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Marketing at the firm versus managing clients of the department

Along with liberation from tracking time, lawyers who move from firm to department revel in their freedom from having to sell work. Work comes to the inbox, often over-spilling it.

The irony is that an in-house lawyer, having only one cast of client characters, is locked into their clients’ foibles, peccadilloes, and aggravating behavior. There is no way of leaving, or of finding other clients, of changing personalities.

So, the gnawing anxiety of selling can be replaced by the ulcerating aggravation of coping with a set client base. Better the devil you know than the devil you must sell to.