- Once you're sure that you want to pursue
a general counsel role,
you're going to want to make sure
that you're cultivating the right kind of experience
and marketing yourself for the GC position,
both internally and externally.
And stay tuned until the end
because I'm going to share with you
my favorite resource for lawyers
to help them to make the case that they are GC material.
Welcome back, and if you're new to this channel,
I'm Annie Little, I'm an ICF-certified career coach
and former lawyer.
I created this channel for lawyers
who are looking for practical guidance
on how to land, lead, and succeed
in the legal profession and beyond.
Let's start by talking about
how you can cultivate GC experience.
Now, in a prior video,
I talked about the necessary skillset
that you would need to succeed as a general counsel.
Now, how do you get that kind of skillset?
How do you get that experience?
Here's how.
As an in-house counsel,
you are going to seek out
complicated sort of issues
that involve cross-functional teams that are kind of messy,
and you're going to volunteer
to be the legal point person on that team
or better yet, to head up that team.
And this is going to be a kind of project
that's going to get the attention of senior management.
So an example of this kind of messy,
cross-functional problem that all companies kind of have
might be like
modifying or streamlining the records retention policy.
Now, this is a team
that would involve virtually every department
within the organization,
so you've got the cross-functional aspect
taken care of there,
but in this type,
we want to make sure that you're going to be
getting in front of senior management
and that they're going to be taking note
of what you're doing that's a big part of it.
And with a records retention policy,
you're going to need to get the buy-in of two departments:
one, IT and...
senior management because they're the ones
who are going to have to authorize all of this.
And so this is the kind of project
that's not only going to give you that exposure
to senior management
while you're still a junior in-house counsel,
but it's also going to give you a lot of opportunities
to get hands-on experience
dealing with lots of departments,
representatives from different departments,
talking to people, learning how to collaborate, teamwork,
manage as well.
There's going to be deadlines.
You're probably going to have
to put together reports or presentations
to keep senior management apprised
of how things are going.
And so if you're in an organization
where you think you might be able to get promoted up
into the GC role,
these types of projects are absolutely necessary.
And if it's more of an opportunity for you to move outside
to get a GC role,
this is how you're going to cultivate that experience.
So cultivating the right experience is absolutely necessary
if you want to hold the GC title at some point.
But it's not enough.
You need to make your aspirations
to become general counsel known,
and there are two ways to go about doing this.
There's the internal route and the external route.
So internally,
people aren't going to just be like anointing you
the next GC.
You're going to have to let people know.
So your supervisor's a good person
to make aware of your aspirations.
And this is important for a lot of reasons.
One, it's like, "Hey, I want to be the one to go up to GC,"
but it's also letting them know that you are interested
in getting the type of experience that's necessary
to become a GC.
Now, your supervisor can help you with this next one
because what you're going to want to do
is be realistic about your chances of rising to the GC role
inside your current organization.
There's only one position
and depending on when it was last filled
and how long the person who's currently in the role
is going to stay in that role,
there might not be an opportunity for you realistically
to get into the general counsel position internally.
But regardless of whether you're going to stay internal
or go to another organization,
you are going to need references.
So you are going to be taking on these projects,
like the records retention example I provided earlier
so that people will get to see you in action
and they can be references for you
should you go somewhere else.
And internally, if you have an opportunity
to get that GC role,
you're going to want to be showing everyone,
especially senior management, what you're capable of.
It's also important for you to start to develop
or further develop and project executive presence.
This is basically you exuding confidence,
but not arrogance
and you want to be seen as a trusted advisor.
So you can have personality.
You can be friendly. You can be funny.
But just keep in mind
what kind of aura, if you will, do you want to project
so that people feel like they can trust you
to help them with their problems?
All right, then there's the external route.
Now, even if you think you might have a chance
of being promoted internally to general counsel,
it's still a good idea
to make your intentions known externally.
So a very low-stakes way of doing this
is when you get called by a recruiter for opportunities,
take their calls.
Even if you're happy,
even if you have no desire to leave at this point,
talk to them.
See what positions they're filling.
Let them know that you're interested in GC roles.
Start to develop relationships
and you never know when you might need
to use a recruiter
or to have somebody in your court,
or you never know where they might end up,
and they know a lot of people that could be helpful to you
as you're trying to move up in your career.
So that's the lowest-stake way.
But if people aren't calling you,
then it's important for you to seek out
these executive search firms,
in-house, GC-specific recruiters,
and you can find people like this on LinkedIn.
They put that kind of information in their headline
and you just want to reach out
and let them know that you are in the market for that.
And you can start
to develop a relationship with them that way.
So you've got somebody who at least knows,
"Okay, this person's interested,"
and you're on their radar.
Speaking of LinkedIn,
you are going to want to update your LinkedIn profile
so that it's attractive to recruiters
who may be running searches
for employers who are looking to fill
the general counsel role.
So you want your profile to read
like somebody who is a general counsel,
somebody who wants a general counsel role.
And if you don't have people pursuing you,
you don't have recruiters reaching out to you,
you can always look yourself on websites,
especially goinhouse.com
and acc.com.
Now, as you've probably gathered,
this is not going to be an overnight process,
which is why it's important that you start now.
Start cultivating that experience that GCs need
or continue to develop if you already have that experience.
Build upon that experience,
take on even more challenging projects,
lead up more of those projects,
make sure people who are in the C-suite know who you are
and know what you're capable of.
That is going to help you
whether you're going to move up internally or externally.
And if you feel like you're still at the very early stages
of generating the kind of experience you need,
I think you might be surprised
by just how much relevant experience you may already have.
And to help you out to identify that,
I want you to check out my free masterclass:
Three Simple Strategies
for Helping Any Lawyer Uncover Their Transferable Skills.
It's linked in the description below.
And like so many of the lawyers
who have watched this masterclass before you,
you are going to be pleasantly surprised
when you realize just how much of your existing experience
is transferable to a GC role.