This article explains how in-house lawyers can use performance appraisals strategically to support promotion. It outlines how promotion decisions are made, how to prepare evidence of impact and development, and how to structure appraisal conversations to focus on future progression. It also highlights the importance of visibility, stakeholder support, and taking ownership of career growth to improve advancement opportunities within or beyond the organisation.
Key Takeaways
- Promotion often depends on visibility, internal support, and active self-development.
- Understanding how advancement works in your organisation gives a strategic advantage.
- Appraisals should focus not only on past performance but future potential and growth.
- Evidence of impact, not just activity, strengthens promotion discussions.
- Taking ownership of career progression is essential in relatively flat in-house structures.
Understanding the role of appraisals in career progression
Most organisations employing in-house lawyers will have a formal appraisal process.
This will typically be an annual meeting with your line manager to review performance against objectives, often those set a year earlier.
The process may also review personal development goals and include an opportunity to discuss your future career paths.
It’s not uncommon, though, to feel that appraisals are a little cursory. They will often happen around a year-end, when the legal team can be busy trying to close off year-end transactions. Even if they are taken seriously, there may be a focus on past performance against objectives, rather than looking at future potential and the developmental steps needed for you to enhance your career.
How promotion decisions are made in in-house teams
One of the key factors in promotion is understanding why and how people are promoted in your organisation, and what you can do to influence the position. In-house structures are relatively flat compared with law firms, even in larger teams, and there can be a feeling that you are reliant on someone moving on or themselves being promoted.
Differences in organisational promotion models
Organisations differ significantly. Some will only countenance promoting people once they have a vacancy to fill. Others will develop their talented people and give them skills and expertise to help them to fill jobs at the next level. Some will recruit with an eye to what you can do in the future; others will only be interested in solving a particular recruitment problem today.
Understanding internal hiring and promotion models
If you can understand how people are promoted in the organisation, you will have a head start in the process. Speak to your line manager and to the people or talent development team if there is one. Are roles advertised with the chance to apply, or simply filled from within? How have others progressed in the team or organisation? Can you speak to them and see how they have succeeded? People are often happy to talk about their progress and to mentor others.
Assessing your skills, strengths and profile
You will also want to understand what you offer the organisation – not only your legal and management skills, but your own personality profile, and there are many tools you can use to understand how you work and how you perceive your role in a team, and to develop your skills. These might include personality assessment tools such as Myers Briggs and Belbin, and 360-degree assessments to allow you to take soundings from colleagues on their perceptions of you and your work. There are some helpful suggestions in this article: How do I progress to more senior roles.
The role of visibility, supporters and sponsors
As a generalisation, though, people progress in organisations for three generic reasons: they are visible (either through a formal process or their previous work), they have supporters in the organisation – people who are familiar with you and will be a positive force in encouraging you, and they have promoters – essentially supporters who are in a position to do something about it and to facilitate your progression. Common to influencing visibility, supporters and promoters, is that you take personal responsibility for your own development. Only rarely will someone do that for you, and the greatest asset you can find is someone who will help and encourage you to take that responsibility yourself.
Positioning your appraisal for promotion
If you want to use your appraisal meeting to look for promotion, it’s useful to think about things from the perspective of the person who carries out your appraisal – usually your line manager – and (if your organisation requires it) the person who ultimately signs it off. Hopefully, you will have a regular meeting with your line manager – possibly a monthly one-to-one – and you can use that or another opportunity to speak to them about what you have in mind.
You might also want to speak to your people or talent management team to understand how they take forward actions from an appraisal, and what opportunities may exist within the organisation for you. Are there individual skills development opportunities, for example, that they may offer or facilitate? Is there a leadership development programme which you might access?
Make sure that the person who conducts your appraisal knows that you’d like to discuss how you achieve a promotion, that you are both comfortable with what materials and evidence you bring to the meeting, and what you would like from them.
Structuring your appraisal to support advancement
Demonstrating performance and impact
It’s likely that your appraisal needs to meet certain criteria for your organisation – reviewing progress against objectives, noting your personal development and setting objectives for next year. You will want to use these structures to your advantage – if you haven’t met these compliance requirements, it is hard to talk about advancement.
You can, though, ensure that you are presenting your case effectively through these structures, and ensure that you have a clear idea of what you want from the appraisal.
