If you are going to be a successful in-house lawyer you have to see yourself as something different. Different from what, or from whom, you may well ask? The simple answer is that you have to see yourselves as business legal partners; not aloof or separate from the business that you work for but as an integral part of it – and that means having a different set of skills from lawyers in private practice.
Currently we are all seen as one homogenous group. We all give commercial advice and most private practice lawyers would argue that they are good business lawyers. While I may take issue with some individuals over that assertion, as a general statement, I could not argue with it.
