In-House Counsel

Paul Elst, one of my readers, wrote me. He is an attorney in the Netherlands and has an interesting story that probably has counterparts in many countries of the world.

I work as legal counsel on a freelance basis. In Dutch:? interim jurist?. In the past 7 years I have worked for 12 different companies in the Netherlands. In August I finished an 8 month assignment at one company to replace a person on pregnancy leave. And now I am working for Getronics, a company not free to add head count but free to buy in legal services from me and two other interim-jurists. Contract, IP, and competition law are my main responsibilities. There are a growing number of experienced lawyers in the Netherlands, now some 400-500, that prefer to work as legal counsel on a freelance basis. Although most of them try to work directly for companies, in practice most of the work is placed via search firms that take 20-30% of the fee.