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1. How difficult is it to join the in-house practice right after college or after 1-2 years experience at a corporate firm?
2. In terms of years of experience, how many years do such companies prefer?
3. Is there a lot of dry corporate law work done by such in-house teams or do they only focus on policy/litigation matters and outsource corp work to firms?
4. What is the starting salary?
5. Are working hours and conditions similar to corporate firms?
6. Do these companies prefer experience in teams such as TMT or it's largely irrelevant as long as you are updated?
- If you happen to search for an opening when there is one, it will increase the probability of some movement. However, any profiles received by the MNC when there are no vacancies generally go into cold storage. Usually companies look for relevant experience for mid and senior positions, though there can be some companies who insist on the same even for junior roles. Since the positions can range from Commercial, IP, Compliance, etc., broad exposure to TMT at a law firm for a 1-3 year person can be helpful to get into Corp.
- When it comes to work, there is no one answer. Legal dept in India generally mirror the global legal dept verticals. So if the Corp HQ has three verticals (say lit, commercial, IP) then broadly it will be mirrored in the Indian legal dept too. It is also quite common to have one person handle more than one vertical, as there may not be enough work for one FTE in some verticals.
- Regarding work: a lot of time in Corp goes into house keeping stuff (say internal meetings, presentations, events, etc.) and actual time spent on LAW may vary from company to company: 40% to 80% of time. Quality of work again depends on the Leadership, but generally speaking it is easier to bluff your way through in corporate (even though person cannot distinguish between sambar from shampoo). Overall the quality of persons would generally be lower than say a Law firm. Outsourcing is again a factor of company process: some companies do everything internally, and some outsource everything except the GC! Read the JD carefully, though it is usually a cut past job, it still has the germs of what the company expects from the role.
- As regards salary, it is usually what you are currently getting + say 10% (depends on the company)... beyond that there is absolutely no logic, and different persons at the same grade/level can get salaries with 100% variation (i.e., A may get 100 and B may get 200). However such extreme variation is rare, but 50% difference can be common. A lot depends on how you negotiate.
- Finally, working hours can be as bad as law firm or lit. It all depends on the vertical you are part of: Commercial lawyers have brutal timings at say quarter end, year end, month end, etc. (depending on the sales cycles). But generally some semblance of work life balance is possible (again depends on the GC) at most MNC.
These companies are all big enough to have decent corporate work- acquisitions, fundraising, corporate restructuring, competition, as well as bread and butter commercial contracts. But your main job is to be a problem solver. "Indian law doesn't cover my situation, I have a global roll out in the evening, is there anything I should know before we make the announcement?"
Don't be so worried about TMT experience. What's more important is demonstrating that you can manage people, manage situations, assess risks, and take decisions. This is as true whether you have 3 years experience or 25.