Corporate Counsel: Expert Advice on Becoming a Successful In-House Lawyer

By Peter Carayiannis

It used to be that the path to a successful career as a corporate lawyer was found in private practice. In recent years this has changed dramatically with corporate lawyers building satisfying, engaging, and rewarding careers as in-house counsel.

 

With the right career transition, you can rediscover your passion for business law and build the fulfilling career you deserve.

 

If your career as an attorney isn't all you dreamed of and you are unsure how to fix it, join lawyer Peter Carayiannis on a journey from private practice into a successful position as an in-house lawyer. With crisp, original insight, Corporate Counsel is your guide to becoming a successful in-house lawyer.

 

In this business fable, you will find:

 

• A step-by-step plan to help you prepare for and transition to an in-house counsel position.
• What unique skills you will need as in-house counsel, like the ability to bridge the divide between client and adviser.
• What to expect in the first 100 days of your new position, including routines, roles, expectations, and goals.
• An engaging, easy-to-understand story—no legalese!

 

You can have it all. Read Corporate Counsel and take your first step toward a rewarding career as in-house counsel!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Old Town Press
• Release date: Jan 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781778217104

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Friday afternoon. 4:59 p.m. Click. 5:00 p.m.

Anna had just finished the first week of her new job. She had never been the kind of person to punch the clock. She was relieved, to say the least, to get to the end of the day and the end of the week.

Still, she could not feel worse. She was exhausted, dejected, completely deflated. This was all a big mistake.

Anna had been a partner at the Chicago office of a national law firm. She had made it. She thought she had arrived and caught the brass ring. Financial success. Respect of peers. She even found her way to the coveted corner office with a beautiful view of the Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan.

And yet, something was missing. Her accolades did not make her happy. She was spending long hours at work, away from her husband and kids, and if she had to miss one more birthday party…well, she just knew she had to make a change.

The week had started well enough, full of excitement and energy for the new job. She woke up a bit earlier than usual to make the drive from her city duplex in Buckland to the leafy suburbs of Deerfield. Anna had always lived and worked in the city, but now she had decided to take on an entirely new challenge.

She was given the chance to be the first General Counsel of an exciting and growing company. It would be her opportunity to build out the new in-house counsel role and to help the company grow.

Anna was now the General Counsel of Denison Real Estate, a regional real estate firm in the Midwest in the middle of a big transition.

Mr. John Denison, the founder, had recently retired, and his son, David, took over the family business. With his freshly minted ivy league MBA, David Denison had moved back home from New York City, together with his wife and son. On paper, David is an impressive young executive. Smart, charming, and ambitious, and he wants to take this place to the next level—the latter being what attracted Anna to the opportunity to join Denison. She was caught up in the excitement and the idea of building Denison, and for it she left private practice to go in-house.

But what started as a great week, soon went from bad to worse.

First, she got a flat tire on the way to work. By the time she got to the office, she was 30 minutes late for her first Monday morning meeting with her new boss, David. She emailed David’s administrative assistant to say she would be late, but Sally hadn’t passed along the message. She changed the tire herself (her dad always taught her to be self-sufficient), but she also managed to get some grease on her pants. This was not the first day on the job that she imagined.

She figured Monday was an aberration and the rest of the week would be much better.

She was wrong.

On Tuesday, she made it to work on time with no drama. In fact, it was a calm and relaxing drive to work, listening to her favorite radio station and looking forward to setting up her new office, rolling up her sleeves and getting to work.

She arrived, only to be greeted by complete chaos. There was a problem with the IT department. All systems were off-line. The entire business was paralyzed, and no work was able to be done. David was frantic. By 9:30 a.m., he had loosened his shirt, lost his tie, sweating heavily while yelling at the staff. Anybody who came within earshot couldn’t mistake the stress that David was feeling, not to mention the stress he was putting on everybody around him. Scared. Nervous. The whole office was on eggshells.

In the end, Anna learned that the local utility company was working nearby and had cut the line that connected Denison’s entire operation. By midday, a solution was in place. That was the good news. The bad news was that Denison didn’t have any backup or contingency plans. Anna wondered what other skeletons she was going to find.

