Small Tech Business In-House Counsel out of LS Forum

[Garinold]

I have a life long friend that is going to be starting a business within the next 1-2 years. He wants me to help him start it and be his in-house counsel. I know about starting an LLC from BA and his business will involve a lot of contract work w/ clients. If I decide this is an opportunity I should pursue, I wonder what areas of law I should be familiarizing myself w/ outside of LLC law, contract law, and employment law?

Thanks

[Transferthrowaway]

Take away "perhaps" from in front of employment law.

[Garinold]

Taken away

[Anonymous User]

I know you didn't ask for opinions on the opportunity itself, but it's very unrealistic to think that you'll be able to serve as general counsel for an in-house corporate practice coming straight out of law school and a disservice to your friend and your friend's future growth plans. I say this from the perspective of a year of legal internship experience in a mid-sized (around $1 billion in annual revenue) technology manufacturer. If you're lucky, law school classes will lay the theoretical groundwork for understanding your job, but will NOT teach you how to do the job of general counsel. You must, must, must do a corporate legal internship - you'll see what I mean within the first two weeks showing up for work. I know that despite being very competent at my job right now (which involves cranking out a sh*t-ton commercial contracts), I would be crazy to try to be general counsel for a company that plans to grow beyond mom-and-pop within a couple of years.

Just as a start to your question on how to take classes tailored to building a broad-based in-house counsel skill set - take regular accounting, a class on article 9 of the UCC, immigration if there's any emphasis on employment immigration (check previous outlines). Take a contract drafting class. There are a lot of classes you could take, but they'll never substitute for the several years' worth of experience that you need to be effective general counsel.

[erico]

IP

[ruski]

I know you didn't ask for opinions on the opportunity itself, but it's very unrealistic to think that you'll be able to serve as general counsel for an in-house corporate practice coming straight out of law school and a disservice to your friend and your friend's future growth plans. I say this from the perspective of a year of legal internship experience in a mid-sized (around $1 billion in annual revenue) technology manufacturer. If you're lucky, law school classes will lay the theoretical groundwork for understanding your job, but will NOT teach you how to do the job of general counsel. You must, must, must do a corporate legal internship - you'll see what I mean within the first two weeks showing up for work. I know that despite being very competent at my job right now (which involves cranking out a sh*t-ton commercial contracts), I would be crazy to try to be general counsel for a company that plans to grow beyond mom-and-pop within a couple of years.

Just as a start to your question on how to take classes tailored to building a broad-based in-house counsel skill set - take regular accounting, a class on article 9 of the UCC, immigration if there's any emphasis on employment immigration (check previous outlines). Take a contract drafting class. There are a lot of classes you could take, but they'll never substitute for the several years' worth of experience that you need to be effective general counsel.

yea this was my first reaction to reading your post. i can't imagine a recent law graduate serving as GC of anything. i imagine you can pick up a lot of the stuff on the fly, especially if the company has a fairly simple business model in an industry that's not regulated, but you will probably make several mistakes, hopefully nothing that will make the company incur liability though.

[Anonymous User]

IP, employment, UCC secured transactions, any practical courses you can get your hands on so you dont just have a boat load of case law courses that will do nothing for you if you start working there