Life as an in-house construction lawyer

I am an in-house attorney for the Electrical Contractors Association (ECA).

I do the normal internal functions; I work for the organization and provide legal and commercial advice on a range of issues. More specifically, I work in construction law, so it could involve things like negotiating and drafting contracts at the start of a construction project, or advising on disputes and risk management during a project.

In a private practice firm, lawyers provide legal advice to different clients. In a way, I have a quasi-private practice role because the trade association is my internal client, but I also deal with association members who are our external clients.

On a normal day, I’ll start at 9am and check emails and journal.

Once a week, I will meet with the general counsel and our support team.

We have a legal helpline that ECA members can call with legal questions or disputes, so we’ll get through this as a team. Reviewing helpline queries can take up most of my day.

ECA has approximately 2,500 customers. Some are prominent contractors in the construction supply chain and others may be a person in a van who has just set up their first business, so I have a real spectrum of clients.

For example, a client may have received their first construction contract and want me to explain the legal jargon and their rights and obligations, and that brings its own challenges and rewards compared to advising a multinational contractor who is in the construction industry. decades. .

We work at the beginning of any construction project.

So before any building happens, we take care of the paperwork and track any potential risks.

Most of our work does not involve disputes between parties, so it is non-contentious, but this can change during the course of the project.

Sometimes disputes arise over payment, usually when someone hasn’t been paid and we need to find out why and how they can be paid.

For our smaller customers, it makes a big difference. If they are not paid for a few months they could become insolvent, so we advise them of their options.

One of the biggest reasons I moved in-house was work-life balance.

Before I moved to ECA, I was at a large private practice firm and often worked until 10 or 11 p.m. I was burning the candle at both ends and had to prioritize my mental health.

Of course, there will be times when I have to work late, but most days I can close my laptop at 5pm if I want to.

In practice, this is not always the case, but there are well-established limits. There is no expectation to pick up emails outside of business hours.

The biggest advantage has been the impact on my personal life: I can actually socialize, meet friends and family.

I kind of fell into construction law: I think that’s the reality for a lot of junior lawyers.

After completing the Legal Practice Course (LPC) I got a couple of paralegal positions, one of which was in construction.

I had no construction knowledge and had major impostor syndrome, but the two senior associates who interviewed me assured me that it would work if I was willing to learn.

Construction soon became my bread and butter. I like the fact that the results are tangible – normally there is a physical manifestation of what you’ve worked on.

I worked as a paralegal for about six years and qualified by equivalent means. But while I was qualifying, Covid hit – I was put on leave and eventually had to take voluntary redundancy.

I then got a job in commercial law in an international private practice firm after qualifying. I would have loved to qualify in construction as that’s what I was building my career for, but Covid hit the newly qualified (NQ) job market pretty hard and roles were very scarce.

So when an opportunity arose in ECA’s legal team, I jumped at it. It is so important for aspiring solicitors to realize that you can always pivot and qualify in one practice area and then move to another, especially in the first few years of qualifying.

You never really know what a job is until you do it day in and day out. If you’re newly qualified and you start something and it’s not for you, you can just walk away.

Moving into the house was a massive culture shock.

I went from a large private practice firm to a legal team of me and my boss. The main challenge is that you don’t have colleagues to rely on.

In a big firm, you have your cohort, but when you go in-house, the training wheels are off: I was running my own projects right away.

The biggest difference is in the culture, specifically that you’re not judged by billable hours (recorded hours worked on a project or job, for which the firm can bill the client).

My progress is judged in a more holistic way; I have evaluations every quarter on how I have developed as a lawyer and how I have helped the business.

I studied law at university, but even up until that point, I had no idea if I wanted to be a lawyer.

I wondered if I had the skills. I grew up very shy and introverted, had a very bad stutter, and when I thought about law, I thought about public speaking and my self-made belief in my inability to be a confident speaker.

Even when I went to do the LPC, I wasn’t sure. I had no connections in the industry and didn’t know how to go about getting a training contract.

When I started, I probably wasn’t very good at it either: I got rejection after rejection.

I had to get over this preconceived idea that I wouldn’t be a good lawyer and get to a place where I could tell myself that I was good enough.

Working in-house, there is always an overarching question about how you will progress.

It’s not like private practice where there’s a traditional cadre, usually intern to associate to partner. As in-house counsel, you’re legal counsel, then maybe at some point you’ll be general counsel. So one of the challenges is figuring out how you can develop and grow.

The easy end goal to state is that you want to be general counsel, but if you’re in a business where the current general counsel isn’t leaving anytime soon, you need to think about your goals and consider what’s possible in the short term. towards the medium term.

We had internal discussions about ways to become a director within the trade association and develop broader skill sets beyond the pure legal function, such as business management.

I have learned a lot by osmosis and will ask questions to find out what else I can do to improve.

It’s not a linear process: it’s about learning how to pivot and be adaptable.

Perseverance is the key.

In the legal industry, we hear a lot of success stories, but that’s not the reality for everyone.

There will be some super talented people who have a smooth journey from university to the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) or a training contract, but there are other people who take longer.

I qualified at 30! I had to realize that it’s not a race: it’s about doing what’s best for you. Taking the scenic route helped me develop tools I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

In isolation, I was unemployed and had no idea if I would qualify. That’s why I say keep grinding, keep digging and you’ll get there.

The industry is becoming much more open. We are trying to break down barriers and we are seeing change, so persevere.