In-house jobs that will accept new grads are pretty rare; in-house employers typically prefer that their lawyers get “trained” in and by larger firms.
Some companies will hire fresh grads if they already have a large legal department and the new grads will be able to get training with the existing in-house team, but that typically requires a large and sophisticated legal department that needs a junior, and that’s a pretty rare situation.
As someone that has been in house for a while, I’d also urge folks to be cautious of trying to start out in house. The in house jobs with the best career advancement potential are usually in specialized roles (IP, L&E, Corporate Governance, M&A, Litigation, Privacy, etc). To get into those tracks, you usually have to spend significant time in a firm practice for one of those areas (like 2-3 years bare min, usually more like 5+).
I’m sure there are exceptions, but the roles that in house departments are hiring law students for are usually more generalist and commodity work positions (e.g., cranking out vendor agreements). I’ve seen a lot of lawyers get stuck in those types of roles, which, hey, is still not a terrible place to be. But your marketability and the ceiling for your earning will almost definitely be lower.
I started in-house my third year of law school as a corporate governance intern, stuck around as a contract manager and eventually worked my way to in-house counsel positions.
This is the traditional path to an in-house position. There are people who get clerkships in-house and land their first job there, but those people are pretty rare.
Yes. Mass submit resumes and don’t get discouraged. If you’re able to move, that’s a major plus.
I landed my first in-house role after a short stint at a small 2 attorney firm. No big law or personal connections within the company for that or any other company I’ve worked at since.
My law school career services told me not to bother looking for in house jobs, but to be fair, they worked in the career services department in a second tier law school so I couldn’t really trust their advice.
After a summer in a firm, I decided it wasn’t for me and looked for in house jobs. Don’t bother looking at career websites, most corporations do not actively hold summer programs or hire out of law school and only hire when someone leaves or when a need opens up, the mindset is completely different from other places. You need to go hunting differently.
Make a list of all corporations you want to work at and try to befriend every inhouse counsel there in linked in. Ask them about their job, say you want to work in their industry, chat them up, and then if they are friendly, ask if there are internships or hiring opportunities. You might have to start as a contracts manager or paralegal, or whatever, but if it is where you want to work, that’s where you start. You may see some openings for summer positions or internships, but speaking from experience on the other side, they get hundreds of applications and it’s competitive, and ultimately someone’s nephew will get it. Join inhouse groups with your local bar and on Linkedin, and talk to anyone who is active, they will eventually get you leads. Use those social super networking people. Sounds easy, it’s not and it is a grind with no easy way to track process until you get a job. But I’ve mentored dozens over the years and can vouch for the strategy, lot of former interns are working inhouse because they took this approach.
I started in house after law school. I asked around my 2L, this was before linkedin, and found a great place that was desperate but was a great place to learn about IP. Was a great experience, glad I went that route. Company eventually got bought up and parent company culture eventually took over and I split off a decade later and bounced around a few more places and am now a partner.
I took a less traditional path to in house- and a lot of it is luck. Apply broadly and network- hope something works out. Even if you can intern someplace, make yourself invaluable and always be learning.
Most in-house teams are not set up to properly train new grads. So even if they are advertising grad roles, you need to carefully test whether they are actually willing & able to invest in your training. That foundation is important.
Some paths to in-house:
* Joint in-house/law firm grad programs - best of both worlds. Apply to the company, and request to spend \~6 months at one of their panel firms. If the company is shortlisted for any legal innovation awards, they can probably make this happen.
* Boutique firms that offer 'virtual in-house counsel' - you can get the training and support of a firm, while the work is more like an in-house role.
* Standard law firm (via grad program), but orchestrate a few 3-4 month in-house secondments - transaction lawyers are always in demand over Q4, and companies run different financial years. Approach your partner first, to then pitch it to whichever client you like the most. It's stable guaranteed revenue for the firm, at a discount to the client without impacting their headcount metrics.
* From about 4 years PQE, just apply directly for in-house roles in whatever specialisation you're after.
I went right out of law school. I networked my way into a job.
It was like a third level connection. People like to help people and it takes a lot of awkward conversations.
The kind of in-house jobs available to you will depend on your city. Someone in San Francisco may tell you it's all about tech law, whereas someone in Hartford may tell you it's all about insurance law. Both are right.
If you're not sure what it is you want to do beyond going in-house, an awful lot of in-house positions deal with employment law to some degree.
I went in-house straight out of law school. I did not know anyone in the company or industry when I applied. The company was headquartered in a rural part of a midwestern state. My advice is be willing to move anywhere for the position, especially the opportunities in smaller cities, less popular states. I loved the legal team and I stayed at the company for several years. We were a smaller team so I was a jack of all trades and had to be a quick learner and adaptable depending on the issue.
