Career Center: Hot Practice Areas in the In-House Legal Market

Hiring of attorneys by corporate legal departments has picked up in recent months. As companies became more cost-conscious during the recession, they began reducing legal expenditures by keeping more legal work in-house and relying less on outside counsel with their high billing rates. This has resulted in an increased workload, and thus a need for more legal staff for manyin-house legal departments.

So if you’ve been thinking about looking for an in-house job, now may be the best time to make a move. In today’s Career Center Tips Series, Lateral Link’s recruiters discuss which practice areas are in the highest demand for the in-house job market. However, since practice area activity can be very region-specific, the following are general trends observed in the in-house legal sector nationwide….

Regulatory and compliance: This practice area has been heating up as a result of the recent legislative and regulatory proposals made by the Obama administration. Legal departments are in need of attorneys with regulatory and compliance experience to handle these new demands and requirements.

Litigation: Although litigation is an area of law that has traditionally gone to outside counsel, some of the larger legal departments have started handling certain types of repeat litigation in-house. Even companies that still rely on outside counsel are doing so more carefully by doing some preparation internally before outsourcing the work.

Find out other hot practice areas of 2011, as well as some advice on transferring to an in-house position, by clicking here.

Also, we’re still accepting nominations for the “Top Partners to Work For” survey. Click here to access the survey and to nominate your favorite partners.