Being an in-house attorney for my entire career, I have worked with a myriad of outside counsel. I have worked for some of Las Vegas’ largest gaming manufacturers and operators in fast paced demanding legal groups. The only way to get through is outsourcing! From my experience, in-house lawyers have two options, law firms or ‘other’. I have used both. Law firms tend to be more pricey, but offer dedicated attorneys to specific projects for an extended period of time. I have found that law firms are better suited for outsourcing litigation matters, as private practice attorneys are great at suing people! When I say the second option is ‘other’, I mean that various companies offer legal outsourcing in different forms. For example, when I was Associate General Counsel for a major Las Vegas Strip property and later when I was General Counsel for a redeveloping hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip, I have used a company based in Argentina that employs lawyers scattered throughout various countries and time zones. While it was more efficient than a law firm, at times it would be difficult to get things accomplished in a timely manner with results varied.
LAWCLERK is one of the ‘other’ options that is an incredible resource for in-house counsel, and I can say that because I have been working on a part-time basis for LAWCLERK since 2018. LAWCLERK is a nationwide network of all U.S. based freelance lawyers. I left my last corporate job in late 2016 and decided to take a break from the corporate grind. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I worked part time consulting and traveled with my then boyfriend (now husband) extensively. What a needed respite!! I started doing legal consulting and picked up a few larger corporate companies where I mainly negotiated contracts and transactions on their behalf. In 2018, a friend of mine approached me about joining LAWCLERK to give me some extra income. When I learned about the website and the diversity of projects it offered, I jumped at the chance. Coming from my in-house career, I knew not only would this platform would be such a great place to offer my legal services to attorneys who were bogged down and just needed to get things off their plate, but I also recognized that when I return to the corporate world full time, I would totally use this resource to outsource my projects. It is a time and cost-efficient way of reaching out to knowledgeable and experienced counsel all in one fell swoop of posting a project.
I have completed several projects that have been offered to me on LAWCLERK and have found that the work is interesting and keeps my legal-beagle mind busy and it also has helped to supplement my government income. Wait, did I mention that I am now a full-time government employee, working for regulators in Nevada. Yeah, when I left the corporate world, I swore to never go back and when an opportunity came up to serve as the quasi in-house lawyer for a regulatory body in Nevada, I said hey, why not? It was terrible pay and I had to move to Reno from my comfy home in Las Vegas, but it was an experience. I am now back in Las Vegas still working with the state in a different capacity and wow, LAWCLERK has certainly been a huge help. I am able to work on challenging legal projects (as my current role is not as an attorney) and able to pay my credit card bill with the occasional project offered on LAWCLERK.
I have plans to rejoin the corporate world in the near future as in-house counsel and I have every intention of using LAWCLERK as my outsourcing resource. I have also recommended LAWCLERK to several of my colleagues in the gaming industry as the go to place when that nagging contract you can’t seem to get to off your desk is looming!
