Questions to Ask in House Counsel Interview
Questions for lawyers interviewing for an in-house counsel role, covering who the legal function reports to, how much work goes to outside firms, what gets escalated, and how legal is treated when it says no.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Who does the legal function report to, and who sits in the room when strategy is set?
Why ask it
Legal reporting to the chief executive and legal reporting through finance are different jobs. If the general counsel is not in the room for strategy, legal is being consulted after decisions rather than during them.
How is the work split between this team and outside counsel?
Why ask it
This defines the role more than the job title does. A team that sends out all litigation and keeps commercial work is offering a very different day from one that runs disputes in house.
What is the current matter load, and what would land on my desk first?
Why ask it
Ask for the actual queue rather than practice areas. Whether you inherit a backlog, a live dispute, or a clean slate tells you what the first three months will be.
What went wrong recently that legal was pulled into late?
Why ask it
Every in-house team has one. How openly they describe it, and whether anything changed afterwards, tells you how legal is regarded when it is inconvenient.
How does a business team actually get legal involved?
Why ask it
Ask about the mechanism: a ticketing system, a shared inbox, or someone walking over. A team with no intake process is usually a team that gets ambushed near deadlines.
What happens when legal advises against something the business wants to do?
Why ask it
The most revealing question you can ask. Look for a described escalation path and a real example, not a claim that it never comes up.
Which regulators or regimes matter most to this company right now?
Why ask it
The answer shows whether compliance risk is understood specifically or in the abstract, and it tells you which body of law you will be living in rather than the one your résumé says you know.
What is the volume and type of contract work, and who negotiates it?
Why ask it
Contract flow is where in-house time disappears. Ask about templates, playbooks, and whether sales can self-serve, because that determines how much of the job is repetitive review.
What is the legal budget, who controls it, and how is outside spend approved?
Why ask it
If the general counsel does not control the legal budget, engaging a firm becomes a negotiation with someone else every time. That constraint shapes what you can promise the business.
How is legal risk recorded and reported upward?
Why ask it
Ask to hear about the register, the board reporting cycle, or the lack of either. Companies with no written risk reporting tend to rediscover the same exposures repeatedly.
How large is the team, and where does this role sit in it?
Why ask it
In-house titles are inconsistent, so ask about reporting lines, whether anyone reports to you, and what you can sign off alone. Otherwise you may be accepting a seniority you did not intend.
How does privilege get handled when legal also does commercial work?
Why ask it
In-house lawyers routinely blur legal advice and business advice, which threatens privilege. Whether the team has thought about this at all is a strong signal of its maturity.
What is the company's approach to intellectual property, and who owns it?
Why ask it
Ask whether IP is centrally managed or handled ad hoc by product teams. Fragmented ownership is common and usually means a cleanup project waiting for whoever joins.
What does an urgent matter look like here, and how often does it happen?
Why ask it
Ask about the last three. Frequency and cause matter more than the crisis plan, since a team firefighting weekly has an intake problem, not an emergency problem.
What tools does the team use for contracts, matters, and e-billing?
Why ask it
Named systems tell you the size of the administrative load. A team running everything on email and spreadsheets is asking a lawyer to do operations work as well.
What is the plan for the legal function over the next two years?
Why ask it
Ask whether it is headcount growth, insourcing work from firms, or holding steady under cost pressure. Each implies something different about your prospects and your workload.
Why is this role open?
Why ask it
A departure, a promotion, and a newly created seat all come with different context. If the previous holder left, ask what they found hardest about the job.
How is performance judged for a lawyer here?
Why ask it
In-house work has no billable hours to point at, so the criteria are often unspecified. A team that cannot say what good looks like will judge you on availability.
What has the general counsel changed since taking the role?
Why ask it
Concrete changes reveal what they thought was broken and whether they had the authority to fix it. Nothing to name after several years is itself an answer.
What is the hardest part of this job that would not be obvious to me?
Why ask it
Invites the specific frustration: an unreachable stakeholder, an old contract estate, a company that treats legal as a signature. This is usually the thing you will most want to have known.
Interviewing for an In-House Role
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
What to probe that private practice did not require
Position, not just work
In private practice the work is the job. In house, the same work is easy or impossible depending on where legal sits and whether it is consulted before decisions. Ask about reporting lines and who attends leadership meetings.
The intake problem
Most in-house complaints trace back to how work arrives: too late, unstructured, and from too many directions. A described intake process is a strong positive signal.
Budget authority
Your ability to bring in a firm when a matter exceeds the team's capacity depends on who controls legal spend. Ask about approval thresholds directly.
How to read the answers
- A team that can describe a recent matter legal was brought into late, and what changed after, is a team that learns.
- If nobody can say what good performance looks like for a lawyer here, expect to be measured on responsiveness alone.
- Ask the same question about escalation to two different interviewers. Differing answers mean there is no process.
- Named systems for contracts and matters usually mean less administrative work falls on the lawyers.
- If the general counsel does not control the legal budget, treat every promise about resourcing as conditional.
Common mistakes
Interviewing as though it were a firm
Questions about practice groups, hours targets, and partnership tracks do not map onto in-house work and signal that you have not thought about the difference.
Only meeting lawyers
Ask to speak to a business stakeholder who works with legal regularly. Their description of the team is usually more accurate than the team's own.
Skipping the scope question
In-house titles vary wildly between companies. Without asking what you can approve alone and who reports to you, seniority is guesswork.
Treating the no question as adversarial
Asking what happens when legal advises against something is a normal, expected question. An interviewer who bristles at it has answered it.
Before accepting
Steps
- 1Get the reporting line and approval authority in writing, not just described in interview.
- 2Confirm what work stays with outside counsel and who decides when that changes.
- 3Ask what the first ninety days should produce, and check whether that is achievable given the queue you were told about.
- 4Speak to one business-side stakeholder if you have not already.
- 5Note anything two interviewers described differently and raise it before you sign.