Bruce Macmillan, Founder Director of The Centre for Legal Leadership, answers questions on the personal development of in-house lawyers.
What are the available options for an experienced in-house lawyer who is considering their next career move (I’ve worked in-house for ten years)?
As your career progresses, you’ll naturally want to assess your options. Ideally you should be seeing ongoing change in your role every year and significant progress, role change or difference over each three year period of your career. The choices you make now could set your career path for many years to come.
One of the big decisions you’ll need to make at this point in your career is whether to specialise in an area of law within the business (which can be very satisfying but may limit your career progression) or generalise (in which case your life will become progressively more about managing people, teams and client relationships, and less about dealing with the details of the law). For further information, see Article, Skills and behaviours required for an in-house role: mid-level lawyer.
