Have you heard the one about the law student who dreamed of becoming in-house counsel? Didn’t think so. Much as our universities like to say otherwise, law students are often focused on a job at the Big 3, with an eye on partnership.
Yet if you speak to lawyers who have moved from big law firms or other private practice jobs to in-house roles, by and large they couldn’t be happier. So, are in-house jobs a hidden gem?
The market for in-house lawyers is huge and the roles diverse. Government, councils, unions, charities, sporting bodies and New Zealand’s largest companies all employ lawyers.
The biggest employer of all is the public sector. Government Legal Network (GLN) statistics show that in 2019 there were 899 full-time lawyers working at various government agencies compared with 844 full-time lawyers in the previous year.
Some in-house lawyers start as graduates but most jobs need experience in private practice first. Hays Specialist Recruiters’ senior business manager legal, Lorraine Zencic, says in-house roles usually require at least two or more years’ experience. “By four to five years lawyers have some solid training, systems and principles in place if they have worked in a good firm, which gives a sense of comfort [to employers].”
Zencic says lawyers are often seconded into businesses and other organisations to work in-house on behalf of the law firm and they get a taste for the work. “Quite often they are shoulder-tapped [and] that transition is made without them even looking outside in the market.”
Of all lawyers practising in New Zealand nearly a quarter (23 per cent) are in-house lawyers, says Zencic.
Monique Esplin, manager of the GLN programmes and capability team at Crown Law (Te Tari Turi o te Karauna), says the GLN is home to lawyers who work in a variety of ministries, departments, Crown entities, commissions and research institutes.
“Our lawyers work across the country to protect the rule of law and maintain the integrity of our constitutional democracy,” Esplin says. “We help the government implement its policies lawfully and as a result support New Zealanders to benefit from a society that is safe, just, environmentally sustainable and economically sound. We are lawyers for New Zealand.”
In-house lawyers LawNews spoke to said they often earned as much and sometimes more than they would in private practice. Many in-house lawyers progress into management at the very highest levels with salaries to reflect that.
But the career path may not be as linear as inprivate practice and it’s often necessary to look outside the team for advancement opportunities.
Graduates can, and do, find roles in-house straight out of university with government, local body or other organisations. Auckland Council solicitor David Hebenton was one such graduate, joining Auckland Council’s program in January 2018. Hebenton had studied law at Strathclyde University in Scotland but went travelling, working along the way in sales and then as an adviser at Auckland Council’s Arts and Culture department.
He decided to pursue law here and enrolled at the University of Auckland to complete the Certificate of Proficiency (COP) needed to convert his degree. “When I was converting my degree, Auckland Council ran a graduate evening at Auckland University. My manager in Arts and Culture [where he worked to pay for his studies] also recommended council’s legal team. So that’s how I was made aware of the opportunities.”
Hebenton was one of four graduate lawyers in the same intake. They were part of the council’s wider graduate program, doing stints in the property/ commercial, public law, regulatory and civil litigation teams. “It was a really good opportunity to test out all those different areas and actually be exposed to the type of work the lawyers do in each,” says Hebenton. The graduate junior lawyers were given more autonomy than they may have received in private practice. “At council we get the opportunity to own a file from start to finish,” he says.
On completing the rotations, Hebenton chose to go into the council’s litigation and dispute resolution team where he deals with negligence, nuisance and public works claims as well as contractual disputes. The department also advises on health and safety. The GLN also has programs for students at graduates. Its summer clerk program places law students in government legal teams to get paid, first-hand experience, Esplin says. “In 2019 we had 21 summer clerks placed in agencies and in 2020 we have 22 summer clerks in agencies in Wellington and Auckland.
“At the start of next year, our GLN graduate program will be seeking law graduates who would like the opportunity to work in three government agencies over the course of two years. In 2020 we had six graduates placed in agencies.” The popularity of these programs continues to increase, says Esplin.
Another route
Craig McCall, senior legal counsel at Vodafone, started his career in-house but not through a graduate program. He hadn’t considered working in-house when he was at university, being aware only of the private practice route. “I didn’t have a great picture of what else was out there.”
