? Not sure you want to continue competing with lawyers that appear to be getting younger all the time? Have you got some valuable legal experience and would prefer to use it in something a little different? Then you should ideally be looking at in house solicitor jobs.
Being an in house solicitor means you might be working for a great company on their legal deals. You may be a professional in for example their procurement department, negotiating and reviewing contracts for new purchases or during a bidding cycle. Or you might be reviewing the legal terms of a new merger and acquisition. Most of the companies now undertake several mergers a year and this can be a very interesting and sometimes demanding role.
When looking at in house solicitor job adverts you may find other role such as generalist legal roles, where you work in a team looking after the legal requirements of your new company.
Sometimes you can get an in house solicitor job with a venture capitalist company, which is responsible for ensuring patents, company law and bringing the new entrepreneur into the company fold.
There are many benefits of being an in house solicitor. For instance you are no longer required to look for new clients- your work comes to you. There are no more billable hours, though obviously you will need to earn your keep! Apart from crucial times, for example while a major merger is just about to be signed, you are not likely to work overtime or weekends so your work life balance is improved and your partner has a good idea of when you will be home!
With the advantages come the disadvantages. The career structure is much flatter; there are rarely large armies of solicitors and lawyers in one company. You may find the work dull after a few years as their will not be the variation of work that you might find in a large legal firm. Finally you not get a change to attend court very often.
A lot more can be said about finding in-house solicitor jobs if you are still looking and the best place to find them is on a specialist legal job website. So happy hunting.