One strange thing about going in-house after a long time in private practice is that without billable hours or revenues received as a measuring stick, I feel like my contributions are too nebulous to be valued. I know it’s just confirming, but its been a couple of years and I still feel like Brooks in Shawshank - I don’t know how things work outside of my prior environment. I’ve been institutionalized!

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Hi Attorney. I have a brain hack for you that might help. Right now you are choosing to think “my contributions are too nebulous to be valued.” I bet that thought popped into your brain and your brain ran with it like it’s 100 percent true in the world. That’s ok because we all have human brains and that’s just what they do. But what if your brain is just wrong about that? (What if your contributions actually aren’t too nebulous to be valued? What if your contributions are actually quite specific and measurable?). When you choose to think that, it probably makes you feel something negative, like unappreciated perhaps (just a guess), which then probably makes you not show up in the world of work as the best version of yourself. What thought would you have to choose to think on purpose in order to feel something different, like valued and important? I’m a former outside BigLaw attorney now in house for about 8 years, so I know what you mean. But I just want to offer that maybe it’s not as true as your brain wants you to believe. Detaching from that might make you feel better.

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Well said!

Are you just working in one particular area? I left as a mid-level associate to go in house. And I managed M&A and other large projects so I actually felt the opposite. I was involved in all the meetings and understood our goals. Made a switch recently and feel a little more separate from the business but still know that I’m helping get deals and contracts across the finish line.

It isn’t the work that makes me feel uneasy. It’s the fact that my performance is measured in a different way than it used to be. I know the value of my work for the company, so I know this isn’t a rational feeling, it is just part of having practiced for 20 years in a private law firm setting where everything was measured by revenues and hours And now I can’t point to the traditional, and long ingrained, metrics that I used to..

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