Who’s developing tomorrow’s in-house lawyers?
One thing we’ve been discussing recently at In-House Legal Solutions is about where the next generation of in-house lawyers will come from.
Most legal teams are busy. There are deadlines to meet, stakeholders to support and businesses to advise. When legal teams are focused on the day job, creating opportunities for the next generation can easily move down the priority list, resulting in openings for beginning an in-house career being few and far between.
The challenge however is that if in-house roles are not made more accessible to those at the start of their careers and aspiring in-house lawyers are not introduced to the possibility of beginning their career journeys in-house (rather than following the usual law firm to in-house career path), the profession is likely to miss out benefiting from fantastic young talent, with fresh ideas and up to date skills in using tools such as AI. But its not just creating the openings that is the issue – how can the profession market itself to graduating students or those wishing to switch their career to law through the noise of the big law recruitment campaigns in front of them?
Over the years, we’ve worked with a number of interns and aspiring lawyers. One thing that often strikes me is how little exposure many of them have to what an in-house legal career actually looks like. One of our recent interns Connal McCaffrey commented: “At university, you just don’t hear very much about in-house careers at all. Working here gave me a real understanding of what an in-house legal career looks like and the different opportunities available beyond private practice, which otherwise just isn’t freely available.”
It’s a reminder that many aspiring lawyers simply don’t get that visibility early in their journeys. So how can the in-house community change this? Not every organisation can offer internships or formal mentoring programmes, but even small actions can make a difference. Sharing experiences, making introductions and helping aspiring in-house lawyers build their networks all play a part. But how does the in-house community communicate what it’s all about at scale to the potential next generation of in-house lawyers?
One initiative seeking to do this is InHoCo (In-House Community), founded by Emma Lilley, an in-house lawyer and Head of Legal from Derby. The online platform has been created to bring together careers advice for all those interested in an in-house career, and for those looking to take the next step in their existing one, as well as to encourage knowledge sharing and help lawyers build valuable connections throughout their careers.
“In-house is one of the most sought-after destinations in the legal profession.” Emma said on a recent Linkedin post. “Despite this, the profession has built an entire infrastructure around training, qualifying & progressing in private practice. In-house is an afterthought.”
Resources such as InHoCo are certainly a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done at source such as in universities and law schools to highlight the profession in the first place, because if a student isn’t aware of in-house careers, they wont know to go and find out information about it.
Legal careers fairs, where students tend to get their early experiences of legal careers are dominated by law firms looking for their next flock of trainees and understandably so, as they are so reliant on a strong pool of talent moving up through the firm. For in-house teams, there’s little point in spending the time and money on a stand at a fair when they may only be recruiting one paralegal or trainee that year. We at In-House Legal Solutions do try and attend as many events as we can locally to publicise not only our offering but also to communicate the message about the fact that a career in-house exists as an option, but in reality the profession is reliant on large businesses such as banks and multinationals with large legal teams making the investment and attending law fairs in search of their next legal graduate crop.
This likely wont be enough though, meaning the shift has to come from careers advice teams in the universities and law schools themselves. Catherine Meehan is the Careers Manager at the Liverpool and Chester campuses of the University of Law. “We certainly support students with raising awareness of in-house legal opportunities where we can” she recently told us. “Through organisations we invite to our fairs and also through in-house legal panels we arrange for students online as part of our National Speaker programme – in the past couple of years we have had speakers from organisations like Shelter, BBC, Walt Disney, Adidas, Dominos Pizza, LLG, Army Legal Services for example. Similarly, it would be something discussed in careers appointments if a student’s interests aligned with suitable in-house opportunities.”
But is there any need for this if the starter jobs are not there anyway? Emma Lilley regularly shares NQ, trainee and paralegal roles that are advertised on Linkedin, proof that if you look you can find. Whether more in-house teams have the resources to spend on training and mentoring aspiring lawyers, especially those with very small teams remains to be seen, but the profession would certainly benefit from more involvement by the younger generation who may be more tech savy and AI experienced than perhaps more mature lawyers, and who can be quickly moulded into the in-house mentally quicker than a converting private practice lawyer.
For now then, it’s a work in progress, with more effort needed on a number of fronts. The number of aspiring lawyer candidates never ceases to abate however, so the quicker the in-house profession improves its visibility to aspiring lawyers the better for building more rounded and overall effective legal teams.
You can find out more about InHoCo at https://www.inhoco.uk. Have you come across InHoCo yet? We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the role communities and networks play in supporting in-house lawyers.