And then there was the issue of her boss. David really lost his composure. Yes, of course, it was a big deal to lose all internet access for half a day. But isn’t the CEO supposed to show grace under pressure?

Wednesday wasn’t much better. No flat tire and no IT crisis to handle, but when she got to work, she realized what a mess was waiting for her. Denison had never had an in-house lawyer. The files were a disorganized mess. Nothing was properly filed, stored, or archived. The original contracts were all over the place, filed with neither rhyme nor reason. Before bringing her office into 21st century, she would have to drag them into the 20th century. She saw before her a herculean task to modernize the legal department.

Thursday and Friday were much the same. Anna got to work early. She ate a fast lunch at her desk and stayed late. She had thought that leaving her previous job would mean that she would be home for dinner, but at this rate she was going to work longer hours than ever.

On Friday evening, she left the office at dusk, stopping briefly to take in the sunset and the clear blue sky turning violet as she scanned from west to east. That’s when she spotted the diner across the street. She had worked so hard all week that she never took any time to get to know her new neighborhood. Right there across the street was a traditional diner, almost like a postcard, with warm light spilling out onto the sidewalk. Above the door, in neon light, was the sign The Red Rocket Deli & Grill. A patron stepped out, and Anna heard the light tinkle of the bell that rang whenever the door was opened or closed. It was like the diner she used to work part time at during law school.

She made a mental note to get to work a bit earlier next week to stop in for breakfast.

CHAPTER 1

A FRESH START

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

– Robert Frost¹

MORNING IN BUCKTOWN. THE ALARM RINGS. NO TIME TO HIT THE SNOOZE button today, Anna thought to herself as she rolled out of bed. This week would be different. This week she’s in control.

Living in Bucktown, Anna and her husband had picked an up-andcoming—truly hip—neighborhood to put down roots and raise their family. They were still close to downtown Chicago, their hometown and the city they loved, but moving to Bucktown gave them some room to grow, and they enjoyed the beautiful leafy streets in this part of town. Now, though, she had to learn to change up her commute. If Bucktown was hip and on the rise, Deerfield was the established and moneyed suburbs of Chicago. Denison had selected Deerfield as the company headquarters many years ago, partly because of the overall trend in those years to leave city centers like Chicago and partially to be closer to the head offices of so many major American companies.

And so today, Anna would reverse her commute and drive to Deerfield every morning.

She raced through her normal routine, in and out of the shower, packed lunches for the kids, kissed her husband goodbye, and then remembered The Red Rocket from the week before.

That’s right, she thought, intending to try breakfast at that cute little diner across the street from her new office.

The drive to work was uneventful. It was a beautiful sunny morning. She parked close by and walked the two blocks to The Red Rocket. Leafy Deerfield, she mused, is the kind of place that used to be a separate little town before being swallowed up by the big city. There was still a town square, with a clock tower and a park. The park, we all can imagine, would be full of little flags on Memorial Day, and surely, they would host a Fourth of July BBQ every year. She walked past the square and turned down the side street to her new office—and to The Red Rocket.

As she reached for the door handle, her eye caught the ground in front of her. In a mosaic of tiny red tiles, the word WELCOME was spelled out. Perfect, she thought, this little place probably hasn’t changed in decades. She stepped in, and the look, the feel, the sounds, and the smell…yes, that smell of hot, fresh coffee, bacon and eggs and toast instantly reminded her of the greasy spoon where she worked from high school all the way through law school. Her mind flooded with memories of her two bosses, the brothers George and Jimmy, who owned that diner that helped put her through school. Shouting orders back and forth, half in English, half in Greek, always with a smile on their face and ready to argue about the game the night before—the Blackhawks, the Bears, or the Bulls—it didn’t matter which game or which sport, win or lose, George and Jimmy could argue all morning.

She stood at the counter and was greeted by a lanky gentleman with a white apron.

What can I get for you, ma’am?

