in-house to biglaw Forum

[synergy]

Does anybody have experience with making the move from in-house to biglaw? I graduated law school in 2014 and have been in-house at a hedge fund for close to 3 years now. I like my job and have no complaints aside from the fact that my hours are on the heavy side for in-house. Lately, I've been thinking about going the biglaw route as long-term, the types of jobs I want typically ask for law firm experience

Does anybody have experience making this type of move (in my practice or elsewhere)? Is this path, to the extent that it's even possible at all for me, one that must be done earlier in one's career or else that door is closed forever? And if you did make this jump, how willing (if at all) did you have to be to drop a class year or 2?

Thanks in advance!

[nealric]

Does anybody have experience with making the move from in-house to biglaw? I graduated law school in 2014 and have been in-house at a hedge fund for close to 3 years now. I like my job and have no complaints aside from the fact that my hours are on the heavy side for in-house. Lately, I've been thinking about going the biglaw route as long-term, the types of jobs I want typically ask for law firm experience

Does anybody have experience making this type of move (in my practice or elsewhere)? Is this path, to the extent that it's even possible at all for me, one that must be done earlier in one's career or else that door is closed forever? And if you did make this jump, how willing (if at all) did you have to be to drop a class year or 2?

Thanks in advance!

We had someone from our legal department make that jump. They were 10-15 years into their career at that point and went in as of-counsel. It really depend on what skills you have and what skills the firm needs. However, it's going to be easier/more common if the person has firm experience in the first place.

[synergy]

Bump.

[santaclara12]

Bump on an old thread. Curious for opinion

[JohnnieSockran]

Bump on an old thread. Curious for opinion

I know a guy that was in biglaw for a few years, in-house for a few years, and then came back to biglaw. He was willing to take a 2ish class year hit, but the firm he went to brought him on at his actual class year. Definitely delayed partnership though, so I suspect instead of being up for partner around year 8-9, it ends up being around 10-12.

[fearless16]

I'm in-house and the outside firm that we work with just had an associate join them who had been in-house his entire career. I believe he had about 8 years in house. They told him that his specialized knowledge of business operations helped him land the big law gig.

[albanach]

I'm in-house and the outside firm that we work with just had an associate join them who had been in-house his entire career. I believe he had about 8 years in house. They told him that his specialized knowledge of business operations helped him land the big law gig.

I have to image that this is possible either at the start of your career where you might take a class hit as described above, or much later - but only if you're bringing substantive experience to the table. So, if you're in a small in-house department where almost everything is farmed to outside counsel, you might have more experience managing outside counsel than of actual lawyering. If, on the other hand, you're in a big team that's doing substantive work in-house, you're likely gaining marketable general skills together with specialist knowledge of your industry - an ideal combination for an of counsel role.

Somewhere in the middle, it might be more difficult to carve a niche and make the transition. You're harder to market as a senior associate, but not skilled enough that you can go of counsel.