“Fortunately, because I hadn’t particularly applied myself well at uni, my grades didn’t really align with getting a job in one of the private practices I applied [to]. So, I scrambled around and ended up getting a job with the Charities Commission.” Although the registration analyst job was not a legal role, it gave McCall the feel of what it was like to work in-house. Determined to get into the law profession, McCall did the Professional Legal Studies Course off his own bat.
But it was the height of the Global Financial Crisis and there weren’t a heap of legal jobs around. He ended up in a legal role at the Ministry of Social Development, dealing with historical abuse claims from former children in state care, alleging some failure by the ministry or its predecessors that caused them harm.
“This role has given me thorough experience in high-level litigation in a large organisation, dispute resolution and legal and factual research, including conducting interviews.” It allowed McCall to grow his experience.
He left to go on an OE to the United Kingdom where he landed a temp legal role with SportEngland. Thanks to the London 2012 summer Olympics, the organisation handled huge amounts of funding for grass-roots sport which was monitored by the legal team. “I was lucky that this temp role happened to be in this really exciting organisation,” says McCall.
The legal adviser role involved tasks such as taking security over property to claw back funds from organisations that didn’t meet their key performance indicators (KPIs) as well as more general in-house type work on contracts and procurement. The job allowed McCall to delve into issues of professional interest.
“[I] thought ‘this is good. I like this’.” He thrived on the day-to-day hustle and bustle of the business. “You have to keep doing things. You are on-the-fly all the time.”
On his return home McCall worked for four years in legal roles at the New Zealand Defence Force, then moved to a fixed-term contract three years ago at Vodafone to “have a go outside the public sector”. Vodafone suited him. He enjoyed the technology side and the contract became permanent.
McCall has discovered through his various legal roles that he really enjoys working alongside people who are specialists in their sectors.
At the Ministry of Defence, for example, the procurement side was endlessly interesting. “Even things like the mass level of hospitality-type services. The rations. Feeding the people. [It] is just fascinating to see a big organisation and how it can manage those things and how there is a legal part to play in that to bind it all together,” says McCall.
“[In-house] is definitely something that’s worth giving a go. Even if it’s just for a short time. That’s what I did [when] coming to Vodafone. I wanted to try out the corporate side of things. Getting out of government. Do it for a year and see what happens. It might be an experience. It might be a new opportunity to stick with. There is nothing to lose giving it a go.”
If McCall had his time over again, he’d plan a career that got him exactly where he is today. “I would have liked to have got where I got from actual planning rather than been lucky to land where I have. But each role I have had has been critical to getting me where I am.”
Seizing opportunities
An in-house team is different from the big teams in private practice, which are set up to move lawyers through the ranks. “You do quite often need to move between organisations to make those advancements,” says McCall. “I think that’s part of the fun. You get to jump into another organisation and figure out how it works.
“There’s a theme there of having to look for andtake opportunities rather than waiting for a role above to open up, but an open mind to what those opportunities look like will offer more. Later there are more opportunities available within an organisation to shift into other teams or management roles.”
Around one-third of in-house roles involve a single lawyer working in an organisation, says Zencic. She notes that few companies in New Zealand have more than 20 lawyers in their legal departments. The government has several departments that each employ more than 100 lawyers. “Government is huge,” she says. “In Wellington more than 49% of all practising lawyers work in government.”
In-house lawyers often talk of the better work/ life balance. Some work 9am to 5pm; others work part-time.
McCall says the tempo of work is different to what he sees his contemporaries doing in private practice. “I think it’s [a] different [sort of] stress. You have to make calls and keep things going. Some people might not like that. But it fits quite well with me.”
Once an in-house lawyer doesn’t mean always an in-house lawyer. There is crossover, says Zencic. Nor is being an in-house lawyer a hindrance if you want to become a judge.
Hebenton points with pride to newly-appointed Associate Judge Dani Lee Gardiner, who was appointed to the bench from her role as general counsel at Auckland Council.
“It was unheard of in years gone by for someone to go directly from an in-house legal team to become a judge and sit on the High Court bench,” he says.
“That is something we are all really proud of and it does show younger lawyers if you do have aspiration to become a judge you don’t necessarily need to follow the traditional route of becoming a partner in a law firm or a barrister. So, I definitely think the perception of in-house lawyers is changing and is not, as it once was thought, inferior to private practice.”
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