yronic heroism posted:

Apocalypse World solved the riddle of how to design tabletop and all RPGs about being a law student must now be AW reskins and written in IRAC form.

JohnCompany posted:

Hey folks, look like I have a second round interview for an interesting in-house position coming up (not a typical corporate client but I'd not say more yet). For reference I'm a midlevel transactional associate at an NYC biglaw shop. Any tips on preparing for/what to expect in an interview for an in-house position, particularly one that's related to, but not directly in, my current practice area?

Meatbag Esq. posted:

Lol like lowtax is ever going to update the forums.

Vox Nihili posted:

Lowtax dies in 2021. Somethingawful LLC is sold to pay for his cremation. The buyer? Our own Adar, who hires a couple goons to slap some upgrades on and tricks Bezos into purchasing the site for $5.5 million as some sort of curiosity.

Vox Nihili posted:

Lowtax dies in 2021. Somethingawful LLC is sold to pay for his cremation. The buyer? Our own Adar, who hires a couple goons to slap some upgrades on and tricks Bezos into purchasing the site for $5.5 million as some sort of curiosity.

Kawasaki Nun posted:

Ahhh the start of 2L year, when a young man's fancy turns to desperate alcohol consumption

JohnCompany posted:

Hey folks, look like I have a second round interview for an interesting in-house position coming up (not a typical corporate client but I'd not say more yet). For reference I'm a midlevel transactional associate at an NYC biglaw shop. Any tips on preparing for/what to expect in an interview for an in-house position, particularly one that's related to, but not directly in, my current practice area?

Nice piece of fish posted:

gently caress I hate trial days. And my job.

Sab0921 posted:

Phil Moscowitz posted:

Okay if I put this in the OP?

Sab0921 posted:

Eat it Norway. Just leave at 5:30 then take your state mandated leave to your beautiful cabin and relax for a week.

Jokes on you though - My cousin from Bergen took your free IVF then uprooted themselves to have that kid born in the US. USA - 1; Norway - 8000

Phil Moscowitz posted:

Okay if I put this in the OP?

Sab0921 posted:

Here is the in-house job interview effort-post (hopefully, maybe I'll get lazy half way through and just give up), but the crux of the issue is that the interviews are essentially unique to the company you're interviewing rather than broader interview characteristics that are generally applicable across big-law. Depending on the size of the company, it may be useful to check out the interview tips that they have in the corporate thread.

For smaller companies - it's entirely subjective and my experience has really been a lack of any sort of formal interview process and they'd rather see if you're fun and fit in because they figure most big law attorneys are competent.

Personally - I interviewed for 4 in-house jobs - 1 was at a US subsidiary of a major European publicly traded company, the other 3 were at smaller PE backed portfolio companies. I received an offer from one of the PE portcos and the major corp. I'll walk through the process I went through at each.

Major Corp
I came across this job from a recruiter cold-call. The process was thoroughly impersonal and very dry. It began with a call from HR to to an initial screener. They asked about my background, interest in the job, level of experience and used this time to temper salary expectations (they noted that they were not big law and the pay, but also the benefits and work life balance were reflective of a European company). After about a week, they called back to have an in person interview with the team.

I met with the AGC in charge of M&A (which was one person at the time) who I would be working directly underneath, the GC and one of the AGC's in charge of a different group. These interviews were basically big law callbacks, however, rather than whether you're a good bullshitter, they focused on my experience in drafting certain documents and accomplishing legal tasks. The nature of this company led to questions based on my familiarity with legal due diligence, NDAs, MSAs, EPC agreements, asset level M&A and equity M&A. They also focused on letting me know that it's not an "easy" job and if I wanted to leave big law for something "easy", it wasn't the place (note this is directly contradictory to what HR told me). I prodded a bit and found out that working hard meant occasionally being in the office until 7 and most of the attorneys lived in the suburbs, which is a dead giveaway of a chill job. A week later they called back for another set of interviews with some of the lower level attorneys and this was more about personality fit. They called in about a week saying I had an offer, but it would take a little bit to get it routed through Europe - the official offer came in about a month later.

The keys here were making it through a generic HR screener, then demonstrating that I had broad based experience across a number of disciplines, had experience with a number of generic agreements and did not have an aversion to doing menial legal tasks (diligence and NDAs). So focus on questions related to your experience with various types of agreements, your willingness to eat poo poo, get paid poo poo and become part of the company culture which is very important to them.

The pay was just too low here.

PE Portfolio Company - Final 2

I came across this job by a referral from a Senior Associate at a firm I used to work at. They offered her the job outright because she had done the platform work for the PortCo, but is very on track to be a big law partner with 7 figures - so she stuck with it. This was an "interview" process in lightest sense of the word.

I met the CFO and some of the other folks at a Gin bar and we got shitfaced and talked about good gins and life. At the end, they basically said all big law attorneys are the same so if you made it 4 years, it's all good, just wanted to see if you could hang - and then set up a meeting with the CEO.

