Missouri In House Counsel Legal news, updates and analysis
Claims Attorney, SECURA Insurance Company, St. Louis
Brad Zaffiri, a claims attorney with SECURA Insurance Company, said the biggest difference between working in private practice and working in-house has been the transition of his day-to-day priorities.
“In private practice, I was litigating — drafting motions, going to court, and arguing motions, taking deposition — all of that,” Zaffiri said. “Now, in my in-house role, I do more management of litigation, so I retain outside counsel to do litigation and I’m more behind the scenes and doing big picture strategy.”
Zaffiri, who previously spent 13 years in private practice, said he decided to transition to in-house counsel work after the pandemic.
“My employer now was a client for the firm I was working at the time, and they had a great reputation among the lawyers that worked for them as being a great place to work,” Zaffiri said. “The stars aligned and Secura happened to be looking for someone with my skill set, right when I was kind of looking for a change.”
Despite a change in role responsibilities, Zaffiri said many of the skills from working in private practice to in-house work are transferable.
“Something I always hear from our outside counsel is that they appreciate our model of having attorneys handle a lot of the litigation in-house,” he said. “We’ve handled hundreds of lawsuits ourselves in our careers. So we have a pretty good understanding of what’s going on,” he said.
To Zaffiri, the most important skill to have as an in-house attorney is experience.
“When you go in-house, they want people that have a lot of substantial experience,” he said. “I think the most important thing is knowing what you’re doing and being able to hit the ground running.”
When he’s not working, Zaffiri can be found landscaping, taking guitar lessons, or spending time with his husband and friends. His most important advice to attorneys looking to get into in-house counsel work? Network.
“It comes down to personal relationships,” he said, “That is the best way to get your foot in the door, I think, is by knowing people. If you’re bringing someone in as an in-house counsel, they want to have a baseline trust with you and a rapport.”
