Dive Brief:

• 85% of in-house lawyers like what they do, compared to 70% of professionals in the broader organization, a Deloitte survey finds.
• Both a main challenge to and driver of satisfaction is learning opportunities. Senior, mid-level and early-career attorneys put training and development in their top-three concerns. And among senior attorneys, training and development is the number one reason for job satisfaction.
• For mid-level and early-career attorneys, friendly and supportive coworkers, access to technology and work flexibility are important satisfaction drivers, according to Deloitte’s 2023 Legal Talent Survey. 

Dive Insight:

Attorneys at all levels want to ensure learning opportunities remain available, although that becomes challenging as the number of years in the profession add up, says the survey, based on 305 in-house attorney respondents. 

“Good training and development opportunities are harder to find the more senior I become,” said one of the survey respondents quoted in the report. 

Almost a third of senior-level attorneys say they want to move into management within five years, and half of those who’ve been on the job the longest want to make that move, suggesting management training is one of the learning areas they want to see.

“Additional investment in management training is always money well spent,” one of the quoted attorneys said. 

Along those lines, an Axiom survey released earlier this year found that 94% of deputy general counsel say their current employer does not provide them with the opportunity to develop the skills they need to be elevated to the GC role.

Training to give in-house attorneys executive presence, become better speakers and communicators and be more adept at project and people management are desired, according to the Deloitte survey.

On the legal side, attorneys pointed to privacy, cybersecurity and intellectual property as the most in-demand practice areas. This suggests those would be valuable areas for increased training, at least among those who don’t yet have management on their radar.

Generally, roughly one-third of attorneys, no matter where they are in their career, see themselves going to another established private-sector company within five years. That’s especially the case for those with the highest-ranking title.

Making the move to a start-up is also relatively high on attorneys’ list. Virtually no one, no matter where they are in their career, wants to move into private practice.