After nearly three decades in private practice, Michael Sloan is taking the in-house plunge.

Sloan is joining C5 Capital, a venture capital firm focused on cyber, space and energy, as general counsel and chief compliance officer.

It's a big shift after 27 years working at Washington, D.C., law firms, the last 15 as a partner at Seattle, Washington-based Davis Wright Tremaine.

But it's a transition he's been pondering for a long time. He said he first got the bug to go in-house 22 years ago. As a result, he expects the transition to be smooth.

"It's an opportunity to work on many different kinds of things for a dedicated client. There's a lot of variety in the work that's here," Sloan said.

"Your value as a law firm partner, really, is to be the expert outside adviser and to be truly an expert on a limited number of issues—I developed great expertise on my issues."

Sloan succeeds Kate Urban who departed in June to take the legal reins at San Francisco, California-based CalypsoAI.

Sloan will be the sole lawyer and will oversee all legal and regulatory operations of the firm, which launched a decade ago in London but is moving its headquarters to his home base of Washington, D.C.