Candidate Case Study—Experienced Nonprofit Attorney Returning to DC

The Attorney Profile

A former BigLaw attorney who had worked at several firms made the move to the non-profit space in order to provide legal expertise more directly to international students in a way she had not been able to through a traditional legal path. In the 10 years as the non-profit’s executive director, this attorney was able to provide immediate insight on how to run a 501c3 through both a business and legal lens and gained strong experience wearing many hats (IT, HR, compliance, events, risk management, etc.). The attorney loved working in the non-profit space but had to resign when her family relocated to the Midwest for a new opportunity. In the almost year she was gone, this attorney was constantly thinking about her prior role and was determined to get back into the non-profit space but had little idea of how to do so in a new market. After 10 months without any success locally, the attorney decided to relocate back to the DC area in order to attempt to re-enter the non-profit industry.

The Challenge

While the interim counsel was thrilled to make the move back to the DC area, she was concerned about the questions she might receive surrounding her moves to and from the Midwest and the gap in her resume. She was also extremely nervous about what options she would find in her job search upon her return with just her experience and sparse connections to help her. As such, she had decided to focus solely on her move and then jump back into job searching when she arrived back in the DC area.

Working with Interim Legal Talent

A month before the attorney moved back to DC, one of our MLA Interim Legal Talent recruiters reached out to her on LinkedIn seeing that her profile and experience aligned nicely with an active MLA search. This particular role was initially intended to be a part-time interim counsel role, handling commercial contracts, trademark filings and litigation with a membership association. Since she had not started her job search quite yet, she felt the timing of this interim engagement could work well while she was also coordinating her move. The interim counsel was able to focus on getting resettled while also knowing she had part-time employment in the industry she wanted to be in, which would give her time to look for her next permanent role.

Attorney Success Story

The membership association was unaware of how much they needed an attorney in-house until the interim counsel was actively in the role. As they had never had an in-house counsel before, this attorney was able to quickly show them her value (alleviating outside counsel spend, shoring up processes that were not legally compliant, educating the Board of Directors on legal matters they had never been aware of, etc.). Ultimately, after only a few months of having an interim counsel in this part-time capacity, the association knew they could not let her find a home elsewhere and extended her an offer to join them permanently as their first ever general counsel. The association got the legal help they did not know they even needed, and the attorney was able to expand her reach of search and land a job through MLA she did not realize would become her dream job.