Yusuf Mohamed, deputy general counsel, Tesla. (Photo: John Disney/ALM)

Yusuf Mohamed had been one of two in-house counsel for a Georgia chicken processor for about eight years when—"on a lark," he said—he submitted an application on LinkedIn for an employment law job he saw.

Mohamed is now in his sixth year at Tesla, the electric car pioneer, where he oversees close to 30 people as deputy general counsel overseeing employment, immigration, environmental health and safety issues, labor relations and internal workplace issues.

"It's surreal," Mohamed said in a January interview from the company's Fremont, California, factory, although he mostly works remotely from Alpharetta, where his family lives.

Mohamed's client has lofty aspirations, which go beyond producing electric vehicles to capturing and storing solar power from what he called "this cool thermonuclear reactor in the sky."

On the ground, however, Mohamed helps the company manage nuts and bolts legal issues that occur when the number of employees zooms from 10,000 to 40,000 in less than six years.

Mohamed's 13 lawyers and other staff fit within a legal department of about 100 people, which has seen three general counsels come and go within the past year. He declined to discuss the transitions.

Mohamed said he relies on his in-house team for the vast majority of advice and counsel for internal clients, but he uses outside counsel for litigation.

Unlike some companies, he has not contracted with specific firms for whole swaths of litigation. "I like to hire lawyers, not law firms," he said. "I like to hire talent, not law firm brands."

Mohamed emphasized wanting lawyers who know the local judges, which sometimes steers him to smaller shops.

Given Tesla's reputation for innovation, Mohamed was asked what sort of new approaches he takes to his role. He responded that he is building data on legal claims that the company can use to identify "points of inquiry" for potential problems.

Mohamed first thought of a legal career when he was in high school in Hall County, where the sister of a friend was applying to law school. The idea percolated through undergraduate days at Georgia Tech, and he went on to earn his law degree from the University of Georgia in 1997.

He moved to Washington, D.C., to seek legal work and in 1998 landed a trial attorney job at the Department of Labor, his application boosted by a summer internship he'd taken at the department in Atlanta.

In seven years and seven months, Mohamed handled a wide array of matters, including employment discrimination, traditional labor, investigative cases, the Mine Safety and Health Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the defense of the government in workers' compensation claims.

In 2005, Mohamed moved back to Georgia, where he worked as an in-house counsel at Wayne Farms, a chicken processing company with $2 billion in annual sales and 10,000 employees, across 10 production facilities. He advised executives on a variety of matters, including mergers and acquisitions, labor and employment law, contract interpretation, environmental, construction, risk assessment, crisis management, and compliance issues.

Mohamed is on the board of Muslim Advocates, which fights bigotry, and coincidentally, Mohamed is a car enthusiast and competitive driver of Mazda Miatas in club races.

"It keeps me sane," he said of the racing because of how much focus is required.

Racing cars from another company poses no conflict to his work for Tesla, which isn't involved in racing, said Mohamed. "That's never come up."