For many senior lawyers, becoming a General Counsel (GC) feels like the natural next step. You’ve mastered complex transactions or disputes. You’ve built strong stakeholder relationships, and you understand risk.
But the transition from senior lawyer to GC is not a linear promotion. It’s a fundamental shift in identity. It’s amazing how many GC’s comment a year into their tenure that their job now is fundamentally different to their role as senior legal counsel; the legal skills they developed now play second fiddle to strategy, management, risk and commercial instincts.
A GC is not just the most senior lawyer in the room. They are a business leader who happens to be legally trained.
A GC is part of the executive team. You are expected to contribute to growth discussions, not just compliance commentary. Below are the key skills you need to master to be in the running for a General Counsel role.
Gain exposure to reporting to the board
Often the incumbent GC reports into the board and executive so it can be hard to demonstrate your capabilities if you are not already in that position. There are, however, way to gain exposure to allow for a transition:
- Seek out company secretary duties. While much of the role is administrative in nature you will gain exposure to the board. You will gain exposure to high level strategy, build relationships with executives and gain insights into how your current GC and other members of the executive communicate in that setting;
- Get involved with internal committees where there are senior executives involved to lift your profile;
- Take on special projects that require urgent attention. For example, during COVID there was often a senior lawyer putting their hand up to manage the COVID response and this involved sitting in with leadership teams, executives and board members.
Build Strong Internal Relationships Before You Need Them
A successful GC has credibility with the CEO, CFO, The Board, Risk & Compliance, Operations and HR. This is critical if you are seeking an internal promotion, but also just as critical for an external GC role as one of those key ‘non-legal’ decision makers could make a great reference to highlight your commerciality, gravitas, reputation and suitability for a GC role.
Furthermore, understanding how a business functions, how all the departments interact and what is important to each of your stakeholders is fundamental to managing difficult conversations, influencing executives and providing commercial solutions.
Visibility builds trust. Trust builds succession opportunity.
Gain formal leadership exposure
A GC is almost always a people leader. It can be difficult to gain formal leadership experience when you are a Senior Legal Counsel or Senior Associate. While you may informally mentor more junior staff, they are not technically your direct reports.
Some simple tricks to gain leadership exposure
- Take on role as project lead;
- Put your hand up for ESG function;
- Formerly request to manage more junior staff;
- Take on Head of Legal, Deputy General Counsel or Managing Counsel roles internally where there is an opportunity to lead a small team;
- When you are informally mentoring and training junior staff, act like you are the General Counsel. Develop a strategy, develop a leadership formula and apply it to the team. This will allow you to talk in depth at interview stage about your leadership style and put the executive’s mind at ease that you can effectively lead a team.
Build Crisis Management Capability
Companies are often tested during times of crisis including:
- Regulatory investigations;
- Data breaches;
- Litigation;
- Media scrutiny;
- Executive misconduct;
- Corporate restructures; and
- Rolling out new risk and compliance structures.
Opportunities exist at the Senior Legal Counsel to gain responsibility to work on career defining projects that set you up for future promotions. GC’s are busy on all fronts so appreciate their team stepping up in times of crisis. Where possible gain exposure to incident response planning, regulatory investigations, internal investigations, acquisitions and divestment, rolling out of new technology, leading new policy, risk and compliance measures.
Final Thought
Becoming a General Counsel is not the end of a legal career ladder. It is a pivot into executive leadership.
The lawyers who succeed in the transition are those who understand:
- Law is their toolkit.
- Judgment is their currency.
- Leadership is their differentiator.
If you want the GC seat, start building the business, financial, and leadership capabilities now — not once the title arrives.
