Have you ever felt like your legal expertise wasn’t quite enough to move the needle in your organization? You give solid legal advice, draft airtight contracts, and spot risks others miss. Yet sometimes, the feedback you get is lukewarm, almost as if your work isn’t fully appreciated. If you’ve been there, you’re not alone. Many in-house legal professionals feel this disconnect. One approach to overcoming this is to become a T-shaped lawyer, expanding your skill set beyond traditional legal roles. And the reason may not be the quality of their legal work at all, it’s the narrowness of their role.
On a recent episode of Notes to My Legal Self, Olga Mack sat down with Peter Connor, a former general counsel turned author of The T-Shaped Lawyer. Peter’s idea is refreshingly simple but game-changing: in-house counsel shouldn’t just be legal experts. To thrive today, you need to be both a lawyer and a businessperson. Embracing the T-shaped lawyer model can transform your career.
Watch the full conversation with Peter Connor here:
What It Means to Be T-Shaped
Picture the letter T. The vertical line represents your deep legal expertise, the kind that makes you the trusted authority on compliance, contracts, or risk. That part is non-negotiable. But the horizontal line is where many in-house lawyers stop short. This is where business knowledge, collaboration, leadership, and innovation live. It’s about speaking the language of your colleagues in finance, marketing, or product, and contributing to business strategy, not just legal outcomes.
Peter put it bluntly: being business-minded isn’t enough. You need to think and act like a businessperson who happens to be a lawyer. That means offering insights that go beyond the legal memo. Maybe you highlight reputational risks, connect dots across departments, or even help design new processes that prevent recurring problems. Those contributions, he says, are what really get you noticed and promoted. Strive to embody the essence of a T-shaped lawyer.
Why It Matters for Your Career
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: excellence in the law alone won’t guarantee you recognition or advancement. In-house counsel who cling only to legal expertise risk becoming replaceable, especially as technology, automation, and AI chip away at routine legal tasks. But lawyers who step into the business arena create irreplaceable value.
I loved Peter’s distinction between business partnering and business leadership. Partnering is the small, everyday act of adding business input alongside your legal advice, something even junior lawyers can do. Leadership, on the other hand, is more strategic. It’s when you take the initiative to identify big-picture problems, collaborate across functions, and help drive change. A T-shaped lawyer is both a partner and a leader. Both matter, but together they make you indispensable.
The Future Belongs to T-Shaped Lawyers
If you’ve ever wondered why your career feels stalled despite doing great legal work, this may be your answer. The most successful in-house counsel are those who blur the line between legal and business, who see themselves not as lawyers working in a business but as businesspeople contributing through law.
And the good news? You don’t have to wait until you’re a general counsel to start. You can begin tomorrow by being curious, asking better business questions, and offering input that shows you understand not just the law, but the company’s bigger goals. These are steps towards becoming a T-shaped lawyer.
The takeaway is simple: in a world of constant change, the in-house lawyers who thrive are the ones who grow beyond the “I” of legal expertise and embrace the full “T” of legal leadership and business contribution.
So, are you still standing tall as an “I-shaped” lawyer, or are you ready to stretch into a T-shaped career?
Watch the full conversation here: Notes to My (Legal) Self: Season 8, Episode 4 (ft.Peter Connor)
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At Notes to My (Legal) Self®, we’re dedicated to helping in-house legal professionals develop the skills, insights, and strategies needed to thrive in today’s evolving legal landscape. From leadership development to legal operations optimization and emerging technology, we provide the tools to help you stay ahead.
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