In-House Lawyers Dread Career Stagnation. Here's How to Avoid It.

Deep Dive

Career stagnation is a real risk for in-house lawyers. Here’s how to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.

Career stagnation is a common, though often unspoken, fear of many ambitious in-house lawyers.

You’re sharp, experienced, and adding value.

But you wonder: are you still growing? Does your in-house career have room to progress, or is this all there is?

The good news is that stagnation isn’t inevitable. With the right mindset and strategy, you can stay indispensable and put your career on the upward trajectory you want.

Here’s how. 

1. Proactively Seek Out High-Impact, Career-Defining Opportunities

Most in-house lawyers spend the bulk of our time working on routine legal issues like contracts, compliance, and risk mitigation. This work is essential. But it’s rarely career-defining.

Ideally, we’re intentional about where we spend our time, focusing on the work that delivers the most value to the business. I’ve previously shared principles for choosing work that maximizes business value. But identifying high-impact opportunities takes that thoughtfulness a step further. This isn’t just about what’s best for the company. It’s also about what’s best for your career. (And don’t worry, these priorities rarely conflict. When they do, it’s usually obvious and easy to navigate.)

If you want exponential career growth, seek out projects where the upside is significant and the downside is minimal. These are the bets that can change everything.

This might include leading a high-stakes acquisition, spearheading a regulatory overhaul, or driving a strategic partnership. Other times, these opportunities may look a little different or be more removed from your core obligations. Think: leading a cross-functional project, starting a new company initiative, or representing the company in an important industry group.

Whether or not you’re the most senior lawyer in the room, stepping into these moments puts you at the center of the action and in a great position to learn lots quickly. Plus, it puts you on the radar of key decision-makers.

The key is recognizing these moments before they happen and raising your hand early. Be a colleague who makes things happen, not just a lawyer who weighs in after decisions are made. Not only will you expand your skill set, but you’ll also build a reputation as an essential business partner. And in-house lawyers who drive the business forward rarely stagnate.

2. Become a permanent student.

I like to think of this idea as the cousin of adopting a growth mindset. Embrace the idea that as an in-house lawyer, part of your job is to keep learning, year after year. New skill sets, new areas of law, new technologies, new business models. Staying still is a missed opportunity and a risk to your long-term relevance.

This doesn’t mean you need to enroll in a formal course every January (though you may take some formal courses over the years). It means building learning into your daily rhythm. Listen to podcasts about your industry. Read company filings from your competitors. Join webinars on evolving areas like AI regulation or evolving privacy laws. Shadow your product team for a day. Ask your CFO to walk you through the quarterly earnings call. The most valuable lawyers aren’t just legal experts; they’re deeply informed, endlessly curious business thinkers.

Don’t treat learning like a luxury. Instead, treat it like the foundation of your long-term success. This means that you need to proactively create time and space for learning. It may not be as urgent as certain day-to-day work, but it is just as important. The legal landscape is evolving, and the in-house lawyers who keep evolving with it are the ones who stay energized, engaged, and in demand.

3. Become a power user of technology.

The tech bros claiming to have saved tens of thousands by using ChatGPT instead of hiring a lawyer to review key legal documents are out of touch, but no more so than the lawyers who refuse to accept that AI and related technologies are already changing our profession. Since you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re not in either group.

You know that AI, automation, and data-driven decision-making aren’t just buzzwords; they’re transforming how businesses operate, including legal departments. And if you want to make sure your career continues to grow, your best bet is to go beyond just adapting to new tools. You’ll also become a power user, leveraging technology to work smarter, deliver faster, and free up time for higher-value strategic work.

Too many lawyers still treat technology like someone else’s job. That’s a mistake. If you understand how AI can streamline contract reviews, how automation can eliminate repetitive workflows, and how data analytics can enhance risk assessments, you become far more than a legal advisor. You become a force multiplier for the business. The key is proactively learning and experimenting. Play around with AI-driven legal research tools, explore contract lifecycle management platforms, and get comfortable with the data your company relies on to make decisions.

Being tech-savvy doesn’t mean replacing judgment with algorithms. It means enhancing your expertise with better tools. The in-house lawyers who embrace technology make themselves indispensable in a world that rewards efficiency, insight, and innovation.

4. Cultivate a Mindset of Continuous Reinvention

Have you noticed that the careers of some in-house lawyers seem to be on a rapid upward trajectory, while other lawyers’ careers meander slowly or flatline? The lawyers on the rapid growth trajectory know that what made them a great lawyer five years ago isn’t enough to keep them great today. Because they understand this, they are constantly evolving, learning, and reinventing themselves to stay relevant and valuable.

This doesn’t mean chasing every new trend or piling on credentials for the sake of it. You know the type. Self-proclaimed NFT experts in 2019, then ESG. Then crypto. Now AI governance. We just don’t believe them anymore.

But regular reinvention means being brutally honest with yourself about where you’re growing, where you’re stagnating, and where the business is heading. Maybe that means you need to develop a deeper financial skill set, take on a cross-functional leadership role, or dive into an emerging area of law. Maybe it’s as simple as seeking honest feedback from business leaders, not just legal peers, to understand how you can add more value. Or maybe it means delegating the work you’ve gotten so good at that you could do it in your sleep, so someone else has the chance to learn that area and you can learn something new.

The key is to never settle into autopilot mode. If every single day you think, “wow, I am awesome at my job. I know everything I need to know and exactly how to do it,” you likely aren’t growing anymore. Challenge yourself. Seek out discomfort. Keep learning, whether through executive coaching, industry deep dives, or leadership development. Taking a proactive approach to reinventing yourself over time is key to building an in-house career that continues to grow, on your own terms.

5. Avoid long-term burnout at all costs.

Want to know how to virtually guarantee your career stagnates? Keep working in a state of perpetual burnout over a prolonged period of time.

When you’re burned out, the professional goal becomes getting through each day. Sure, you want to get everything done. And you probably even want to do it really well (though you may care a little bit less than you usually do).

But when you’re burned out, feeling excited about work or growth or new opportunities just doesn’t happen. Those feelings, positive though they are, all take energy. Burned out people don’t have spare energy lying around.

To be clear, we all experience burnout from time to time. I’ve personally been burned out or on the edge of it multiple times in the last 12 months. But I was able to bounce back with relative ease because I didn’t stay burned out.

If you start to experience early signs of burnout, take immediate action to curtail it before it becomes a long-term problem.

6. Develop Strong Relationships With Your Colleagues.

To keep getting new and exciting opportunities within your company, colleagues need to know who you are and remember that you’re part of the team.

They can’t give an opportunity to a person they don’t know exists, and likely won’t think to give it to you if you’re not top of mind.

Plus, if you want to keep progressing, you need to develop a reputation as a high-performer. One essential part of this is doing excellent work. Another less discussed component is having people talk to each other about the excellent work that you do. That is more likely to happen if, rather than delivering high-quality work and then disappearing into the shadows, you have a strong ongoing business relationship with the people for whom you’re doing the work.

Check out my past issues on the importance of developing strong relationships with your colleagues, and on specific steps you can take to develop those relationships, even if you’re busy or an introvert.

Remember: Career stagnation is a valid fear—but with the right approach, it doesn’t have to be your reality.