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You’re looking at it the wrong way. A company hires your firm to litigate a dispute that’s gone to shit. Reactionary. As an in-house, it’s your job to proactively prevent disputes from becoming lawsuits in the first place and/or set yourself up to quickly (and cheaply) succeed should you find yourself there.
Generalizing a lot here, a company has 3 types of in house lawyers. 1- a business transactional lawyer to manage contracts/deals and keep Ops out of trouble. 2- an employment specialist who can ensure HR protocols are in place, followed, and defend against employment claims (need maybe 6-12 at any given time to make it worth while). 3- if a high volume of low level claims (think glorified small claims), someone with a license who can handle any suit/mediation/arbitration.
Any of the above will also need to be able to oversee outside counsel and keep them in line.
If you want to be an in-house litigator, employee defense for 5-7 years may be a ticket in.
*employer defense! Not employee
I am a litigator who went in house, but it is much, much more difficult to do so as a litigator than a transactional attorney. Even if you are at a top firm I would not count on you being able to find a good (high paying with room for advancement) in house role unless you are willing to search broadly for a long time (potentially years). Litigation isn't like corporate where you can put in 3 years at a good firm and be relatively sure you'll be able to find a decent exit opportunity. Sorry to be pessimistic, but I wish someone had told me that before I went into litigation. For the record, I'm excluding from my post low level things like in house at an insurance company, bank, small company, etc. where you're still doing day to day litigation (i.e. you're not managing things or outside counsel, you're just doing the same work you did at the firm for less pay).
That said, some random advice to help out: (1) labor and employment is by far the best practice to be in for litigators seeking to go in house, with IP (patent/trademark/copyright) and privacy second tier, and everything else far behind - but try to get more than just pure litigation experience, even in the good groups; (2) good in house roles for litigators generally open up later than those for transactional attorneys, so you should be prepared to put in at least 4-5 years; (3) if you have relevant industry experience, litigators can often move to regulatory or compliance roles, but beware as they can often be dead ends career-wise; (4) if you really want to be in a pure litigation/risk management, quasi-GC type of role at a big, sexy company, you will often need trial and partner-level experience.
Transactional practices are generally more marketable to in house positions than litigation.