Kathleen Faulkner encourages her fellow lawyers to get exposure to new challenges
For Kathleen Faulkner, making the shift from private practice to in-house was in large part about achieving better work-life balance. She has found greater flexibility going in-house, and loves not being tied to billable targets anymore.
Earlier this year, she joined private credit fund manager Msquared Capital as GC, and in this interview, Faulkner shares the biggest adjustment she experienced during the transition, her favourite part of working in private practice, and having a passion for medicine.
Initially I chose to pursue a career in law quite simply because I qualified for the degree and wasn’t too sure what I ultimately wanted to do post university. The attraction of law was, and remains, that it’s a challenging and complex profession with multiple career pathways.
My favourite part while working in private practice was the ability to commercially solve problems and add value to my clients’ businesses. My favourite part of working in-house has been the ability to integrate legal, commercial, and financial elements to drive value.
Once I started working in private practice, I always assumed I would take the traditional pathway of progressing to become a partner at a law firm, which I was fortunate to accomplish, but there was always something attractive to me about the challenge of going in-house to see the inner workings and strategies of a different business model and industry.
While in private practice, I specialised in banking and finance and acted for a range of non-bank lenders. The opportunity to go on the ‘other side’ and partner with a private credit business at a time of great growth in the industry and the ability to apply my legal insights into a complex commercial operating environment was compelling and not one I could turn down without future regret.
Evolving beyond providing a purely legalistic solution to an issue and also considering the greater commercial operations, strategy, and risk tolerance of the business. Also moving beyond a billable metric as a measure of success; success in-house is a lot more fluid and outcome driven and is, pleasingly, not constrained by billable targets.
It’s exciting to be part of a team that is constantly looking for ways to innovate, evolve, and scale. We are working on some exciting projects currently which will bring our investment products to a wider audience and we are also expanding our presence across Australia which will bring challenges and opportunities for the firm.
Take the plunge and seek exposure to new challenges outside your core comfort area, even if it’s difficult or intimidating in the moment. One of my main reasons for finally making the decision to try an alternative to private practice was to be able to obtain a better work life balance and spend more quality time with my young family. Moving in-house has provided me with more flexibility, and it’s been the right decision for me.
Relevant to both private practice and in-house legal departments, I’d say the profession should be focusing on improving efficiencies by embracing the advances in digitalisation and automation to free up resources from rote tasks and instead focusing on value-adding activities which drive economic growth and improve the customer experience.
There are multiple external factors which are challenging the legal industry to redefine the way in which it provides its services. Most notably, advances in technology, increasing regulatory complexities, economic volatility, and cybersecurity risk. Legal departments will need to modernise by actively embracing technology and reconsidering their current operating models to keep moving with the times.
I have always had a passion for medicine and would have considered pursuing a medical career.
