TTTooKewl wrote:Thanks for doing this OP.
1) Are you in a major, coastal market?
2) What is the general age range of other in-house counsel holding junior positions, such as yours?
3) What is attrition like? You say your company hires infrequently--is it appropriate to infer that people who land there tend to stay there?
4) What do career trajectories look like once in-house? Do most people climb the ladder / or only the most driven? How does the pay scale? How do job responsibilities change?
5) When people do leave, why do they leave, and to what types of jobs do they go?
Thanks again.
1) Yes.
2) I'll decline to answer this, but in general the younger people in the office are in their early 30s.
3) Very low. People who end up here do indeed to stay here for a least a decade.
4) Our hierarchy is relatively flat, so there's not actually a lot of room to rise in regards to pure title. There are people who have been here for 10+ years without a promotion in title, though I assume they get a raise in compensation. The higher you go, the less legal work you do, and the more management you do. The only information I know about our pay scale is from external stuff like glassdoor.
5) They tend to go to jobs where they may have a much higher-ranking position at smaller, lesser-known companies. I don't know their reasons for leaving, though I suppose because they'd like a higher-ranking position even if at a smaller-company if they don't think they have a shot at reaching the same levels with us.
cookiejar1 wrote:Can you comment on this post from another thread and add more numbers? Just curious about in house compensation.
WhirledWorld wrote:Re: in-house legal jobs...
Salaries vary widely, obviously, but for the sake of throwing out a number, I'd say 150-250k base salary plus maybe 50k bonus is pretty normal for a midlevel exit into an in-house job at a F500 or comparable. All-in comp can vary wildly, however -- I know folks at banks/other financial institutions who clear over $500k after bonus and stock grants/options. You typically also enjoy 401k matching.
Government jobs have much lower ceilings, obviously, usually in the low six figures.
Glassdoor indicates that our salary ranges for the lower titles (more senior people probably won't post to glassdoor, too easy to be discovered) seems to be 180-290ish base salary plus bonus, indeed around the 30-60K range.
Anonymous User wrote:(1) I will be an SA at a V5 next summer. I will probably do corporate. What are some steps I can take to get an in-house legal job as early as possible in my career?
(2) What is a fairly good firm? How much does being at a good firm help in the hiring process? (Thinking about shopping around).
Thanks a ton for doing this.
Unfortunately, from what I can see, there's a lot of luck in this in terms of having your skill set match whatever random job postings come up. There's also a lot of situations where you build a relationship with a client as outside counsel, and then they bring you inside. So I suppose, try to do a good job at producing useful work product for the client. Random Tip: Don't bury your answer. Few things annoy me more than having to read your entire memo to find the answer buried deep in some random paragraph in the middle. I'll read the entire thing, but in terms of my daily schedule, I'll probably read your answer first thing when I get it in order to get an idea of what I might need to do going forward, and then I'll read the entire thing at the end of the day. If I'm being forced to read the entire thing right when I get it, I'm being forced to allocate my time inefficiently while under a lot of time pressure, and I'll resent the writer for it (esp. because I know the memo cost us a lot of money to purchase from your firm).
2) It's hard to say, because law firm reputations change with time, and I don't know what the reputations of these firms were right when my co-corkers joined these firms (because some haven't worked at a firm in decades). Some random ones of coworkers that come to mind include firms like Skadden, Ropes, Wilson Sonsini, and Wilkie.
Anonymous User wrote:1) F500? F100? Just trying to get an idea of how big of a company we're talking about.
2) You said you are compensated well. Would you mind telling us what you started at, and how many years of experience you had at your firm when you went in-house? Base salary, and any quantifiable benefits (bonuses, stock options, etc.), if possible.
3) Do people seem to want to stay at your company long-term, and is there a good amount of upward mobility?
4) Any regrets about going in-house? Anything you wish you knew before making the switch?
Edit: Thanks for doing this.
1) I'm only willing to say F500, and not narrow it down further. You definitely have heard of us and know about our products, though.
2) I'll just say that I didn't take a pay cut from going in-house, but I also hadn't reached partner level.
3) There isn't necessarily a lot of upward mobility, but people definitely stay long-term. People lateral between groups and positions here fairly often, so even if their official title isn't changing, the type of work they do changes, which helps to keep the job interesting, engaging, and dynamic. The hours are better than they would be at a firm by a decent margin, which really helps with the work/life balance concept, and the compensation is enough to very comfortably raise a family with, even if you're not making what you would as a law firm partner. (I think, again all I have is glassdoor salary info). I'm actually not all that concerned about how quickly I rise here, or whether I ever do at all, as long as I continue to feel engaged and challenged, which I expect to.
4) Not at all, but my personality and strengths are well-matched for in-house. My close friends from law school always expected me to go in-house from the get-go. YMMV.