Amazon In-House Forum

[Anonymous User]

Have an offer to go inhouse to Amazon. Aside from the fact that I'd have to move to Seattle, anyone know about what it's like to work in legal there? the salary package they're offering is insane and the place seems great from the outside, but just want to make sure i know everything.

[Anonymous User]

Since you're anonymous, can you tell us what the salary package looks like? It'd be nice to get a few more actual data points

[Anonymous User]

Since you're anonymous, can you tell us what the salary package looks like? It'd be nice to get a few more actual data points

Also, general background would be appreciated, or how someone comes to get an offer like that.

Congrats, btw

[FSK]

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[Anonymous User]

going in house straight from law school?

[jamesm722]

going in house straight from law school?

Not to threadjack, but I've heard from several people that many tech companies are beginning to hire in-house right out of law school so they can groom them exactly how they want.

[Anonymous User]

going in house straight from law school?

Not to threadjack, but I've heard from several people that many tech companies are beginning to hire in-house right out of law school so they can groom them exactly how they want.

um interesting, but what do u think about exit opportunities? are they as appealing as big law firms? are doing in house at companies like amazon makes you are specialist, while doing big law makes your more of a generalist so you can be more flexiible when it comes to looking at exit ops.

[Anonymous User]

going in house straight from law school?

Not to threadjack, but I've heard from several people that many tech companies are beginning to hire in-house right out of law school so they can groom them exactly how they want.

um interesting, but what do u think about exit opportunities? are they as appealing as big law firms? are doing in house at companies like amazon makes you are specialist, while doing big law makes your more of a generalist so you can be more flexiible when it comes to looking at exit ops.

Quite the opposite from what I could tell from my in-house summer. In-house counsel work on a number of different projects from M&A to regulatory work.

Also most people exit to in-house so it's less of a concern.

[FSK]

going in house straight from law school?

Not to threadjack, but I've heard from several people that many tech companies are beginning to hire in-house right out of law school so they can groom them exactly how they want.

um interesting, but what do u think about exit opportunities? are they as appealing as big law firms? are doing in house at companies like amazon makes you are specialist, while doing big law makes your more of a generalist so you can be more flexiible when it comes to looking at exit ops.

You don't exit? Going to a company like amazon is like half the point of working at a firm.

[BruceWayne]

I want to hear that salary info.

[Anonymous User]

Have friends who are counsel and senior counsel at Amazon. They hate it. Hours are terrible and as bad as big law. Amazon requires in house lawyers to get back to business people like clients within a day. Both friends are on their phones on evenings and weekends and have to jump on laptops when something pops up. The pay is fine, but for the short leash and long hours, it is not worth it. People leave Amazon in house jobs fairly quickly.

This is not a cushy "lifestyle" in house gig that you want.

[Anonymous User]

I want to hear that salary info.

We recently had an eighth year leave for Amazon and they said he "wasn't taking a pay cut" but I don't have the finer details.

[sublime]

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[Anonymous User]

Google Amazon's office culture. It's pretty miserable. They treat their engineers pretty bad and their in house lawyers even worse. The average lifespan of an Amazon employee is 3 years. Plus you have to deal with the cult of personality environment.

Take it as a stepping stone to other in house options elsewhere, but be forewarned that it will be a terrible and cheap place to work.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. im an experienced corporate lawyer and i work at a group of law firms that amazon regularly poaches from. just sort of came to me rather than the other way around.

salary package matches biglaw, plus equity comp, better health insurance and 401k matching. also soft perks here and there that make the package better.

it seems like a large department with a lot of churn, so that's concerning to me. still on the fence about the offer and am leaning toward not taking it. happy with where i am, but everyone gets a boner over inhouse so i was wondering if i was missing something.

[Anonymous User]

There's a reason that there's high churn and there's a reason why they have to pay high. In Seattle, Amazon is notorious among locals for being a terrible place to work.

OP here. im an experienced corporate lawyer and i work at a group of law firms that amazon regularly poaches from. just sort of came to me rather than the other way around.

salary package matches biglaw, plus equity comp, better health insurance and 401k matching. also soft perks here and there that make the package better.

it seems like a large department with a lot of churn, so that's concerning to me. still on the fence about the offer and am leaning toward not taking it. happy with where i am, but everyone gets a boner over inhouse so i was wondering if i was missing something.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks man. Anyone else with input? Will probably say no to the job, but leaves a bad taste in my mouth that there is just general negative perceptions here rather than specific instances of shit that makes Amazon look bad.

