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That’s the main difference between being a firm attorney and an in house one. Biglaw rewards your dense redline — that’s a lot of diligent issue spotting, your client is fully informed of every plausible risk, and, you’ve wracked up a lot of billable time. In-house just wants the deal done. Maybe the contract has 10-issues, but really only 2 or 3 are real, material problems. The rest are certainly issues — but they’re low risk for one reason or another. Being business-minded or commercially savvy is being able to identify which belong in each bucket, and how to solve them in a way that allows you to move forward with the deal.
Understand that when you’re in a firm, you’re a revenue-generating employee. When you go in-house, you’re a cost centre to the business. So you must justify your existence by driving revenue to the business that you cost a lot of money to, and you can’t do it via billables.
Best answer in the thread. It’s not about not being a legal scholar - it’s about not being overly concerned with every comma, period, etc like you are in biglaw
Will you figure out a way for them to do what they want and not get bogged down in legality or illegality.
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It means they don't want a legal scholar. They want someone who understands that they're in business to make money. It's not that they're looking for anything unethical or shady, they just want someone who understands that time is money.
Thanks!
Stating your legal advice/risk but deferring to the business people and finding a way to get it done. Know what (this is crucial - it’s not everything) to elevate to a manger if someone is going to be a bonehead.
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Once I came across a deal/agreement that required our company to obtain more than 30 different licenses to sign that customer. The licenses would cost more in time, money, and additional legal exposure that, in my opinion, made the deal not worth pursuing. I presented the facts to the sales team and they decided it was a customer they really wanted and they will proceed. It was up to me to button up the legal terms to make the deal work while protecting my client and not “over lawyering”. Business minded is knowing that it’s a business decision at the end of the day and your advice is a risk they have to consider in doing that business.
Great perspective
In-house veteran here. Not sure prior responses do justice to the concept. It’s about being a business person first, lawyer second. It’s about really understanding the business’ perspective: what are the market/peer practices, what are the administrative challenges, what are the company goals/strategies. It’s using a practical approach to your advice, partnering with the business leaders and other stakeholders to find a solution that advances the business objectives without creating unreasonable risk for the company. It’s solving puzzles. It’s being able to simplify complex subjects and focus your advice to the true risks - those with a higher degree of likelihood to materialize, that carry significant costs/reputational risk/litigation/regulatory risk. It’s not presenting a laundry list of every possible risk you see but being an editor of legal issues. Stripping away the noise from the meaningful topics worth an executive’s time and energy. It’s about using judgment to strip away technicalities that would create meaningful risk while remaining sharp, precise and clear-headed enough to spot the sleeper issues that can get your company a bad look on front page of the WSJ. It’s not about getting to yes at any cost or twisting into the twisty-ist of all pretzels. There is such a thing as being too creative or losing your grounding in business ethics.) It’s being proactive and not just flagging issues but presenting solutions that enable the project to move forward. Think of it as a fun challenge, about the ability to evolve past someone who can always find a “no” or risk to someone who can has learned judgment that enables you to put risks into context. Check out Sterling Miller’s great blogs on in-house practice. Even with this, I’m sure I missed some tips but hope it is helpful. Good luck! You’ve got this.
Thank you so much!! Really appreciate all the tips!
Negotiating skills. Working as a team. Not a fighter, a problem solver.
Thanks
I have been in - house for 6 months, and it means they don’t want a “no” attorney - don’t create a culture of “no” or “business can’t do this or that” - be a creative and find a solution to “yes” and let’s make this deal happen. When you go in-house and are constantly worried about every little risk the business will proactively find ways to avoid you and that is a position you don’t want to be in as an “in house” attorney.
The way I explain is that big law works in blacks and whites. In house lives in the grays. The job is to figure out how to do something (or something close to what the business wants to do) legally.
I like this explanation! Thanks