I’d like a black coffee and uhh… she paused as she scanned the menu hanging above the grill behind the counter. …a black coffee and a scrambled egg on a toasted bagel. To go, please.

Yes, ma’am, the man in the white apron said.

As she waited for her breakfast, she looked around. The walls were covered in rocket memorabilia from the 1960s, and behind the cash register were a few small, framed and faded, black-and-white photos: Martin Luther King’s portrait, a photo of the people marching on the bridge in Selma, Alabama, and that iconic picture of Dr. King at the Lincoln Memorial. Looking at that photo she could hear the I have a dream speech in her mind. In a small, dusty frame beside the cash register, a photo caught her eye. It was Dr. King, standing where she was standing now, shaking the hand of a man behind the counter. Dr. King ate here in the ’60s, she thought.

Excuse me. Ma’am. Ma’am. Excuse me, ma’am.

Suddenly, Anna snapped out of her daydream and realized that the gentleman behind the counter was trying to get her attention.

That’ll be $5.25.

She placed six dollars on the Formica counter and with a smile said, Thank you very much. I love your diner. She left without asking for her change and went to work.

Monday was a much better day. She got into the routine. She started to investigate the files in her office and felt a lot more comfortable. While she still had plenty more work to do as the General Counsel, at least she wasn’t putting out fires, dealing with a panicked boss or an IT crisis.

Tuesday started much in the same way as Monday. Anna drove to work and parked nearby, taking the same short walk to The Red Rocket.

She sat at the counter, and the same gentleman, with a clean, new apron, asked her what she’d like.

Quickly, she said, Toasted bagel with scrambled egg. Black coffee. To go. Please. And she put six dollars on the counter.

A few minutes later, her order arrived. As she took the white paper bag, she looked up at the gentleman and extended her right hand.

Hi, she said, my name is Anna. I work across the street, and I think I’ll be visiting you a lot.

The gentlemen smiled broadly and reached out his hand, Well it’s nice to meet you, Anna. My name is Clayton Green, Junior. My friends call me Junior.

Thanks, Junior. See you tomorrow. And with that Anna left the Rocket and began another day at work.

She picked up where she had left off on Monday, looking at all of the supplier agreements that Denison had for its 27 offices across the Midwest.

She was starting to think that maybe the new job was not that bad after all and that maybe the first week was an aberration. She could get used to the pace.

A few hours into her day, she heard a knock at the door. She looked up to see a new face.

Good morning. Sorry to interrupt. My name is George, and I’m the CFO here at Denison.

Good morning, George, Anna said as she got up from her desk and walked across her office, hand outstretched to shake his hand. Nice to meet you.

George had been at Denison for many years. He was, in his own words, a numbers man. Numbers don’t lie! he would tell anybody who would listen. He kept the books and managed the bank accounts, and you could never find him without his calculator close at hand. He was diligent and honest and a hard worker. But he was also a bit timid, some would even say overly cautious. David told Anna that he trusted George with the money and was glad to have a reliable person in the CFO seat, but he often worried if George was too cautious for Denison and whether he would be the right person for the job as the company grew.

After a few minutes of conversation with George, it was back to work. She was glad that David seemed to have confidence in George, but a few things bugged her. First of all, the files were disorganized and everything was saved in paper. All over the office, files and paper everywhere. When she asked around in wonder why the office didn’t have digital files, she was told that they kept some documents on the computers, but everything else was in paper—the old-fashion way—because that’s just the way they always did things. Anna made a note to herself that digitizing the files was the first place she was going to start modernizing her office.

On Wednesday, Anna’s day got off to another smooth start, and soon enough she was reaching for the Rocket’s door as she looked down at the red mosaic tiles. She walked in, sat at the counter, and said, Good morning, Junior. Can I have a toasted bagel with scrambled eggs, with a black coffee. To go. Please.

Junior smiled in acknowledgment, began to pour the coffee, and called over his shoulder to the cook, One Anna’s Special, to go.

The cook stopped dead in his tracks, looked up in confusion, and cocked his