Legal Counsel → General Counsel

This is a easy transition with a typical 11-month runway and 72% skill overlap. Expect a +77% salary change, with strongest hiring demand in USA, UK, Canada. Employers hiring today include Fortune 500. Focus your first 60 days on closing the gap in role-specific tooling and vocabulary.

1. 1Audit your Legal Counsel experience for transferable skills that map to General Counsel.
2. 2Close the top skill gap: role-specific tooling.
3. 3Build 2–3 portfolio artifacts that demonstrate General Counsel outcomes.
4. 4Reshape your resume and LinkedIn around General Counsel keywords and outcomes, not job titles.
5. 5Run a targeted outreach loop to General Counsel hiring managers at Fortune 500.

• ▸Why are you moving from Legal Counsel to General Counsel?
• ▸Walk me through a Legal Counsel project where you applied skills relevant to General Counsel.
• ▸Which parts of a General Counsel role are new to you, and how are you closing that gap?
• ▸Where do you see yourself as a General Counsel in 3 years?
• ▸Tell me about a stakeholder disagreement and how you resolved it.

• ▸Lead with a positioning line: "Legal Counsel transitioning to General Counsel, focused on Contract Law and Leadership."
• ▸Reframe Legal Counsel accomplishments using General Counsel vocabulary — outcomes, not tasks.
• ▸Surface 72% of overlapping skills at the top; put Legal Counsel-only work later.
• ▸Add a "Selected projects" section featuring 2 artifacts aligned to General Counsel.
• ▸Quantify impact: dollars, users, uptime, cycle time — whatever a General Counsel manager cares about.