Serena Tierney is a leading intellectual property and data privacy lawyer. She was previously Head of IP at Telefonica O2 and at City firm Bircham Dyson Bell, as well as a partner at Veale Wasbrough Vizards. She has also worked at Disney, Diageo and Wragge & Co, and is now a senior consultant at boutique start-up-focused law firm Ignition Law.

For our full interview with Serena, check out https://www.commerciallaw.academy/courses/alternative-careers

Working in-house

Post-training, there are ample opportunities to work “in-house” (and there are also a growing number of opportunities to train or paralegal in-house). Working in-house simply means working for a company rather than a law firm. 

For example, corporations (e.g. Apple), banks (e.g. J.P. Morgan) and private equity firms (e.g. Cinven) all have their own legal teams. These legal teams tend to carry out the company’s day-to-day legal work, then bring in and co-ordinate/work alongside external “private practice” legal advisers (e.g. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer) on larger transactions or disputes. 

Your work/life balance tends to be a little better working in-house, although the pay is typically lower (especially at a more junior level and at smaller companies). In addition, you will generally only carry out your company’s legal work, which may not appeal as much if you’re the type of person that wants to work for dozens of different companies throughout the year (as would usually be the case at a large commercial law firm). 

Aside from attaining a better work/life balance, there are various other reasons why some people prefer in-house roles (bear these reasons in mind if preparing to articulate your motivation for applying for an in-house role!). 

For example, in-house roles often enable you to get to know the business far better than you would as an external lawyer: you’ll have exposure to (and potentially the opportunity to advise on) many of the processes that come together for a business to operate effectively and grow, plus – depending on the company – you may well be working alongside business people on a day-to-day basis (e.g. employees in the operations, marketing and sales teams), not just other lawyers. In other words, you’ll be closer to the heart of the business, where the key commercial decisions are debated, whereas in private practice, you’re often only involved in the process once these decisions have already been made. So if you’re as interested in business as you are in law, then this might appeal to a greater extent.

Moreover, working in-house might give you a better opportunity to see the product of your work materialise, as you’ll still be working with the business once, for example, a transaction has completed, rather than working only on siloed legal issues. In addition, you tend to specialise to a lesser extent in-house, so could have the opportunity to develop a broader practice and enjoy a greater variety of work. You might also have the opportunity to give more commercial (i.e. business-centric) advice alongside legal advice, which could make you a more well-rounded professional.