I often hear uninformed internet commenters suggest MSP is insular and that it is hard to break in without huge connections, but I don't buy that at all. Firms and in-house legal departments here are very receptive to folks that follow paths like yours. I know MANY in-house and law firm lawyers like you. Some catches:Anonymous User wrote:I don't know if you are still on this thread or not, but I was wondering how hard it would be to get a decent in-house job (140k) with a Twin Cities company coming from a V10 firm in Chicago. I'm originally from Minnesota, but came to UChicago. All of my family is from Minnesota, and I did undergrad there. Around 5 years of experience as an associate. Will it be tough without a ton of connections?Anonymous User wrote: 3. If you must come to the Twin Cities, look to go in-house directly without a stopover in a local firm. Unlike in other markets where you have to take a pay cut or sacrifice sophistication to move in house, there are a lot of corporations here with large in-house law departments where you can get very sophisticated work and a great quality of life while making more than you would as an associate at one of the large local law firms. In the past, you may have needed a stopover at a local firm to build connections, but that is certainly no longer the case and might even hurt your prospects of making an in-house move.
- When you move as an experienced attorney, you are at the mercy of your experience and how it relates to the available openings. While a good market, the MSP legal market is much smaller than you'd think. There simply isn't always an opening for someone with any given level and type of experience. As someone else said, there are plenty of people who are good lawyers but have trouble moving into the market as laterals for this reason. The key is to be patient and opportunistic with the timing of your move.
- There are in-house lawyers with about your level of experience making about that much money in MSP, but I think that most probably make less than that.
- I don't necessarily agree with the advice you quoted about going straight in-house - for someone like you a stopover in a local firm can be very productive. The naysayers in this thread complaining about local firms are, in my opinion, overly negative. Secondary markets like MSP are very different than major legal markets and any attempt at comparison is not going to be favorable to the secondary market. In addition, because it is a small legal market with a huge number of lawyers and would-be lawyers, there are a lot of people who frankly struck out at the big firms, a few of whom speak loudly not from actual experience but from a place of bitterness. There are certainly valid criticisms about biglaw in general and this market in particular, and my statement about a few sour grapes shouldn't be read as discounting those criticisms or the people that proffer them. But at the same time you should know there are plenty of people who have positive experiences but don't spend their time commenting on Internet message boards. So if you think a stopover at a local firm might be a good fit for you, I wouldn't be afraid to explore it.