Law Department Management Blog
There’s only one general counsel, and that person may be in the traces for years, so if he or she hires upwardly mobile, talented legal stars, their having a short track and no space to run will cause frustration (See my post of Oct. 10, 2005 on competitiveness among direct reports.).
Ambitious lawyers don’t wear blinkers; they will look elsewhere, eventually, to run for the roses. (See my posts of May 20, 2005 about losing a strong performer, Sept. 10, 2005 about the need for some B-players, and Oct. 18, 2005 about not every lawyer wanting to do rocket science all the time.)
Some amount of legal work is better done inside and lacks charisma: it is meat-and-potatoes guidance that plow-horse lawyers and paralegals ought to do, not stallions. The daily legal fodder of most in-house counsel consists of relatively routine legal questions and documents, not Sea Biscuit dramatics.
A law department needs a team that includes some thoroughbreds, but also some stalwart Morgans.