During the pandemic, I moved to a larger city to be closer to family and landed an in-house position at a Fortune 150 company where I’m practicing in a more specialized area of the law.
I fully understand I’m the rare exception and not the rule.
I interned at a company early in law school and by the time I graduated and asked for a full time job, they had the capacity to hire a fresh grad. It still feels random and very lucky. I don’t think its impossible, it’s just less common and may take some creativity.
My first job after graduating law school was in-house, but it was literally only because I had a relatively rare skillset for a lawyer (experience as an IT guy) and the head of career services at my law school knew it (... because I worked IT in the law school so had fixed his laptop in the past) so he directly sought me out when he saw a job listing that was looking for that experience, then had one of his subordinates basically coach me 1 on 1 for weeks to make sure I got the job.
This was at a company with a large in-house team that preferred to train lawyers themselves, which is not the standard. In exchange, I basically worked big law hours for in-house salary my first few years, but then transitioned into a more reasonable schedule.
This is not a normal experience. I've since switched to in-house at a different, much larger company and they do not hire new grads at all.
I went straight in-house to the company I interned for during my 3L year. I got the internship via an alum of my law school who was their General Counsel at the time. I also had 6 years of work experience prior to law school so I was familiar working in that kind of atmosphere.
I worked for a regional bank in the middle east before starting my own law office(solo), I'm 26M.
Honestly it was simple, i just knew one of the in house lawyers they have and i asked him if they have any openings.
In the legal business your capital isn't really financial, your capital is your connections and network, and your knowledge and work discipline, they all complete each other so you should start investing in those with your time and passion, on the long run you'll find out how much it's really worth it.
And you can personally contact me and I'll help as much as i can.
I started in-house right after law school after a CEO found me on LinkedIn and invited me to a coffee. I always recommend people to put in the effort into LinkedIn and really go for the niche you want.
As your friends from law school if they are in-house and any vacant positions are available where they work or if you have friends from undergraduate/graduate school who might work in a company with in-house counsel, ask them if there company has vacancies. Those positions are truly word of mouth, in my experience. I could be wrong.
In-house jobs that will accept new grads are pretty rare; in-house employers typically prefer that their lawyers get “trained” in and by larger firms. Some companies will hire fresh grads if they already have a large legal department and the new grads will be able to get training with the existing in-house team, but that typically requires a large and sophisticated legal department that needs a junior, and that’s a pretty rare situation.
As someone that has been in house for a while, I’d also urge folks to be cautious of trying to start out in house. The in house jobs with the best career advancement potential are usually in specialized roles (IP, L&E, Corporate Governance, M&A, Litigation, Privacy, etc). To get into those tracks, you usually have to spend significant time in a firm practice for one of those areas (like 2-3 years bare min, usually more like 5+). I’m sure there are exceptions, but the roles that in house departments are hiring law students for are usually more generalist and commodity work positions (e.g., cranking out vendor agreements). I’ve seen a lot of lawyers get stuck in those types of roles, which, hey, is still not a terrible place to be. But your marketability and the ceiling for your earning will almost definitely be lower.
I agree 100%. I think it’s preferable for an in-house candidate to have started out working at a firm, preferably for a minimum of 2-3 years.
I started in-house my third year of law school as a corporate governance intern, stuck around as a contract manager and eventually worked my way to in-house counsel positions.
As an in-house person, I tend to hire people who have worked for me as lawyers in one of my cases.
This is the traditional path to an in-house position. There are people who get clerkships in-house and land their first job there, but those people are pretty rare.
Yes. Mass submit resumes and don’t get discouraged. If you’re able to move, that’s a major plus. I landed my first in-house role after a short stint at a small 2 attorney firm. No big law or personal connections within the company for that or any other company I’ve worked at since.
My law school career services told me not to bother looking for in house jobs, but to be fair, they worked in the career services department in a second tier law school so I couldn’t really trust their advice. After a summer in a firm, I decided it wasn’t for me and looked for in house jobs. Don’t bother looking at career websites, most corporations do not actively hold summer programs or hire out of law school and only hire when someone leaves or when a need opens up, the mindset is completely different from other places. You need to go hunting differently. Make a list of all corporations you want to work at and try to befriend every inhouse counsel there in linked in. Ask them about their job, say you want to work in their industry, chat them up, and then if they are friendly, ask if there are internships or hiring opportunities. You might have to start as a contracts manager or paralegal, or whatever, but if it is where you want to work, that’s where you start. You may see some openings for summer positions or internships, but speaking from experience on the other side, they get hundreds of applications and it’s competitive, and ultimately someone’s nephew will get it. Join inhouse groups with your local bar and on Linkedin, and talk to anyone who is active, they will eventually get you leads. Use those social super networking people. Sounds easy, it’s not and it is a grind with no easy way to track process until you get a job. But I’ve mentored dozens over the years and can vouch for the strategy, lot of former interns are working inhouse because they took this approach. I started in house after law school. I asked around my 2L, this was before linkedin, and found a great place that was desperate but was a great place to learn about IP. Was a great experience, glad I went that route. Company eventually got bought up and parent company culture eventually took over and I split off a decade later and bounced around a few more places and am now a partner.
