Been practicing for over a decade. Spent first few years in BigLaw and the rest of the time in-house.
I've worked at two companies and have been an individual contributor the entire time. I enjoy doing my work, making sure my management has what they need, and turning my laptop off. At the old company, I really didn't like sitting in pointless meetings where I needed to say all the right political things and could also not see myself wanting to be General Counsel.
Current employer is awesome. I do work that I enjoy, have development opportunities in other legal/compliance groups, and respect my management. As an individual contributor, my focus is on answering questions from the business, making sure my work product is quality, and ensuring my management has what they need. My little slice of the pie keeps me engaged at work while also providing great WLB.
While I am several levels below GC, I can see myself wanting to pursue progression to GC here as the company's culture matches my own values to a T and the company's mission is one I truly believe in. All that said, I see how busy my immediate manager is. They're in meetings all day, need to be available in the early morning (and sometimes late at night) for Asia and Europe, and seem to be rushing from meeting to meeting. The company is one where managers actually have substantive work to do, so it's a bit of a double whammy where they need to be there for their team, make sure they are visible for cross-functional international projects, and make time to do their own work.
For those of you who moved into management roles with an eye to become GC, how did you make the decision to do so? What do you like about being a manager? What do you not like? Do you ever wish you had remained an individual contributor?
In-house inflection point: individual contributor or manager? Forum
Forum rules
Anonymous Posting
Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are revealing sensitive employment related information about a firm, job, etc. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.
Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned.
Anonymous Posting
Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are revealing sensitive employment related information about a firm, job, etc. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.
Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned.
-
Anonymous User
- Posts: 432857
- Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am
-
Anonymous User
- Posts: 432857
- Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am
Re: In-house inflection point: individual contributor or manager?
In my prior company I was well-respected and my manager told me I was their pick as successor, but I knew I would probably be waiting for years until they vacated their position for me. I knew that I wanted to move into a management role because I plateaued at my current position. Most of my work was not challenging anymore and I didn't feel like I was picking up new skills - it became monotonous and boring, and I wanted more of a challenge. I also wanted to try things outside of my legal specialty.
So I moved up by moving to another company, a start-up in particular where I didn't need decades of experience to be in a GC role. I am the only lawyer and so by default I handle all the legal issues. It definitely has been challenging, but I've been enjoying it very much so far. I am part of the management team and have a big say in how things are done, and I am responsible for building out all the legal operations of the company (which is neat, because I've been able to improve upon how things were done at my prior company and gain new appreciation for how difficult it can be to build efficient operations). And I am learning a ton, as I either tackle issues myself or have outside counsel handle it and learn through them.
It's not an overwhelming amount of work. I have really good work-life balance. I look forward to managing others at some point as we grow bigger, and my career trajectory will allow me to hop into a GC role for other companies if/when I decide to leave this company. I don't regret it at all.
So I moved up by moving to another company, a start-up in particular where I didn't need decades of experience to be in a GC role. I am the only lawyer and so by default I handle all the legal issues. It definitely has been challenging, but I've been enjoying it very much so far. I am part of the management team and have a big say in how things are done, and I am responsible for building out all the legal operations of the company (which is neat, because I've been able to improve upon how things were done at my prior company and gain new appreciation for how difficult it can be to build efficient operations). And I am learning a ton, as I either tackle issues myself or have outside counsel handle it and learn through them.
It's not an overwhelming amount of work. I have really good work-life balance. I look forward to managing others at some point as we grow bigger, and my career trajectory will allow me to hop into a GC role for other companies if/when I decide to leave this company. I don't regret it at all.
