General Counsel: What if the skills that rainmakers use to build a $50M book of business are the same ones that elevate your influence inside your company?
Over the past few years, I’ve interviewed dozens of in-house counsel and the world’s top rainmakers, lawyers who have built extraordinary practices across industries and geographies.
At first glance, the inhouse world seems very different from yours.
They are “selling.” You are advising.
But here is what surprised me.
In conversations I have had with Fortune 100 legal departments, the same themes come up again and again. The lawyers who are brought in early understand the business. The lawyers who rise are known across the organization. The lawyers who become indispensable build relationships internally within their company long before they need them.
These are not “business development” skills in the traditional sense.
They are the traits that help you build relationships within your company so that you are not seen as the department of “no.”
Trust becomes your currency.
Authenticity shapes how people experience you.
Relationships determine whether you are included in the conversations that matter.
One of the biggest myths I hear is, “I don’t need to focus on this. I’m not in business development.”
But if you are in-house, your clients are everywhere. They are the business teams you support, the executives you advise, and the colleagues who decide whether to bring you in early or not at all. Consider how that mitigates risk.
The lawyers who thrive are the ones who become the person people call first and the person whose judgment is trusted, not just their answers.
That does not happen by accident. It is built over time, through how you show up every day.
There are more hints on this topic within my book “Breaking Ground: How Successful Women Lawyers Build Thriving Practices.” (PLI 2026)
