Every General Counsel’s path looks a bit different, but this is the typical path for many GCs at some of the more prominent tech companies:
- At least a few years of private law practice in a law firm in a transactional practice—corporate, M&A, securities, and/or technology transactions. While many companies now hire out of law school, most in-house departments prefer to have attorneys who are trained in law firms for a number of reasons.
- Ideally a few years of in-house law practice where s/he works up the ladder in a practice area (for a larger legal team) or as part of a small generalist team. It is possible to land a GC role with less experience, but that is not likely to happen at larger tech companies.
On top of that sort of path, I would highly recommend that a young attorney learn as much about other legal practice areas outside of his/her initial legal specialty. A GC is expected to deal with all legal matters from employment, IP, insurance, securities, M&A, litigation, etc., and needs to be comfortable advising and performing triage on legal issues that a company faces.