What’s the best sell to go from midlevel M&A big law to inhouse? What do they want to hear?

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To convince an in-house employer that you want to really be in-house, you have to internalize what it means to be an in-house counsel, and relay that clearly:

You want to be a partner to the business, drive the goals of the business forward, and give the business risk-adjusted advice. You want to help them accomplish their goals by being creative in your legal solutions. You do not want to be a block, but a reasoned guide.

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Definitely agree. In all likelihood, wherever you go in house, you will not be star of the show. You are no longer the front office revenue driver. You are a support function but you can be extremely valuable to the right business with the right attitude.

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I think it will really depend on the role but in general, you will need to be able to explain how your experience at the firm will translate to in-house practice and any special skills/ strengths you would bring to the new role

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Agree with C1. They might ask you to interview with corp dev too, so good chance to get a sense of how much corp dev cares about legal and what their culture’s like.

Other things: You should be able to lead a deal substantially on your own besides escalating some questions to manager. Help corp dev turn a term sheet if outside counsel is slow. No more “here are the options, pick one” type of outside counsel thinking. You’ll need to know what decisions you should be able to make as legal, and what issues you need to escalate, but always making some recommendation on action

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