Asked: Our weekly question to the In-House community

The deputy general counsel at Verizon Wireless is taking the reverse commute and moving to a job at a law firm after spending 24 years in-house. John Thorne started at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel PLLC in Washington, D.C., this week.

Thorne was involved in a lot of high-profile antitrust cases while he was with Verizon and said he chose to take the job at the law firm because wanted “to do new things.”

So, here’s our question for you:

What are the top reasons an in-house attorney would move out-of-house when many do the opposite — move in-house after many years at a law firm?

Leave a comment below or email me.

Need to Know:

• The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has a new general counsel.
• The saga continuzes at Penn State this week as the former president blames the former general counsel in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
• The Green Bay Packers hope to score a professional touchdown for the team in naming a new general counsel/vice president.
• The general counsel at Avon Products Inc. is headed to Kraft Foods.
• Find out who are the best-paid general counsels around the country.
• To get more in-house counsel news, sign up for our FREE monthly email newsletter, In-House Counsel. The newsletter is a compilation of The Daily Record’s coverage of in-house counsel news as well as job listings, movements within the industry and other resources. Click here to sign up today.
• Follow us on Twitter for the In-House news and discussion: @TDRInHouse
• Want the latest on who’s been hired, fired or moving and shaking in between? Head to our Movers and Shakers page to find out.
• For networking events and other happenings this week in Maryland, check out our calendar of events.
• Get the very latest updates from our law reporters on Twitter: @TDRKristi, @BenMook, @Steve_Lash
• Check out The Daily Record on Facebook.

Since most of the legal employment-related news has been bad lately, what with all the layoffs and deferrments, I figured I’d share an e-mail I received recently about a job opening to add to the few but proud that are hiring.

The Homeless Persons Representation Project Inc. in Baltimore is looking for a director for its Pro Bono Program, which has seen the ranks of volunteers quadruple since 2007. HPRP runs a community-based intake program at local shelters and soup kitchens; specialized task forces that focus on legal issues affecting the state’s homeless population; and systemic advocacy projects where solutions to homelessness are pursued.

The organization is looking to expand its Pro Bono Program in Baltimore during the next three years. For more details, click here. 

With big firms shedding lawyers left and right, do you think the legal services field could be the route to go in these economic times?

After seeing coworkers at the Harbor Court Hotel restaurant struggle to hold down a job, Baltimore’s Galen Sampson decided that when he opened his own restaurant, he wanted to create an apprenticeship program for recovering Baltimoreans. And he did just that.

“It gives our people in transition paid jobs,” he told CNN in the first of three videos on the news Web site. “It also allows us to give them hands-on, real-time instruction.”

Galen and his wife, Bridget, now co-own Dogwood Sustainable Foods, which operates the Dogwood Deli in Hampden.

“She has been very active in the community with people in transition from problems in their past, and I became actively involved with her, helping her teach and doing some cooking,” Galen explains in the second video, A Really Good Team. “When I started working with Bridget in the programs that she had in the city, I started to really see it firsthand.”

The program, Chefs in the Making, will provide training and jobs to 30 people in transition this year.

Sampson was a Baltimore Community Fellow through the Open Society Institute in 2006.

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor