What I Didn't Expect to Learn Working as Lyft's Lawyer
As a junior corporate associate at technology-based law firm Wilson Sonsini, I handled matters on behalf of a variety of clients, ranging from public company regulatory filings to mergers and acquisitions. One of my clients was Lyft, the ride-sharing company.
While working with Lyft, I gained unexpected insights into the world of in-house legal work and the unique challenges faced by innovative tech companies.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned while working with Lyft was the importance of adaptability. Tech companies operate in a constantly evolving landscape, and the legal team must be ready to pivot and adapt at a moment's notice. I once had to write brand new risk factors for the company in its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, because the risks the company was taking were brand new in the ridesharing space.
This required me to research and analyze the potential legal implications of these risks and translate them into language that would be easily understood by investors and regulators. Because Uber was really the only other major competitor at the time, our team was constantly observing and analyzing how their attorneys were framing regulatory issues for the company.
Another unexpected lesson I learned while working with Lyft was how high-stakes and stressful in-house legal work can be. Although there is a common myth that working in-house is like a 9-to-5 job, this was not the case at Lyft, at least from what I saw. It wasn’t uncommon for the Lyft team to be working late at night and on weekends, ensuring that the company's legal needs were met. In addition, leadership in tech companies can be highly idealistic and often hold their legal teams to an impossibly high standard. Sometimes disappointment was inevitable — not because we didn’t do a good job — but because the expectations were so high. Such is life in the world of Silicon Valley, when companies are pushing the boundaries of what can or cannot be created in the business world.
Working with Lyft provided me with valuable insights into the unique challenges and rewards of working with innovative tech companies. It reinforced the importance of adaptability and hard work, and gave me a deeper appreciation for the in-house legal professionals who work tirelessly to support these dynamic organizations. It also, ironically, showed me that the in-house life I thought existed based on stories I had heard in law school were more fable than fact.
