POV: After a couple of years at a law firm, you have decided you want to move in-house. You land an interview. You nailed the OCI interviews back in law school, and after a few years of hob-nobbing with lawyers while practicing, you know exactly how to charm lawyers in interviews for in-house roles.
Next comes unfamiliar territory: interviews with business stakeholders. When lawyers interview for in-house roles, the first few meetings are with the legal team. Ultimately, however, as in-house counsel your clients are the business people. Those clients will have a say about who gets hired on the legal team. Business leaders might care less that you were Editor-in-Chief of your law review and general legal pedigree and more about whether you will be their business partner and help them get to “yes” while mitigating risk.
Once upon a time, I was in your shoes. I was an associate at Milbank, ready to make the jump to an in-house counsel role where I could tap into my entrepreneurial spirit and be a partner to the business team with a more tangible role in creating something. Through fortuitous circumstances (and an alleyoop from a legal recruiter), I met another former Milbanker who went on to become the General Counsel of a start-up, Ring, and who ultimately hired me as Corporate Counsel. In this blog post, I draw on my experience interviewing for an in-house role myself, tips from coaching candidates since I became a legal recruiter, as well as advice from business executives I recently caught up with to provide you with guidance to help you successfully navigate interviewing with business stakeholders for an in-house counsel role.
The Intangibles
One word that the various executives kept bringing up in our conversations was “trust.” A CFO or other executive wants to know they can trust their in-house counsel and that he or she has a strong moral compass. The CFO of a Venture Capital fund in LA tell us that his fund’s lawyers have to be the final safeguard—the last bastion—ensuring that the company remains firmly on the right side of the law. Additionally, the CFO looks for someone who is confident and has the backbone to surface hairy issues as they arise. If you’ve worked with the interviewer in the past, you will have demonstrated your legal integrity, but if you’re starting fresh, what can you expect in an interview? The interviewer may ask you for examples of a prior sticky situation in which you found yourself and how you navigated it. They may also give you hypotheticals and ask how you would handle a moral dilemma. Things come up organically when you talk about yourself, which will help the interviewer discern “can I trust this person to give me good advice?”
Change of Perspective
A former big law partner who is now an executive at an investment firm shares that his number one tip to candidates who want to move from a big law firm to an in-house role is to demonstrate in interviews that they are able to shift their perspective from outside law firm lawyer to in-house business partner. Many corporate lawyers are used to marking up a storm on deal docs at a big law firm (where most aspects of a deal are material and indeed merit being marked up) whereas an in-house lawyer has to understand where the real risks are, focus their (limited) time on those matters and not get hung up on the rest. Business people want a lawyer who doesn’t slow them down and helps them achieve their goals – while mitigating risk. They want someone who can spot the issues, explain them clearly without using legalese, and help solve them. Business interviewers are assessing whether you’ll be a partner, not a gatekeeper.
When it came time for the aforementioned investment firm executive to hire a general counsel, he looked for someone who had this business-minded perspective—someone he could trust, someone he would enjoy working with (let’s face it, personality always matters) and someone who had the right skill set for the work his investment firm did. He happened to find all those traits in one fantastic lawyer.
Likewise, the CFO of the VC fund shares that he looks for lawyers that are problem-solvers. Someone who will be on the business’s side and who can approach an issue with a solution—or multiple options. He wants a lawyer who shows up to a meeting and says confidently, “this is how we can do it, but here are the risks and here is how we mitigate the risks.” The CFO emphasized that he does not want his lawyers to assume a certain risk appetite. The CFO’s approach to risk may be different on different topics so the ideal scenario is when a lawyer can provide multiple solutions across the spectrum of risk.
Tout Your Skillset
Think critically about the company you’re interviewing with, what the company’s goals are and how your specific skillset can help alleviate pain points. Are they dealing with a major anti-trust lawsuit? Talk about how you’ve handled litigation for clients in the past and can help reduce outside legal expenses. Are you interviewing with a start-up? More likely than not, they’re looking for a strategic exit in the future (whether that be an IPO, acquisition or a merger). If you have experience working on transactions of that nature, be ready to talk about the deals and how you handled your role. As a lawyer, you may work hand-in-hand with the CFO and other members of the finance team on a transaction and your years of M&A at a firm will pay off. It goes without saying, as always, exaggerating or embellishing your role is never a good idea.
Business Acumen
Highlighting your business acumen can be helpful in interviews with business people. Whether that may be talking about business-focused classes you took in undergrad or at law school, jobs you held before going to law school, or any other skills you gained while counseling clients as a lawyer.
One of our candidates earned a Certificate in Management alongside her J.D. through a cross-disciplinary program between her law school and its (very highly regarded) affiliated business school. We suggested she highlight this certificate when she interviewed with the business people at a tech start-up and explain how that certificate would help in the role. The business folks would undoubtedly appreciate the value-add this certificate would bring to her legal practice. Don’t go too far down that business acumen rabbit hole, however. The investment firm executive advises tying these skills back to your legal practice, otherwise your interviewers may worry that you’re looking to switch to the business side before too long, leaving them without legal counsel once again.
Red Flags
What are red flags to a business person in an interview with an in-house counsel candidate? The executive at the investment firm shares that the biggest red flag is “someone who does not know what they do not know.” Accordingly, he always asks questions to determine if the candidate is curious, understands what they don’t know, and is willing to raise their hand and ask questions. The biggest red flag for the Venture Capital CFO is someone who doesn’t have a strong moral compass. Also a red flag: someone who insists on using legalese when they give examples during an interview; “speak human” in a crystal clear fashion, he advises.
Go Forth and Conquer:
Be sure to check out more of SeltzerFontaine’s (rather prolific) blog posts, including more interview tips and tricks and this gem, which has lots of advice for in-house interviews. And never hesitate to reach out to us if you have questions!
