Becoming a General Counsel is a long-term commitment and a challenge fraught with obstacles. Working in-house or becoming legal counsel for a company – whichever you choose, requires advanced planning and experienced and enhanced transactional skills.
If you are interested and want to promote growth in your legal career by becoming a General Counsel, browse amazing job openings in the industry and stay up to date on developments. Enhance your legal knowledge and authority, upgrade your business skills, and choose your career wisely. Limit your research and decide on fewer options.
The work scene
In today’s competitive business market, if you want to be a general counsel, you must have excellent business skills and legal knowledge. He must have a clear understanding of the company he will be working with and the industry he is serving. In addition to these, you must have many strong personal traits and the necessary qualifications to maintain a strong will to fill this position.
General counsel must be armed with so many qualities, as companies expect so much more from them. The legal counsel job has improved tremendously in the last ten years, attorneys general are paid very well and competition is at its peak.
Now, the general counsel position has become a commercial-type partnership job, no longer simply a legal advisor job. Today, a legal advisor is responsible for many more aspects of the company with which he is associated, such as crisis management, financial management and legal understanding and taking care of the company’s position in the market.
Most of the business companies want their legal advisor to be their adviser in legal matters and solve their practical legal problems for business growth. It is a mutually beneficial exchange offer.
Requirements
To become a general counsel, you must have 5-8 years of experience in a private law firm. After this, you can either take an internship or work your way up through the legal industry to become a general counsel. It’s a very hard work. Transactional experience is a must, plus you can and should gain some litigation and employment law experience.
You must have a great business-oriented mindset. Even if you don’t have to have a formal business education, it’s always nice if you do.
If you don’t have a business degree, get one. Educate yourself on basic business skills and procedures. Develop good business sense and the tricks of the trade. Communication, leadership, organization and management skills are needs not mentioned.
You cannot think of jobs with such profiles without these qualities. You must have a broad understanding and clear idea on a wide variety of legal matters such as finance, property, employment and corporate governance and business matters such as compliance, contracts and employment and intellectual property.
Must be able to manage disposals, mergers and acquisitions correctly. You have to know how to get by with what’s available. This is the most important task of a general counsel.