Shouldering a varied workload comprising everything from deal negotiation to juggling relations with outside counsel and investment professionals, the private equity in-house lawyer needs a formidable array of skills to thrive in such a leanly-staffed, fast-moving environment.

Eighty delegates from some of the industry’s best-known buy-out and venture capital houses met at the Landmark Hotel in London to debate issues relating to the role of in-house counsel for the first Legal Week Private Equity Forum.