Understanding in-house Legal Careers

Episode Description

In this special episode we are joined by Barry Matthews, Group Deputy General Counsel at the Pennon Group Plc, and Holly Moore, Legal Advisor in the in-house legal team at broadcaster ITV. We explore how you can develop a career path as an in-house lawyer, how the role differs from other types of legal practice, the opportunities such pathways offer, the skills which help you to succeed as an in-house lawyer, and how the role is changing.

In this episode, Barry and Holly explain how they each developed their career paths to in-house legal roles and what attracted them to this area of legal practice.  For Barry, this was a route via private practice in a City law firm, whilst Holly gained an in-house solicitor apprentice role and went directly into in-house practice.  Areas discussed include the diversity of the roles and opportunities, and the closeness of the in-house legal role to the commercial business you are advising.

Holly speaks about the fast-moving, and varied work at ITV from commercial negotiations to drafting and brand protection work.  Also Holly discusses how the in-house role gives a great “helicopter view” of the business as her role rotated through different departments during training.  Barry also emphasises the variety of his in-house work at a senior level, ranging from the legal and commercial strategy work to collaborating with academic partner organisations on societal issues such as water supply resilience.  Both guests talk about skills such as agility, project management and relationship building as being key to success – and how they see in-house legal functions developing in the future.

Actions and resources for listeners:

·         Check this webpage to find out some differences between working as an  in-house lawyer and in private practice.

On this list of “10 Business Skills every in-house lawyer should master”, where are you already strong, and which 1 skill could you work more to develop?