Deep Dive

Running a Juice Bar» Becoming a Better In-House Lawyer?

In May of 2014, I left my job as a big law litigator in Manhattan to start a juice bar in my hometown, Boston. 

People joke that it sounds like a story from a Hallmark movie. Or mention they have fantasized about doing something similar—usually while eating cold pizza around a conference table with other associates during a too-late night at the office.

And in so many ways, starting Thirst was the dream.

I hung out with great people, making delicious, healthy food to serve to the best customers in the world. I worked hard and learned so, so much.

But also, after a few years I realized I missed practicing law. I often describe it as missing using my “lawyer brain.” I missed the way of thinking.

By January of 2018, I was back practicing law, this time in-house.

Over the subsequent years, I realized my time running a business had been invaluable to my role as an in-house lawyer. 

Having run a business wasn’t just tangentially relevant to being an effective in-house lawyer, it became my key differentiator.

But you don’t need to quit your law job to apply the lessons I learned from running a business to your legal career.  

Here are 10 truths that become apparent to me when I was running a business, that can also make a huge impact for in-house lawyers.

10 Lessons Learned In Business for Better In-House Lawyering

1. Your gut feeling about what’s working and what’s not is often wrong; collect and review data and adjust accordingly.

2. Deciding not to decide is a decision too. We often overestimate the risk of change and underestimate the risk of maintaining the status quo.

3. Hire a less experienced person who is fun to work with and willing to learn over an experienced jerk every time.  This is as true for hiring an Associate General Counsel as it was for hiring the people who blended acai bowls.

4. “Please,” “thank you,” and “I’m sorry” are more impactful than you imagine.  

5. Having service providers (in-house lawyers, this includes us!) who are expert in their area and also have a deep understanding of your business and its goals, is essential. For in-house lawyers, this means we need to learn the business.

6. Industry norms exist for a reason. This doesn’t mean you should blindly follow them, but it does mean that if you’re deviating from them, you should have a reason. Don’t want to incorporate your startup in Delaware, or include limitations of liability in your SaaS agreement? Fine, but know why.

7. Have the humility to listen to and accept advice, and the confidence to know what advice to ignore.

8. Genuinely care about your team and treat them with respect. It’s the right thing to do, which is reason enough. It also has the added benefit of creating a team that will consistently overdeliver and rise to even the most challenging of circumstances. This is as true for a team handling a legal fire drill as it was for one handling an actual fire alarm at the juice bar.

9. Business success is every role’s ultimate purpose. If you think about your job as just to mitigate risk, or just to close contracts, without keeping track of the big picture, you won’t have the impact you could. 

10. Excellence is essential. There are all sorts of tips, tricks, and “hacks” for business and legal success. But ultimately, none of them matters if you are not delivering high quality, business-minded, legal advice. It was the same for the juice bar—no amount of great service would have cut it if our smoothies didn’t taste great.

One more quick but important note: these are all things I learned while doing something that theoretically has nothing to do with being a lawyer. If you’ve had a non-linear career journey, take the time to think through what you’ve learned in past jobs that you can use now to drive impact as an in-house lawyer. I would be willing to be there is a lot.