What are the ideal skills of an in-house lawyer?
Clients will always look for technically competent lawyers to enhance their in-house legal teams, and will want to employ lawyers who are a good cultural fit. What is also certain, however, is that different skills are required from in-house lawyers. In small legal teams your workload may be far more broadly focused, and you may therefore frequently be asked to provide advice or guidance outside your area of expertise. The in-house legal team will be the recipient of a huge and varied number of requests and queries from every other department within the company, and you may also from time to time be required to provide training beyond the legal team to ensure that your colleagues in other departments are compliant with the law and its myriad processes and procedures. You must demonstrate that you are able and willing to move beyond your comfort zone. The control and instruction of external counsel will also fall under your remit, and although there will be times when instructing extern
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