February 2008

The Path to General Counsel

Many people have asked how a successful litigator can end up being considered for a general counsel position. I often hear that question because I was general counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense for more than five years during the 1990s, and I am now general counsel for a large, privately-held company.

Traditionally, many people have doubted that a trial lawyer’s skill set is easily transferable to an in-house setting, be it a governmental entity or a public or private corporation. The assumption has been that a corporate attorney’s experience would be more relevant. Not surprisingly, given my own history and training as a litigator, I disagree with the notion that there is only one path. It is a great advantage to be a litigator. Litigators know how to ask probing questions, how to quickly master very challenging facts, how to analyze expert input, and how to lead diverse and talented teams both to marshal facts and to succinctly and persuasively articulate the best path forward. All of those skills are just as important in-house, as either a manager of litigation or, indeed, as general counsel.

How do you get there? The most important quality is to be open to change and growth. You must be able to demonstrate that you are a successful litigator and that you have a range of interests and breadth of involvement in your community, on charitable boards, and in leadership positions in the bar or in other public service. This makes you stand out from your peers and is important for two reasons. First, and practically speaking, you are more likely to come to mind and to be recommended for interesting jobs if your peers have seen you excel both inside and outside the courtroom. Second, potential employers need to see the flexibility and breadth of interests that would make you a credible candidate for taking on and mastering a very different environment than the one in which you “grew up.”

Luck is, as always, a factor. For example, will an opposing counsel recommend you because they’ve just seen you do an extraordinary job of mastering facts and achieve a great result for your client? Is your expertise in intellectual property litigation—and thus particularly relevant to a company whose whole value proposition turns on protecting its intellectual property? Do you have some international arbitration experience that might make you particularly interesting to a company in the market for a general counsel whose global business involves complicated business deals around the world? None of us is a perfect fit for every company or government agency, but each of us may be lucky enough to have specific expertise that is especially attractive at a given time during a certain company’s search for a new general counsel. Standing out because of that expertise—combined with having the gravitas, commitment to ethics, energy, and a recognized ability to lead—is what will likely put you on a short list for a significant in-house position.

Judith A. Miller
Chair, Section of Litigation