In-House Counsel

Pls Hndle Thx: There Are Daggers Behind Men’s Smiles

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Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com

Hi:

I’m an associate at a small firm with a very specialized practice area.  My firm shares a client with a Biglaw firm that handles most of the client’s litigation and other work.  As such, there are a couple of partners at the Biglaw firm that I work with fairly frequently, when my little niche overlaps with matters they’re handling for our mutual client.

I like these partners – they seem like nice guys – and I think they like me too; at any rate, we have a good working relationship and they seem to respect my work.  One of their associates recently left and I’d love to jump into his place.  I haven’t seen a posted opening anywhere, so I don’t feel like I can just send them my resume out of the blue, saying “in case you need someone to fill Departed Associate’s position…” – or can I?  What’s the best way to go about this?

Also: Departed Associate left without having another job lined up, saying it just “wasn’t the right fit” for him.  I know: huge red flag that possibly these partners aren’t the nice guys they appear to be.  But not necessarily – right?  It would be different for me, right??

– I Want That Job

Dear I Want That Job,

When someone leaves a law firm job without something lined up in this still-shitty economy, there are only three possibilities…

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Inside Straight: Business Development (Part 1)

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Inside Straight, Above the Law’s new column for in-house counsel, written by Mark Herrmann.

Business development: What works?

I was on the other side — the law firm side — of the business development coin for 25 years. And those 25 years taught me this about generating business: Raise your profile; stay in touch with people; and get lucky.

I was never once retained by dint of good looks or charm. (Anyone who’s seen or met me won’t find this to be surprising.)

And I don’t play golf.

So what’s a lawyer to do? What business development efforts worked for me, and what might work for you?

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Inside Straight: Overseeing International Litigation

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Inside Straight, Above the Law’s new column for in-house counsel, written by Mark Herrmann.

I’ve spent my whole life watching my ignorance be exposed.

When I worked at a small firm in California, I thought the whole litigation world was my oyster: We handled all civil cases (other than immigration or family law matters) in all state and federal courts in California.

I moved to a huge firm in Cleveland and lost my bearings: I now held myself out as being able to handle any civil case filed in any court in the United States. (This was a big change. When I worked in California, at least I knew what advance sheets to read. Cleveland set me adrift at sea.) Now, surely, the world was my oyster.

Wrong again. Now I’ve gone in-house, and I’m ultimately responsible for all litigation filed against my company anywhere in the world. The world is my oyster….

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Inside Straight: The Incumbency Advantage

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Inside Straight, Above the Law’s new column for in-house counsel, written by Mark Herrmann.

Think for a minute about business development for law firms.

Your firm wants to expand its litigation presence in a particular practice area.

What do you do?

Many firms figure they’ll march out their superstars and knock a potential new client’s socks off.

The firm will look to its heavy-hitters, none of whom have ever tried a case in the field in which the target client does business, or given a talk or written an article in the relevant field, or given the subject a moment’s thought.

But the heavy-hitters will go into the conference room and explain that they are the world’s finest trial lawyers, they have great trial experience, and litigation is, after all, just a toolkit. A person who can try one case can try ‘em all. Hire us.

Will it work?

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Inside Straight: Vive La Différence, Part II

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Inside Straight, Above the Law’s new column for in-house counsel, written by Mark Herrmann.

Which lawyers are important at large law firms? Let’s set aside for a moment the guy who controls the tickets to the loge at the Lakers’ games, and think more generally. Who matters at law firms?

First, partners with big clients. Those folks have power. They influence decisions within the firm, have the capacity to push new people into the partnership, and have work to share with others, which keeps the others busy.

Partners with clients count. Who else counts?

Great lawyers. Sometimes, you just need a really smart person to help you solve a problem for a client. Good lawyers are generally adept at identifying great lawyers. If you’re a great lawyer, your colleagues at a big firm will come to you for advice.

(Sometimes, the lawyers with big clients are also great lawyers; sometimes, not. That should be self-evident. It is, in any event, grist for some other mill.)

Who counts in in-house legal departments?

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Inside Straight: Vive La Différence

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Inside Straight, Above the Law’s new column for in-house counsel.

When I moved in-house ten months ago, my phone started to ring off the hook — and not just from folks I hadn’t spoken to in years, who thought that I’d now be itching to retain them. I also got a few calls from people who were simply curious about the difference between working in-house and working at a law firm.

One of the differences is self-evident: You arrive at work on your first day at a corporation, and you devote that day entirely to ministerial crap. You spend an hour completing immigration forms, spend an hour having your photograph taken for various ID cards, fill out your health insurance and retirement benefit forms, create passwords for a dizzying array of computer databases, set up your computer to receive corporate training, and then realize that everyone is heading home.

Ouch! Another wasted day! You didn’t do a minute of billable work. You might as well have been on vacation today, because you did nothing that could legitimately be charged to a client.

But wait….

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Inside Straight: The Inside Story

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Ed. note: This is the first installment of Inside Straight, the new in-house counsel column by Mark Herrmann, which we announced earlier this week.

On Friday, you were a litigator: You wrote briefs, argued motions, took depositions, and tried cases.

On Monday, you were a litigator: You identified loss contingencies, minimized them, quantified them, and removed them from a balance sheet.

What happened?

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Above the Law Launches a New Column for In-House Counsel

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Some time ago, we solicited applications for a new position here at Above the Law: a columnist to cover the world of in-house counsel. We received many outstanding applications, and we thank everyone who applied for their interest.

Today we are pleased to announce the launch of the new column, entitled Inside Straight (for the poker aficionados among you). As its name suggests, the column will cover the world of corporate counsel with all of the candor and insight that you’ve come to expect from ATL.

Our columnist — a former law firm partner, current in-house lawyer, and author of a well-received book on legal practice — should be familiar to longtime followers of the world of legal blogging….

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How Much Do In-House Lawyers Make?

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‘Tis the season for… salary surveys. Earlier this week, we discussed the results of Washingtonian magazine’s D.C. lawyer salary survey. The upshot: lawyers in the nation’s capital are doing quite well for themselves.

Today we bring you the results of, and commentary on, a recent in-house counsel salary survey. It was conducted by the Hildebrandt Baker Robbins consulting firm and covered in Corporate Counsel magazine, among other outlets.

Just like some of the government lawyers and judges discussed in the D.C. salary survey, it seems that corporate counsel have pretty sweet gigs. They earn well into the six figures, without the soul-crushing requirement of billing 2000 or 3000 hours at a sweatshop law firm.

So let’s get to it. What’s the 2010 average base salary for in-house lawyers?

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New York State Bar Association Wants to Make Things Easier for In-House Counsel

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Emma Lazarus would be in favor of reciprocity.

If you think about it, rules that prevent lawyers from practicing law in other states are kind of anachronistic anyway. This isn’t 1810. We’ve got planes and trains and automobiles. Clients can have legal issues in many jurisdictions, and it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to require that they use a different lawyer in Oklahoma than they do in Texas.

With that in mind, this suggestion from the New York State Bar Association is a no-brainer. They propose that in-house lawyers shouldn’t have to pass the New York State Bar Exam in order to practice in New York State. Instead, they suggest that out-of-state, in-house attorneys simply pay a registration fee.

Because this is New York — rules bore us, but money talks…

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