10 Tech GCs Share What They Wished They Knew in Their First In-House Role

When you’re joining a startup as a general counsel, you’re not just taking a new job, you’re suddenly immersed in an entirely new world. Even seasoned attorneys experience a learning curve as they dig into a high-growth business, advise leaders across functions, and shift to a culture that values innovation and velocity over risk management — a culture that’s markedly different than the law firms or established companies they came up in.

To help you get up to speed quickly, we polled general counsels at tech companies on the advice they’d give to new GCs, based on what they wished they had known in their early roles. Here’s what they had to say about building trust, navigating relationships, and immersing yourself in your new company, and fast.

Key Takeaways

• Learn to speak the language of other teams so that you’re a “lawyer who doesn’t seem like a lawyer.”

• Resist the temptation to have all the answers and instead lead by seeking to understand the perspectives and priorities of your colleagues.

• Strike the right balance on business value vs. risk mitigation and understand your company’s preferred language for communicating it.

• Gain respect for your “nos” by being judicious with them; cultivate trust by first looking for every alternative to get to “yes.”

• Aim to add value beyond giving legal advice, which can advance both the business and your skill set.

Fill in Any Business Gaps You Have

At a firm or as a junior in-house lawyer, you had deep insight into the legal issues of a business, but as a GC, you’ll need to become just as familiar with every other aspect of the company. Ron Vaisbort, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at procurement software company Ivalua, recommends getting up to speed by cultivating relationships with colleagues in every department. In addition to understanding the ins and outs of how they work, “learn their vocabulary and how to speak their language, whether it’s engineering, accounting, or HR-speak,” he says. “Be a lawyer that doesn’t ‘seem like’ a lawyer.”

Nichol Garzon-Mitchell, Chief Legal Officer, SVP Corporate Development, and Corporate Secretary of leading proxy advisory company Glass Lewis, also suggests filling any business skill gaps you have by taking courses in finance and accounting. (Top schools like Harvard Business School and Wharton offer certificate programs and one-off courses online.) “In-house lawyers have become part of management, involved in both business and law,” she says. “If they want to build meaningful and successful relationships with their business colleagues — which I strongly encourage them to do — they need to speak the same language.”

That said, it’s OK if you don’t know it all. “You were probably hired because somebody thought you could do it all,” says Heidi Garfield, General Counsel at Priceline. “You probably can't, and you're not an imposter.” Her advice: Embrace what you don't know, be confident about it, and then go hustle and find the right partners (internal or external) with the right expertise to complement your expertise.

Lead Not By Answering, But by Understanding

“When you get to that top GC spot in a company, your role is less about being a good lawyer (you already are!) and more about being a good leader,” says Jennifer Chaloemtiarana, General Counsel at Doximity, Inc. That leadership mindset, she says, is less about having all of the answers and more about listening with empathy and deeply understanding the perspective of the people you are working with. “Only by fully understanding the needs of the people around you can you lead them to success,” she adds.

Constantly being curious, listening, and seeking to understand is especially crucial at startups, where priorities, goals, and even business models can pivot in an instant. “Staying intellectually curious can open doors to so many opportunities to find creative solutions and to learn about yourself,” says Dr. Bruce Wu, formerly Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary of AI-driven cell analysis company Deepcell, Inc. “The moment we decide that we ‘know it all,’ we risk foreclosing ourselves to opportunities to notice issues that we might have missed and to learn from others.”

Make Decisions Based on Business Value, Not Risk

In-house lawyers are often hired to manage risk, but also to cut costs and put scalable processes in place, says Eugenia Bergantz, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of FP&A software company Planful. “Demonstrating how you think in terms of your business value will get you noticed,” she says. She also notes that it’s important to communicate in a way executives will understand. “Each company is different, and the goal is to try to speak the language of the company you are at.”

Relatedly, working at a high-growth tech company requires balancing a risk-mitigation mindset with the ability to envision creative solutions that propel the business forward. “Understand that your legal analysis is rarely black or white — we live in shades of gray,” says Adam Glick, VP of Legal Affairs and Corporate Secretary at rapidly growing SaaS company Front. “If you can enable your business to move forward with its growth initiatives while still adhering to relevant laws or taking on reasonable amounts of risk, your partners will praise your efforts, and you will be recognized as a trusted legal advisor.”

Be a “Yes” Person — So Your “Nos” Are Respected

Manuel Martinez-Herrera, General Counsel of BetterCloud, agrees that success as a legal advisor means cultivating trust with internal customers and assuring them that they are part of the same team.

“Exceptional lawyers understand, as well as engineers do, the product their businesses sell. Exceptional lawyers care,” he says. “And exceptional lawyers think hard and through every possible alternative before saying ‘no’ because they understand the power of ‘no.’ If you do that, your colleagues will understand and respect you when you say ‘no.’”

But Know When to Check Your Lawyer Hat at the Door

At a high-growth tech company, “You aren't here to be a lawyer, you're here to help build a business,” says Joaquin Gamboa, Chief Business and Legal Officer of Everly Health. So even though you were hired to own the legal domain, don’t be afraid to jump in and drive other areas of the business. “Use your intelligence, training, and experience to make sense of complexity, ask the hard questions to uncover reality, solve problems, and execute.”

Mandy Legal, who was General Counsel at cybersecurity startup Armorblox (recently acquired by Cisco, where she now serves as Chief of Staff to the AI and Common Services Security Business Group), adds that pitching in wherever you see a need, even if it's not technically in your job description, is a great way to grow the business and your own skill set. “Lawyers today are really excelling at adding value far beyond legal issues, and doing so not only enhances the legal advice you can provide but opens doors to learning new skills and adding additional value as a trusted business partner and advisor to the team,” she says. “Be open to experiences that come your way.”

Want more insights that will help you advance in your career as a GC? Apply for TechGC membership today.

About The L Suite

Called “the gold standard for legal peer groups” and “one of the best professional growth investments an in-house attorney can make,” The L Suite is an invitation-only community for in-house legal executives. Over 2,000 members have access to 300+ world-class events per year, a robust online platform where leaders ask and answer pressing questions and share exclusive resources, and industry- and location-based salary survey data.

For more information, visit lsuite.co.