Law Firm to In-House Lawyer: A Two-Way Street?

[WSJ_law_blog]

A couple weeks ago, we posted on a survey that sized up the salaries of in-house lawyers. The results surprised us a bit. While the survey was geographically limited to Southern California, the salaries weren’t as eye-popping as we expected.

But of course there are other benefits to working in-house. You get to dial back your practice a bit. The hours are better and there’s less stress than there is in the deadline-crazed world of law firms, right? Perhaps not, according to the Fulton County Daily Report, and that change in in-house practice is leading many corporate counsel back to firms.

“It used to be a one-way street from law firm to in-house,” said Frederick J. Krebs, president of the Washington-based Association of Corporate Counsel. “Now you see much more of people going both ways.”

The piece cites a report from the Minority Corporate Counsel Association. “Historically, corporate law departments focused on handling of routine legal matters while more complex legal issues were managed by outside law firms.” The report quotes an unnamed GC saying, “For many years, the role of in-house counsel was to act as a conduit between inside business people and outside counsel. Their role lasted only so long as it took to get a matter from their in-box to their out-box.”

But now, according to the MCCA the typical corporate law department has evolved from an intermediary between the company and its law firms to a full-service legal team. That change, the reasoning goes, is upping the status of in-house lawyers and making them more attractive to firms.

“It comes out wrong when I say this,” Krebs said, “but there’s not the sitgma there used to be. I mean, 20 or 30 years ago, people used to look at the inside practice differently.”

LB Readers: Corporate counsel among you? How is the role of the in-house lawyer changing?