Related Posts
Please help Fishes
Bowl Leader
Additional Posts in Law
Pro
How hard is the path from lit to GC?
Chief
Any intel on Peckar & Abrahams?
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
In-house counsel is a generic term for lawyers who practice, well, in-house.
General Counsel is typically the title given to the highest ranking in-house lawyer within a legal department, and that person is usually a c-suite executive like the COO or CFO of an organization.
Corporate counsel is simply a job title within a legal department. They are usually senior associate to junior partner level.
While law departments don’t all follow the same pattern, you typically see title along the lines of:
Corporate counsel (senior associate/junior partner)
Senior counsel (10+ years out, but not in a specific leadership role)
Associate general counsel (the equivalent of a senior partner or team or practice group leader)
General counsel (managing partner of the law department; c-suite executive)
You may also see titles like “assistant general counsel (usually between senior counsel and associate general counsel and used for an experienced lawyer, particularly with a specialty, who may not have a full blown leadership role) or Deputy General Counsel (a capo de capos, so to speak - basically somewhere between Associate General Counsel and General Counsel, often the heir apparent to the General Counsel role).
But it’s all discretionary and up to the organization.
Chief
This is great. As A2 said, varies a lot depending on the company. At a small company, someone who’d only be a senior associate at a law firm could easily be the only in-house counsel and call themselves “general counsel”, so take all in-house job titles with a grain of salt.
General counsel is the lead attorney for an in-house legal department. In-house counsel just means any attorney working for an internal legal department (versus outside counsel - a law firm). Corporate counsel is an in-house title and is usually a lower level attorney in a corporate legal department. Hope that helps!
Yes, agree with A2, as that's generally how it goes. But, I also agree with C1 that inhouse titles can really vary, especially at smaller companies. I'm across on a deal now with a "GC" at a small tech company who is 4 years out. I'm a "director of legal" at 7 years out and I was "senior counsel" at five years out. I also used to work somewhere that used "senior counsel" as a catch-all between "counsel" and GC, and had "senior counsels" who were 10 years out and others who were 20 years out, and "senior counsel" who reported to other "senior counsel." It's not nearly as predictable or lock step as in firms.