In-House Counsel

In-House Counsel: How To Overcome The Job Title Dilemma (And Stand Out)

If you’re going for a lateral or higher role, focus on strategically positioning your experience.

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Job titles are often a misnomer as they don’t always tell the full story or detail the breadth of experience, leadership, and value someone brings to a company. Sometimes, you don’t get a title elevation, but your work responsibilities and leadership functions increase. Other times, you may have a job title change as a formality, but your work responsibilities and leadership functions stay the same.

In the in-house counsel world, your title can mean different things depending on the size and structure of the legal department. At one company, you might be a senior counsel and at another company, you might hold the titles assistant general counsel, associate general counsel, or deputy general counsel. Perhaps you don’t hold the title of chief compliance officer, yet you hold the functional responsibility of leading the company’s compliance and ethics program.

I see this conundrum daily through the broad exposure I have in working with senior- and executive-level corporate counsels at publicly traded companies, privately held companies, private equity venture-backed capital firms, and start-ups. When these in-house counsels approach me for help with their legal resumes or LinkedIn profiles, they often worry that their job titles will hold them back in their search in comparison to the titles other peers hold.

I tell them with complete confidence that the job title dilemma really isn’t one. It’s about how effectively you tell your story.

Strategically Position Your In-House Experience 

Whether you’re looking to move up the ranks in your current legal department or embarking on a job search for a different opportunity in a legal department at another company, it’s imperative that your resume and LinkedIn profile properly and strategically frame your experience and leadership level.

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You might currently be the assistant general counsel in a lean legal department that has less than five members, and your next role may be labeled as a senior counsel, yet you’ve got accountability for leading a team of 30 and have wider responsibilities that span multiple geographic regions.

To effectively market yourself and your leadership value, you need to think about the hierarchy of the legal department and where you stand in it. If you’re second or third in command, state so with clarity. Explain who you lead (direct reports versus indirect reports), what your core responsibilities and functions are, what business units you have direct dealings with, what your interaction with the board of directors looks like, and what additional responsibilities you’ve acquired or undertaken through your tenure.

I recommend making a list of what your responsibilities were when you first joined the company and compare them to what your responsibilities are in the current time as well as in between. Think about the projects you’ve led, challenges you’ve worked through, and the additional work you’ve undertaken that emphasizes your impact in the legal department.

Showcase Your Job Title Increases 

One of the biggest mistakes I see on a legal resume or a LinkedIn profile of an in-house counsel is defaulting to the current title without showing the full story of how you got there. If you joined a company as a litigation counsel, earned a promotion to senior counsel, and ultimately became the associate general counsel and executive vice president over a 15-year span, your legal resume and LinkedIn profile should list those titles in a timeline format. Your resume and LinkedIn profile should not list you as the associate general counsel and executive vice president for the entire 15-year span. It’s inaccurate, and it detracts from the reality that you’ve continued to increase your breadth of experience, your ranking, and your exposure to different areas within the company and the legal department. Why wouldn’t you want to showcase that you’ve had job title increases over time at a company?

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The same thought process applies if you’re elevated to partner at a law firm. Your resume and LinkedIn profile should explain that you began as an associate attorney in the litigation department, you were subsequently elevated to partner, and you ultimately ended your tenure with leading the entire litigation department.

If your goal is to increase your footprint and enhance your impact to a legal department, you need to state your value with specificity. Don’t let a job title derail the value you bring and have brought in your in-house counsel work. You bring a lot more to the table than just a job title.

Have a pressing question on how to frame your in-house experience or categorize your job titles in the in-house or law firm environment? Connect with me on LinkedIn and I’ll be happy to answer.

Wendi Weiner is an attorney, career expert, and founder of The Writing Guru, an award-winning executive resume writing services company. Wendi creates powerful career and personal brands for attorneys, executives, and C-suite/Board leaders for their job search and digital footprint. She also writes for major publications about alternative careers for lawyers, personal branding, LinkedIn storytelling, career strategy, and the job search process. You can reach her by email at wendi@writingguru.net, connect with her on LinkedIn, and follow her on Twitter @thewritingguru.

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