Would you prefer a generalist or specialist role in-house? Obviously no objectively clear answer as to what’s “better” or not, but would love to hear your different perspectives!

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I’m in a generalist role and I love it, but I worry I’m not developing my legal skills because I have no specialty area.

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It runs the gamut of entity structuring/formation, corporate governance, contract review, drafting and negotiation, review of marketing/website materials, compliance counsel (we are in a highly regulated area), regulatory advice, product review/counsel, managing outside counsel, etc

I went for the best of both worlds approach and took a generalist role in a company in my speciality. I was a government contracts specialist in private practice and am now a generalist DGC at a contractor. I get to leverage my specialty skills while also learning new areas of law.

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I thought being a generalist was great until 2020 when half of my job became dealing with Covid rules and office reopening logistics — generalist lawyers become catchall employees for small companies who don’t know who should do tasks. Who should collect the Covid vaccine records and keep track of who is unvaccinated? Idk, how about the lawyer?

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Anything involving paper or a few paragraphs needs legal’s review/assistance. I agree about being a catch all. My company uses me for everything from negotiating high level contracts to converting a PDF.

I love being a specialist. Every day is a new an interesting challenge in an area of law I’m interested in

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Not at all I’m on my 3rd in-house job and keep getting promoted. Data privacy and cybersecurity

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I think this depends on where you are in your career to some extent. I chose a job where I have the ability to be a generalist and am encouraged to do so as a junior attorney—and as I get more experience I’ll have the opportunity to become a specialist if there’s an area that speaks to me. If you really love a specific area then being a generalist can be sort of frustrating. But I find it very stimulating to be a generalist because I think it’s fun to learn in a bunch of different directions

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I have been a specialist, as well as a generalist in a specific industry. I’m now product counsel and find it to be the best of both worlds. Definitely the best legal job I’ve had.

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Agreed that it often feels like a good mix of both, especially if you’re on a smaller team. In larger departments it seems to lean more generalist with product counsel quarterbacking substantive issues to in-house or outside counsel specialists.

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I would say specialist. If you are a generalist, chances are the company will stick you on a lot of employment matters and you won’t necessarily be able to do that better than an outside counsel employment atty who has tons more resources.

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Following!

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A bit of both. Specialist in a niche area but with the flexibility to do work in other areas.

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Product counsel. Hands down the absolute best legal gig, other than maybe being GC.

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The generalist to product counsel pipeline is an excellent excellent move

I’m in a generalist role with some specialization. I enjoy the variety of issues I get to work on but also feel a bit of frustration that I’ve been practicing for over a decade and still feel like I’m not an “expert” in a significant slice of my day to day. I’ll never been an “expert” but it is nice when unique issues pop up and I’m the only person in the office to have dealt with something similar. By comparison, facing something twice makes you the in-house expert. You feel valued but you also get that matter added on your plate!

I also specialize in healthcare privacy and I love when I get to work on those issues. They rarely require research because I know the answer, I can speak intelligently about complex issues off the cuff, and when I don’t know an answer I have the network and materials to know how to find it quickly.

I like being challenged in an area I have depth in but when I’m challenged in an area that’s new to me, that’s increasingly less fulfilling.

Early career, I liked the development of being a generalist. As I progress in my career, I would prefer more specialty work.

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