Showing business impact beyond legal tasks
Looking at progress against your objectives, make sure that you have a clear record of what you have done. If it’s possible to come prepared with documentary evidence, so much the better. Ask yourself, though, is that a proper reflection of what you’ve achieved, or (as with so many in-house teams) have you carried out different tasks and projects from those envisaged when you set your objectives? Does it demonstrate the impact of your work, whether on the legal team or the broader organisation? And transferrable skills shown – perhaps strategy, risk, financial, management or business?
Applying transferable skills for career growth
One of the privileges of practising law in-house is the opportunity to see it in the context of a business environment, and that law pervades almost every activity you will encounter, from strategy and business development to operations, to research and innovation. Where have you seen that you can make a difference, and how can you do that?
Building and presenting a legal plan
Think also about your development plan. Some legal teams have a very structured approach; if yours does, you can bring clear evidence of where you are against the plan, and what you see as the next steps. If yours doesn’t, do have a look at the materials in Mapping a development plan where you can find an example of a development structure indicating the sort of skills and know-how you should have for particular levels of legal work, and a template structure for the behaviours and practical tasks which might be considered appropriate for particular levels of legal experience.
Legal training is a much broader skill than the acquisition of pure legal knowledge – it should teach you how to think, how to apply analysis to a problem, how to construct an argument – and critically, how to learn new skills. How can you apply that training to the new skills and behaviours you need to advance?
While of course promotion is something considered individually in each case, if you can demonstrate that you are thinking carefully about your progress and development, that can only be helpful. You can use templates such as these both to demonstrate your progress to date, and to structure a discussion about what you should do next.
Structuring the appraisal conversation
It’s perfectly fine to make sure that the person conducting your appraisal understands that you would like to talk about your development – and particularly, opportunities for promotion. You will want to submit details of your performance, development plan and achievements – why not also provide a short agenda showing how you’d like to structure the meeting, showing you would value your appraiser’s comments and advice, and that you want to come out of the meeting with a clear understanding of next steps and possible outcomes.
Often, we aren’t good at asking – or answering – direct questions, but you do want to know what your appraiser (and organisation) thinks, and to have a genuine assessment of their view of your potential. If there are genuinely no opportunities, or if they feel you don’t have prospects in the organisation, it is only fair that you know that.
Contributing beyond your core role
Do give some thought about what else you might do to help the legal team advance as a whole. Are you interested in legal ops? In legal tech and AI? In developing and implementing the legal strategy, or what it does to develop and retain professional staff? There’s no reason why these things can’t benefit the organisation and legal team as well as you yourself.
Exploring opportunities beyond the legal team
Do come to the meeting with an open mind about your development – are you looking only at the legal team for your prospects, or are you interested beyond that in the wider business? Even if you see your career in legal, would a secondment or a short-term role in the business, or even with a client, be something which is of interest?
Consider too that your future may lie outside the organisation at some point – you may benefit from seeking promotion elsewhere but always keep in mind that you may wish to come back in the future. There are many instances of people returning to teams or joining teams elsewhere, which former colleagues lead. Don’t become too frustrated if a move may be needed – the skills and knowledge you acquire will be of value to you.
Key stakeholders to influence for promotion
As we’ve noted, generally your appraisal will be conducted by your line manager. If you want promotion, typically you will want (and need) to have them onside and to be a supporter, but it is possible – likely even – that they won’t be the person who can give you a promotion. In a legal team, you will almost certainly need the General Counsel onside – if you don’t know or have visibility to them, think about how you get to meet them, and to understand their perspective on promotion and development. If your GC isn’t interested in you and your development, are you even in the right place?
Defining next steps after your appraisal
We mentioned earlier that you should go into your appraisal with a good idea of what you want the outcome to be. Some of these might, for example, be:
- What are your objectives for the next year - which contribute to your potential future career?
- What is your detailed personal development plan – and how will you implement it and demonstrate how you are doing so?
- Who will you speak to – and if necessary, what introductions can be made for you?
- How will you monitor progress and check in with your organisation, line manager, mentor, talent management or other?
- And above all, what will you do to take control of your future?
You can find more guidance, for example, on development plans, coaching and mentoring, progressing to more senior roles, and management and delegation in the CLL articles listed in Further Reading.
Further reading and career development resources
CLL Mapping a Development Plan
CLL Coaching and Mentoring for In-House Lawyers
CLL How Do I Progress to More Senior Roles?
CLL Delegation and the In-House Lawyer
CLL Striking a balance between daily work and management responsibility