Not all lawyers who go in-house stay there forever.

Whether they took a legal department job after years at a law firm in hopes of finding better work-life balance or in pursuit of a different practice mix, several lawyers who found their way back to law firms say the grass wasn't necessarily greener on the corporate side.

Working on the client side of matters made them better law firm lawyers in the end, they say, but it may not be the best path for everyone.

An Insider's View

Former corporate counsel who went back to law firms say they missed the variety and complexity of law firm work. And they feel that by keeping their in-house experience in mind, they can bring a competitive advantage to a law firm.

Ingrid Welch of Cozen O'Connor said she took a job at investment boutique CMS Cos. for a number of reasons, including the promise of a more family-friendly workplace. She came back to Big Law for the type of work. Welch says she spent more of her time at CMS on administrative tasks than she did at her previous law firm job, at Drinker Biddle & Reath. Now, she says, she gets to do more hands-on deal work, instead of managing other lawyers' work.

“As wonderful as my experience was, it has been exciting for me to go back to a law firm,” Welch says. “When you're in-house, no matter how well the client thinks of you, and no matter how senior you're seen in the executive staff, the legal function is still overhead.”

In Daniel Sanders' case, he faced a fork in the road after two decades in-house. After working his way up to general counsel in Michelin's legal department, he chose to return to law firm work, joining Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough in March.

“I was always very interested in learning how companies work and understanding a little more broadly the big picture,” Sanders says, regarding his decision in the 1990s to seek a corporate counsel role. He had planned to work at Michelin for just a few years, he says, but stayed and worked in a number of areas within the legal and compliance departments. That experience will make him a better lawyer for firm clients, he says.

“Being in-house for 21 years, I know well what a company wants from lawyers,” Sanders says. “It's not a better or worse perspective, it's just a different perspective, I think, from a lot of outside lawyers.”

Rachael Bushey, a partner at Pepper Hamilton, shares a similar sentiment, thinking back on her time at West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. As an in-house lawyer, she says, she was often frustrated when dealing with law firms.

“There is a whole side of it that as an outside lawyer, we don't see,” Bushey says. So in rejoining Pepper Hamilton, she decided, “I could be really valuable to clients because I know what it's like.”

'This Will Be Easier'

In-house jobs are often seen as a haven for lawyers who want to escape the billable hour and seek the ever-elusive work-life balance. But legal department expats say their experiences didn't exactly fit that reputation.

Sure, they say, working for a non-law-firm business is better for those who want a steady work schedule. But that doesn't mean it's always less demanding or less stressful than a law firm job.

“In fact, my experience was time moved faster inside,” Sanders says, though he notes that lifestyle wasn't a factor in his move in-house.

“We were always a little suspicious of people wanting to [come in-house in order to] make lifestyle changes,” Sanders says. “At Michelin, people were interested in coming in-house to work … with an international company.”

Welch says she was single when she joined CMS's legal department, but she was considering what her future might look like.

“In the back of my mind, I thought, 'If I get married and have children, this will be easier,'” Welch says.

And being in-house had its perks, she says, like knowing when she would be home at night. But during business hours, she didn't have much flexibility.

In-house lawyers “really have to be at your desk from 9 to 5,” she says. At a law firm, lawyers have “a little more flexibility during the day … but you have to get back online later at night.”

Sara Antol, who now co-chairs the business services group at Babst, Calland, Clements and Zomnir, says she had similar motivations when she took a job as general counsel for Tollgrade Communications Inc.

“It was more-regular hours … and to the extent that the workload got to be too much, I could bring in outside counsel to help me,” Antol says. But “you also couldn't leave in the middle of the day to go to your child's preschool party.”

Antol says working in-house also had its own pressures. Sure, there were no billable hour requirements, she says, but she had the last word on the company's legal decisions, rather than passing advice on to a client. And those decisions could have a major impact on her employer's success—a different breed of stress.

“It was good, but not the answer to all of the problems of work-life balance,” Antol says. “It was eye-opening to me that it didn't offer me unlimited flexibility.”

Meanwhile, as technology increases the ability to work remotely in all fields, law firm jobs are becoming more compatible with family life.

“When I was in the law firm the first time, it was before there was technology available to work at home. … You really were stuck at the office,” Antol says. “It used to be that if you weren't willing to put forth that kind of effort in a law firm and work until 2 a.m., you weren't committed.”

That's changed over the years, she says, and others agree.

Welch says it's still not easy to attain balance in a legal career, but it's improving.

“Certainly from 1984, when I graduated law school, to today, things are much more flexible and law firms are trying,” she says.

The Right Opportunity

While they valued their time in-house, those who boomeranged to law firms say their career trajectory is not a one-size-fits-all solution—not every corporate counsel position provides a clear path back to a law firm.

After working at Tollgrade, Antol says she grappled with whether she wanted to return to law firm work on a more permanent basis. She was of counsel at Babst Calland before becoming a partner there, which gave her exposure to clients. But many lawyers coming from in-house don't have a book of business, she notes.

“It may be harder for someone who was in-house most of their career … to transition to Big Law later in their career,” Welch says. When she made the move to Cozen O'Connor, she notes, she already knew CMS would be a client of hers.

“There's certainly a benefit if somebody wants to be the world's best intellectual property lawyer or the world's best antitrust lawyer to spend a career doing only that” at a law firm, Sanders says. But by spending the time as a client, he says, lawyers can develop the breadth of knowledge and big-picture perspective that clients want from their outside lawyers.

Likewise, Bushey says her time away from the law firm “paid in spades.” But she too cautioned against taking a highly specific legal department role that would limit exposure to other aspects of the legal department and business as a whole.

“I think more lawyers should do it. They become more valuable,” she says. “[But] they need to make sure they're going into the right company at the right level.”