Welcome back to How I Lawyer, where I interview lawyers about what they do, why they do it, and how they do it well.

Today’s guest is Lindsay Barnes who is a Senior Counsel at Capital One, where he advises on consumer financial services for one of the largest credit card issuers in the United States. Lindsay began his legal career clerking for both state and federal judges, Judge Pamela White in Maryland State Court followed by Judge Ronald Buckwalter in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.  After clerking, he spent seven years as a commercial litigation associate at two big law firms, DLA Piper and Cadwalader, before going in-house at Capital One in 2021.

In this episode, Lindsay shares valuable insights about the legal profession including:

• How his background as a journalist shaped the way he communicates as a lawyer [1:51].
• How sending over 200 tailored cover letters landed him a federal clerkship [11:10].
• How clerking for both state and federal judges taught him the difference between litigating in state versus federal court [14:02].
• How to manage a broad commercial litigation practice at two big law firms [21:58].
• How to develop subject area expertise alongside continuing to acquire new legal skills [27:47].
• How he transitioned from working in private practice to in-house counsel [30:23].
• How the role of in-house counsel involves a different type of legal work [34:53].
• How to create effective visual presentations and how to learn to say more with less [37:38].
• How his experience as in-house counsel taught him the importance of respecting people’s time [42:45].
• How to take a 10,000-foot view of your career [44:11].

This episode is sponsored, edited, and engineered by LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys.

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