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‘The GC waiting room’: Why in-house lawyers are feeling stuck
Determined in-house lawyers are increasingly finding themselves stuck in what one executive general manager has dubbed “the GC waiting room”. But what impact does this have?
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Speaking in an upcoming episode of The Corporate Counsel Show, Adrian Moffatt, the executive general manager and board member at Ausco Modular, sheds light on the growing challenges senior in-house lawyers are facing, after increasingly finding their career progression stalled by the limited pathways to the GC role.
Drawing on years of experience leading a legal team, Moffatt explained that this issue largely stems from the inherently hierarchical “pyramid structure” of most in-house legal departments.
“There’s typically only one role at the top, that’s the GC, the chief legal officer role, and therefore, you build up a team underneath you of excellent and ambitious lawyers,” he said.
Ultimately, these ambitious senior legal professionals find themselves left waiting for the GC to eventually move on, hoping to step into the role themselves – a scenario Moffatt coined as “the GC waiting room”.
In his own experience, Moffatt has witnessed how this dynamic can lead to difficulty in keeping these lawyers “motivated [and] engaged” in their work when they desire for more responsibility and “ultimately take your role”.
Based on his own experience, Moffatt has observed how this dynamic can make it challenging to keep senior lawyers “motivated [and] engaged”, particularly when they are seeking greater responsibility and aiming to “take your role” themselves.
Moffatt recalled a scenario he’s seen play out too often.
“There’s a Sarah who’s a senior legal counsel in a multinational company. She’s joined the business, she’s ambitious, she’s talented, and she envisions that there’s a path for her in the next few years, up to that GC’s role,” he said.
“Five years later, she’s still sitting in that GC waiting room, waiting for her career to progress. The GC is well-respected and enjoys the role and hasn’t moved. So, the challenge for her is, does she continue waiting or does she seek opportunities elsewhere?”
Although the pyramid structure is efficient for running the legal function, Moffatt noted that it creates a leadership dilemma for the GC, who must navigate the tension between not losing “your top talent and keeping them engaged”.
Moffatt explained that this has long been the reality for in-house legal teams, where aspiring leaders must wait their turn for a chance at the GC role, a situation he described as “really a structural issue”.
Following this, Moffatt offered advice to fellow GCs, encouraging them to “normalise career aspiration discussions with our teams”. He noted that when leaders are actively engaged in supporting and investing in their team’s development, “they’ll give back through performance and engagement”.