot of it is still related to tech transactions, just on the customer side instead and now the biggest issue is around protecting patient data.
Also when AI in the clinical setting was really taking off, nobody was leading the effort on the legal side so I stepped in and that expanded my role.
Almost all tech transactions have some sort of privacy/security/AI involvement so I think you can use that to show you’re qualified. I started at a lower salary so that probably also helped because applicants with direct experience likely aren’t going to take the salary I accepted, but my hope is gaining a lot of experience for a few years will allow me to pivot to a higher paying role in the future and it’ll be worth it.