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Bar News - April 9, 2004 Should In-house Counsel Positions Be Considered the Practice of Law? By: MaryAnn B. Pinto I HAVE OFTEN had lawyers come up to me and say, "So, [I hear] you have given up the practice of law." The first time I heard this from a friend, I was really taken by surprise. I had accepted a position as in-house counsel for a company that I thought would be fun to work for. Considering my past business experience, I thought the combination of these experiences would be as much a vital boon to my legal career at the company as the company considered it to be to them. Much to my surprise, after accepting the position, I found that I used my business background less than I had expected. More than often than not, I have had to remind myself that although I might consider myself "the fox in charge of the chicken coop," it is in fact different than I had anticipated. I have had to keep reminding myself that my legal knowledge should take precedence in the company over my business acumen. As in-house counsel, I need to know general business law, which ranges from employment to securities, from intellectual property to insurance, from contract to tax law, and from assisting employees during corporate litigation to setting up subsidiary companies. No, I am not expected to be an expert in all these fields of law but I am expected to render an opinion, file forms, write memorandums, assist the corporation in avoiding litigation and minimizing liability. Yes, I do technically have the assistance of outside counsel to help me in my tasks. However, given the high billable rates, the com pany does frown on my use of outside counsel for other than complicated tasks. Unlike lawyers in firms, in-house counsels do not have to worry about billable hours. They do have to worry about completing their work in a reasonable amount of time. They do not have to worry about billing clients or collecting these bills. They do have to worry about minimizing legal costs within the company. In many cases, in-house counsel salaries are significantly lower than the salaries of their colleagues in law firms. An exception to this occurred during the boom market in the late 1990s, where many in-house counsels had negotiated stock options as part of their salary packages. So, why is it that I have heard many lawyers refer to lawyers in the position of in-house counsel as having given up the practice of law? I am not sure if this can be chalked up to jealousy for the 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. schedule; the loss of a comrade to a position that does not demand an average of 1,900 billable hours; or ego, where lawyers in the firm believe that in order to truly be lawyers, they need to have a law firm name behind them. In my opinion, in-house counsels may not be involved with billing clients, bringing in clients, or collecting money but they certainly are involved in the practice of law. MaryAnn B. Pinto works for The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc. in Massachusetts and is a Member of the New Lawyers’ Committee in New Hampshire.
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