The 5 Soft Skills Every In-House Lawyer Needs

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Deep Dive

Soft Skills Drive Real Impact

You already know your legal skills matter. They’re essential. And so is knowing the business inside and out.

But that’s still not the whole picture.

The in-house lawyers who thrive—the ones who get pulled into the big projects, who earn trust across the company, who shape the business as well as protect it—are the ones with standout soft skills.

They know how to communicate clearly, collaborate effectively, adapt quickly, and follow through consistently. They build relationships that make their work smoother and more impactful. And they make themselves indispensable, not by knowing every answer, but by being the kind of person people want to work with.

And the best part is that these skills are totally learnable.

You don’t need to be a natural extrovert, or the most charismatic speaker in the room. You just need to get a little more intentional about how you show up, listen, and lead.

Below are five soft skills I consider non-negotiable for in-house lawyers who want to grow their impact and enjoy their work more along the way.

Let’s dive in.

1. Curiosity

Highly effective in-house lawyers are genuinely curious, and all sorts of benefits follow.

When you get curious about something and ask good questions, a few things happen. First, and most obviously, you learn more about whatever you’re asking about. This helps you give better tailored advice. But the benefits go way beyond that.

Curiosity is, in some senses, the opposite of or antidote to arrogance. True curiosity says “I don’t know everything, but I’d like to know more.” (While arrogance says “I may know it all, but I sure know best.”). The curious, un-arrogant approach helps avoid falling into dangerous traps based on assumptions, because you paused to ask.

Plus, being the person who asks great questions in an effort to move things forward—rather than the one who moves forward with arrogance and certainty you’re already right— will make your colleagues like working with you. Curiosity signals respect, which people appreciate. This is important for being effective at your job, because colleagues who like working with you will bring you new potential opportunities and problems early, when your are most able to shape projects and meaningfully add value.

2. Adaptability

Being an in-house lawyer means living in a near-constant state of change.

Priorities shift. Teams re-org. Products launch faster than legal can keep up. The contract you spent 20 hours negotiating last week because it was the company’s “highest priority” goes away because budget was slashed.

Lawyers who can roll with the change thrive, while those who aren’t adaptable exist in a constant state of heightened stress and anxiety (not fun, and not effective).

Sometimes adaptability looks like adjusting your risk tolerance in response to a business pivot.

Sometimes it means reprioritizing your day—again—because something broke, launched, or hit the CEO’s desk.

And sometimes it just means taking a deep breath, rolling your eyes privately, and calmly figuring out the next best move.

When you are able to move forward in chaos, and stay centered when others are swirling, you can become a calming and stabilizing force for your company and team. This is incredibly valuable and helps you add value beyond just your legal advice.

3. Communication Skills

You don’t need to be a TED Talk-level speaker or write like a novelist to be an effective communicator in-house. But you do need to be clear, adaptable, and easy to understand.

That means translating complex legal ideas into business language. It means knowing how to write a crisp email, give a 3-minute verbal update, or explain a nuanced risk to a room full of engineers without their eyes glazing over.

And just as important—it means listening.

Communication isn’t just what comes out of your mouth or lands in someone’s inbox. It’s how well you understand what your colleague is actually asking for. It’s being able to hear what’s not being said. It’s asking the follow-up questions that help you get to the real issue—not just the surface request.

In other words, communication is a two-way street—and too many lawyers only drive one direction.

Strong communicators adjust their style based on the person, the medium, and the stakes. They know when to slow down and walk someone through an issue—and when to get to the point and move on. They write clearly. They speak with confidence and humility. And they listen more than they talk.

If you can do those things, your advice will land. Your emails will get read. Your meetings will be more productive. And your influence? It’ll grow—quietly, steadily, powerfully.

4. Being Collaborative

In-house work is inherently collaborative. So if you aren’t already a strong collaborator, this is a great skill to focus on first.

In-house lawyers rarely work in a silo, and you almost never own a project end to end. Your impact depends on how well you work with others across teams, functions, and levels of the company.

That means partnering with finance, product, HR, engineering, and more—each with their own priorities, timelines, and pressures. No one has time to explain things twice, so you need to show up curious, prepared, and focused on moving things forward. And leave the arrogance at the door. Being collaborative means recognizing your colleagues are experts too—in things you might not fully understand.

When you aren’t collaborative, legal starts getting left out. That’s bad for the company and for you.

Being collaborative means leading with “yes, and” more often than “no.” It means showing you care about the shared goal, even when your legal advice complicates it. It means offering solutions, not just spotting issues. Picking up the phone instead of dragging out a five-email thread.

When you’re known as someone who’s easy to work with and invested in the team’s success, everything gets easier. People loop you in early. They listen when you raise concerns. They treat you like a partner.

Because that’s what great in-house lawyers are: not the legal department down the hall, but part of the team from day one.

5. Follow-through

Of all the soft skills we’ve talked about, this last one might be the least flashy—and the most powerful.

Follow-through means doing what you say you’ll do. Following up without being reminded. Sending the promised summary email. Closing the loop. Keeping things moving. It’s a necessary soft skill to reach the ultimate goal of getting things done.

It sounds basic, but it’s rare. And that makes it valuable.

Because here’s what happens when you build a reputation for follow-through: People start trusting you more. They bring you into important conversations earlier. They rely on you. They stop wondering if they need to follow up. You become the person who gets things done.

In a fast-paced, cross-functional environment, that’s gold.

And it’s not just about task completion. Follow-through builds credibility. It reinforces that your input doesn’t disappear into a void. It shows you respect people’s time, that you're engaged, and that you're accountable, not just for your opinions, but for outcomes.

It also sets the tone for how legal operates. If legal is known as the team that drops the ball, people go around you. But if legal is the team that follows through—on comments, on contracts, on conversations—you become part of the engine that drives things forward.

Soft skills can help you make a meaningful impact.

None of these soft skills require a fancy title, decades of experience, or permission from anyone else. They just require intention.

A decision to pause before giving advice and ask a better question.
To rewrite the email so it's clearer and easier to act on.
To keep showing up with solutions, curiosity, and follow-through—especially when things get messy.

Soft skills are what make everything else you do more effective. They’re the difference between being the lawyer who’s technically correct and the one who’s actually trusted.

So if you’re looking for something to focus on this quarter that will quietly but powerfully level up your in-house game, start here.

And if this sparked something for you—or reminded you of a colleague who really gets this—send it their way. Or hit reply and let me know which of these soft skills you’re focusing on next.

I’d love to hear from you.