Wayne Chang, senior director and deputy GC at Zocdoc speaks at the Columbia Legal Tech Fair 2019, hosted by Columbia Law School's Legal Tech Association on March 8. Credit: Arsh Photography.

Many in the legal industry know that the roles attorneys have to play at law firms and legal departments can be worlds apart. For Wayne Chang, senior director and deputy GC at Zocdoc, the difference between the two is one of pace and order.

“Being in-house is in large part managing chaos… which is you get thrown anything and everything and you are expected to have an answer. Whereas in the law firm that is not necessarily the case—there is a safety net, you're working with lawyers,” he explained

But to be sure, Chang's experience isn't exactly the norm. Sure, he worked on corporate legal matters, but he did so at a startup, which he noted has its own particular brand of “chaos.”

At the Columbia Legal Tech Fair 2019, hosted by Columbia Law School's Legal Tech Association on March 8, in-house legal professionals discussed the nuances of the startup GC's life. Suffice it to say, a lot revolved around the need to be flexible and work independently in the face of an unpredictable and fast-paced role.

While startups can be some of the most technologically advanced companies in the economy, their legal departments may be anything but. For Sarah Feingold, general counsel at Vroom.com, co-founder at The Fourth Floor and a former senior counsel at Etsy, working at startups means learning to work without depending on knowledge resources.

“When you're at a firm, you can bounce things off other lawyers and figure things out,” she explained. “When you're at a startup, you have nothing. You don't even have LexisNexis or WestLaw—you have Google, guys.”

But even though GCs at startups may have little in the way of research tools, they are required to give quick answers to complex legal questions. In fact, their ability to do can be a matter of business survival. “Especially with early stage startups, if you move slow, the company isn't going to be around for much longer,” Feingold said.

Since GCs at startups are usually the sole in-house lawyer at the office, the issues they handle can span the spectrum of legal and business matters, and can also change at an incredible pace. Zocdoc's Chang noted that though he was initially handling high-velocity contracting work at his company, his role “very quickly pivoted, not by my own volition, but because there was a need to do it… I quickly took on a product advisory role.”

He added, “You have to keep learning because your job just keeps changing. My job changed one week into starting.”

In addition to changing responsibilities, GCs at startups must also be able to adapt to a fast changing C-suite and workforce as well. “You can have a boss one day and another the next day… you have to be willing to go with the flow,” Feingold noted.

Of course, the challenges GCs face at startups can be pronounced if they are the only counsel at the company. But once they start building out their teams, things can get a little more manageable. “I was at Etsy all by myself for five years, which was a mistake,” Feingold said. “I hired someone, and what happens is your role becomes a narrower and a little deeper,” and you can specialize on practice areas you enjoy.

But ultimately, working in-house at a start-up can be far more exciting than working at a law firm. As Chang said, “'Fun' and 'work' weren't in my vernacular until I went in-house.”