[Anonymous User]

Tech company in-house attorney here, though not at Amazon. I would just add that if you want to go in-house at another technology company it might be worth churning through a few years at Amazon. Prior in-house experience is highly desirable when we are hiring. Additionally Amazon is doing a lot of cutting edge stuff with AWS and cloud right now, which is super hot.

[Anonymous User]

Have friends who are counsel and senior counsel at Amazon. They hate it. Hours are terrible and as bad as big law. Amazon requires in house lawyers to get back to business people like clients within a day. Both friends are on their phones on evenings and weekends and have to jump on laptops when something pops up. The pay is fine, but for the short leash and long hours, it is not worth it. People leave Amazon in house jobs fairly quickly.

This is not a cushy "lifestyle" in house gig that you want.

Let me preface this by saying I don't work in-house, nor do I know any non-clients who are in-house attorneys.

However, the things you cite, such as turn-around time for responses, being on their phone, and having to jump on a laptop when something comes up, well, welcome to lawyering at a big company? If you are legal counsel at a big company, and you have doing anything important, you are going to have to sacrifice some of yourself to the job.

Bottom line, in my mind, is that legal counsel is important and serves the business unit. The dream of turning biglaw associates out to pasture in a company is unrealistically rosy for many here. If you don't want to do the necessary things, you need to find a less important job.

[Anonymous User]

Google Amazon's office culture. It's pretty miserable. They treat their engineers pretty bad and their in house lawyers even worse. The average lifespan of an Amazon employee is 3 years. Plus you have to deal with the cult of personality environment.

Take it as a stepping stone to other in house options elsewhere, but be forewarned that it will be a terrible and cheap place to work.

I'll second this. Also know some people there. Extremely miserable and high turnover.

[Anonymous User]

It's worse at amazon relative to other tech or non-tech companies. Example: research an issue that comes up at 3pm. Reasonable turnaround would be a day or two, right? at amazon, they want the answer that night. That's fine by itself, but there are also 14 othe "urgent" issues you're working on that needed to be done that night. Then you find out that the issue wasn't really that urgent. That, my friend, is why it's unreasonable.

Amazon literally tells biz groups to throw work at the lawyers and demand urgent turnarounds on anything. Have witnessed biz managers laughing at how they're going to enjoy making the lawyers squirm by sending an urgent request that they know is not urgent. The culture there is intense paranoia and pitting people against each other to use as scapegoats when "Jeff" demands to know why something is taking too long.

Few other tech companies have a dysfunctional culture as bad as Amazon's. OP should go at his own risk and as a means to an end, but he has been warned.

Have friends who are counsel and senior counsel at Amazon. They hate it. Hours are terrible and as bad as big law. Amazon requires in house lawyers to get back to business people like clients within a day. Both friends are on their phones on evenings and weekends and have to jump on laptops when something pops up. The pay is fine, but for the short leash and long hours, it is not worth it. People leave Amazon in house jobs fairly quickly.

This is not a cushy "lifestyle" in house gig that you want.

Let me preface this by saying I don't work in-house, nor do I know any non-clients who are in-house attorneys.

However, the things you cite, such as turn-around time for responses, being on their phone, and having to jump on a laptop when something comes up, well, welcome to lawyering at a big company? If you are legal counsel at a big company, and you have doing anything important, you are going to have to sacrifice some of yourself to the job.

Bottom line, in my mind, is that legal counsel is important and serves the business unit. The dream of turning biglaw associates out to pasture in a company is unrealistically rosy for many here. If you don't want to do the necessary things, you need to find a less important job.

[Anonymous User]

I've also heard it's bad. As in you'll be working more hours than in a law firm.

[BruceWayne]

Honestly the second I saw someone post that they pay the same as big law I knew it was bad. Think about it--NO ONE has an incentive to pay you as much as biglaw unless they're going to work you as hard period (assuming you don't have some very special traits or something).

[Anonymous User]

Honestly the second I saw someone post that they pay the same as big law I knew it was bad. Think about it--NO ONE has an incentive to pay you as much as biglaw unless they're going to work you as hard period (assuming you don't have some very special traits or something).

I work in-house at a Fortune 5 company. I was hired directly out of law school. While I don't make Big law salary, I make close. I also live in a a place much cheaper than NYC. The salary is 130K starting, plus I received a little over 25K signing bonus. Unfortunately, I don't get a yearly bonus until I make executive level. Yearly increases are between 5-12K+ depending if you get promoted. The benefits are amazing, a lot better than my law firm offer. Most of the law department is gone by 7 and the place is literally a ghost town on weekends. The only downside is I don't particularly like the city I live in and there is really no training program because the company very rarely hires directly from law school.

[Anonymous User]

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