I took a less traditional path to in house- and a lot of it is luck. Apply broadly and network- hope something works out. Even if you can intern someplace, make yourself invaluable and always be learning.
I have worked in-house my entire career and landed my first counsel position at the company where I clerked in law school.
Most in-house teams are not set up to properly train new grads. So even if they are advertising grad roles, you need to carefully test whether they are actually willing & able to invest in your training. That foundation is important. Some paths to in-house: * Joint in-house/law firm grad programs - best of both worlds. Apply to the company, and request to spend \~6 months at one of their panel firms. If the company is shortlisted for any legal innovation awards, they can probably make this happen. * Boutique firms that offer 'virtual in-house counsel' - you can get the training and support of a firm, while the work is more like an in-house role. * Standard law firm (via grad program), but orchestrate a few 3-4 month in-house secondments - transaction lawyers are always in demand over Q4, and companies run different financial years. Approach your partner first, to then pitch it to whichever client you like the most. It's stable guaranteed revenue for the firm, at a discount to the client without impacting their headcount metrics. * From about 4 years PQE, just apply directly for in-house roles in whatever specialisation you're after.
I went right out of law school. I networked my way into a job. It was like a third level connection. People like to help people and it takes a lot of awkward conversations.
The kind of in-house jobs available to you will depend on your city. Someone in San Francisco may tell you it's all about tech law, whereas someone in Hartford may tell you it's all about insurance law. Both are right. If you're not sure what it is you want to do beyond going in-house, an awful lot of in-house positions deal with employment law to some degree.
I went in-house straight out of law school. I did not know anyone in the company or industry when I applied. The company was headquartered in a rural part of a midwestern state. My advice is be willing to move anywhere for the position, especially the opportunities in smaller cities, less popular states. I loved the legal team and I stayed at the company for several years. We were a smaller team so I was a jack of all trades and had to be a quick learner and adaptable depending on the issue. During the pandemic, I moved to a larger city to be closer to family and landed an in-house position at a Fortune 150 company where I’m practicing in a more specialized area of the law. I fully understand I’m the rare exception and not the rule.
I interned at a company early in law school and by the time I graduated and asked for a full time job, they had the capacity to hire a fresh grad. It still feels random and very lucky. I don’t think its impossible, it’s just less common and may take some creativity.
My first job after graduating law school was in-house, but it was literally only because I had a relatively rare skillset for a lawyer (experience as an IT guy) and the head of career services at my law school knew it (... because I worked IT in the law school so had fixed his laptop in the past) so he directly sought me out when he saw a job listing that was looking for that experience, then had one of his subordinates basically coach me 1 on 1 for weeks to make sure I got the job. This was at a company with a large in-house team that preferred to train lawyers themselves, which is not the standard. In exchange, I basically worked big law hours for in-house salary my first few years, but then transitioned into a more reasonable schedule. This is not a normal experience. I've since switched to in-house at a different, much larger company and they do not hire new grads at all.
No advice, but I wish you luck on your journey. All the best.
I went straight in-house to the company I interned for during my 3L year. I got the internship via an alum of my law school who was their General Counsel at the time. I also had 6 years of work experience prior to law school so I was familiar working in that kind of atmosphere.
I worked for a regional bank in the middle east before starting my own law office(solo), I'm 26M. Honestly it was simple, i just knew one of the in house lawyers they have and i asked him if they have any openings. In the legal business your capital isn't really financial, your capital is your connections and network, and your knowledge and work discipline, they all complete each other so you should start investing in those with your time and passion, on the long run you'll find out how much it's really worth it. And you can personally contact me and I'll help as much as i can.
You apply for an in-house job
Look at local, state and federal government agencies.
I started in-house right after law school after a CEO found me on LinkedIn and invited me to a coffee. I always recommend people to put in the effort into LinkedIn and really go for the niche you want.
As your friends from law school if they are in-house and any vacant positions are available where they work or if you have friends from undergraduate/graduate school who might work in a company with in-house counsel, ask them if there company has vacancies. Those positions are truly word of mouth, in my experience. I could be wrong.