The CEO called me to a different bar, which they refer to as their second office (I think the CEO may have a drinking problem). At that bar, there was the CEO, HR person, front desk secretary and CFO....and another candidate for the position and the person who referred him (who happens to work at my current firm). I spent most of the time chatting up the HR person and front desk secretary and apparently that worked - they called and said I was in the final 2 people for the position and I'd be hearing from their PE sponsor. I got a call from their PE sponsor on Aug 26, 2017 asking if I could make it to New York for an interview that Monday - I said sure...except Hurricane Harvey hit that Saturday, deluged the city and I was stuck. In the meantime, another candidate who lived in a different city was able to make it up New York - he got the job. Womp Womp

PE Portfolio Company Offer

Based on the interview with the first PortCo, they referred me to another that was also looking for a GC. This interview process was largely the same as the other - I went to the second office with the CFO of PortCo 1 and CEO of PortCo 2 - we got drunk and just bullshitted. The questions were basically about whether or not I could save him money. He was tired of paying Latham for dumb bullshit all the time and asked how I would manage outside counsel for acquisitions and whether and how I'd handle day to day legal issues (corporate formalities, board issues, employment issues etc..).

He liked me - so called me back to meet the CFO - he liked me so then I got an offer to join them, but also had an offer at a boutique firm that I decided to take instead and I'll be starting next week.

I'm getting kind of lazy - so I don't really want to go into detail on the other PortCo - was basically a recruiter cold call - had a screener with the GC, then a meeting with the COO and didn't make it past that stage - couldn't really tell you why. Don't know if that was helpful - but if you have more targeted questions, feel free to ask.

Sab0921 posted:

Sure - let me think on it and give another sweep for edits that need to be made and I'll send you a PM - does that work?

Vox Nihili posted:

Ugh, gin. I don't think I'd cut it at a clear liquor outfit.

Vox Nihili posted:

Ugh, gin. I don't think I'd cut it at a clear liquor outfit.

Vox Nihili posted:

Ugh, gin. I don't think I'd cut it at a clear liquor outfit.

JohnCompany posted:

Massive thank you Sab, super helpful! Now just to hope that what they're looking for is congruent with what I'm offering.

Vox Nihili posted:

Everyone here just drinks whiskey, as God intended.

Soothing Vapors posted:

wow look at little lord fauntleroy over here sipping his fancy distilled liquor from a glass like some sort of fuckin Frenchman instead of just guzzling antifreeze from a radiator like our forefathers before us

Vox Nihili posted:

Everyone here just drinks whiskey, as God intended.

Vox Nihili posted:

Lowtax dies in 2021. Somethingawful LLC is sold to pay for his cremation. The buyer? Our own Adar, who hires a couple goons to slap some upgrades on and tricks Bezos into purchasing the site for $5.5 million as some sort of curiosity.

ActusRhesus posted:

Sorry guys. Got oculus for my birthday. Suddenly nothing else matters

ActusRhesus posted:

Is it? I’ll let you know in a decade.

Sab0921 posted:

Awesome IHC effortpost

ActusRhesus posted:

Sorry guys. Got oculus for my birthday. Suddenly nothing else matters

Beefeater1980 posted:

So here are a few thoughts on IHC based on 1) them being my clients when in private practice; 2) their being my customer when I was selling legal tech; 3) me being their client once I was the business guy; and 4) my wife having been in-house at various companies for about 8 years now.

1. The central difference between in-house and BigLaw life is that once you go in house you become a cost centre. This informs everything else.

2. The genuine value of IHC is if they, personally and not via outside counsel, are familiar with both (i) what your company does; and (ii) the law applicable to its activities, such that they can give an accurate answer to legal questions that arise in the course of doing business. This is amazing and worth cherishing if you find it. If you’re in house please be this kind.

3. This is also rare as hen’s teeth because most IHC at big companies are your typical type-A overachievers from a BigLaw background and therefore (i) have no useful knowledge outside of their practice area, which like as not is M&A or similar, whereas most of the legal issues you face will be commercial, employment, etc plus any industry-specific regulatory stuff; (ii) don’t understand actual business operations well; and (iii) expect to be treated as Important People because they haven’t fully realised they are just a cost centre yet.

4. In an effort to continue to be treated like a profit centre not a cost centre (and therefore like an Important Person), many IHC spend a lot of time and the company’s money playing make-believe. The goal of this as far as I can tell is to get to a position where you personally do nothing to help the business, sit on top of a large team of lawyers (some of whom may help the business as a side-product of their actual job, which is to make you feel like a senior partner), raise deeply ignorant questions in business meetings, send all substantive work to outside counsel, and sit on regular panels talking about how you are redefining the role of General Counsel so that it’s equivalent to a C-Suite role. I regard this as basically a fraud on the shareholders of the company, but OTOH GC is hardly the only role with this problem.

ActusRhesus posted:

Is it? I’ll let you know in a decade.

RFX posted:

In house posts making me feel bad. I've been trying to go in house for the last 18 months. I've had a ton of interviews and gotten close with many - been told I was "top 2" multiple times - but unfortunately no offers. Baby coming next week so search will be on hold for a while I'm afraid.

I went into law school always planning on going in house. It's apparently much more difficult than I thought or was told. So if you're thinking of going to law school thinking that in house is an easy straight shot... please don't go.

RFX posted:

In house posts making me feel bad. I've been trying to go in house for the last 18 months. I've had a ton of interviews and gotten close with many - been told I was "top 2" multiple times - but unfortunately no offers. Baby coming next week so search will be on hold for a while I'm afraid.

I went into law school always planning on going in house. It's apparently much more difficult than I thought or was told. So if you're thinking of going to law school thinking that in house is an easy straight shot... please don't go.

Hot Dog Day #91 posted:

Sometimes I wonder if I could ever leave public service. I just don't think I could do it. Not having a profit motive is really nice.

At the same time, going medically bankrupt due to my health is really poo poo. Ugh.

Wife's pregnant too.