Help with Decision to Lateral Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm a first year biglaw associate in the Bay Area in a fairly niche transactional practice. My goal is to eventually go in-house, and lawyers from my practice generally don't get the experience that companies are interested in internalizing. My work life balance is pretty excellent, regular 9 - 10 hour working days with no weekend work, great mentors, and partners who do a great job of managing and training associates. Is it worth it to lateral now to another firm to join a general corporate practice? Or would it be a mistake to put myself on the lateral market this early in my career? And will it hurt my chances of eventually lateralling if I decide to stick it out for the rest of the year?

[Guchster]

I'm a first year biglaw associate in the Bay Area in a fairly niche transactional practice. My goal is to eventually go in-house, and lawyers from my practice generally don't get the experience that companies are interested in internalizing. My work life balance is pretty excellent, regular 9 - 10 hour working days with no weekend work, great mentors, and partners who do a great job of managing and training associates. Is it worth it to lateral now to another firm to join a general corporate practice? Or would it be a mistake to put myself on the lateral market this early in my career? And will it hurt my chances of eventually lateralling if I decide to stick it out for the rest of the year?

With regular 9-10 hour working days and no weekend work in big law (PLUS GREAT MENTORS?!?) why would you want to leave period (I don't think I've even heard of a decent paying in-house gig that cushy).

Have you investigated how difficult your niche transactional practice is to find in-house? There are decent opportunities for somethings. If you're happy and getting some drafting/negotiating experience under your belt and deal exposure, I would think twice about changing practice groups with an eye down the road for an opportunity that may or may not exist, especially because you never know what doors your current practice will open. I find that if you're happy with your work, the right doors will open up.

Is this more about you no longer enjoying this practice? If that's the case, transitioning into something you're more interested in as early as possible is usually for the best as long as you do your homework.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a first year biglaw associate in the Bay Area in a fairly niche transactional practice. My goal is to eventually go in-house, and lawyers from my practice generally don't get the experience that companies are interested in internalizing. My work life balance is pretty excellent, regular 9 - 10 hour working days with no weekend work, great mentors, and partners who do a great job of managing and training associates. Is it worth it to lateral now to another firm to join a general corporate practice? Or would it be a mistake to put myself on the lateral market this early in my career? And will it hurt my chances of eventually lateralling if I decide to stick it out for the rest of the year?

I work in a very niche practice area too, which means niche exit options. If you are c/o 2018, you can stick around a full year and then you should probably lateral as it will get tougher from there. I have a similar work life balance and training and so I decided to stick around even though I don't love the practice area, but now that I'm a midlevel, getting out of this area of law is proving to be extremely difficult without more generalized skills and the in-house opportunities within it are limited too. I say all this because I imagine some responses might say "wow you have a cushy gig! stay as long as possible!" but IMO this is thinking too short term. I think you are right to focus on where you want to end up for the majority of your career instead of what is the easiest way to survive biglaw for as long as possible.

To your specific questions, it is not a mistake to lateral this early and it is not a mistake to wait a year, but I wouldn't wait longer than that.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a first year biglaw associate in the Bay Area in a fairly niche transactional practice. My goal is to eventually go in-house, and lawyers from my practice generally don't get the experience that companies are interested in internalizing. My work life balance is pretty excellent, regular 9 - 10 hour working days with no weekend work, great mentors, and partners who do a great job of managing and training associates. Is it worth it to lateral now to another firm to join a general corporate practice? Or would it be a mistake to put myself on the lateral market this early in my career? And will it hurt my chances of eventually lateralling if I decide to stick it out for the rest of the year?

I work in a very niche practice area too, which means niche exit options. If you are c/o 2018, you can stick around a full year and then you should probably lateral as it will get tougher from there. I have a similar work life balance and training and so I decided to stick around even though I don't love the practice area, but now that I'm a midlevel, getting out of this area of law is proving to be extremely difficult without more generalized skills and the in-house opportunities within it are limited too. I say all this because I imagine some responses might say "wow you have a cushy gig! stay as long as possible!" but IMO this is thinking too short term. I think you are right to focus on where you want to end up for the majority of your career instead of what is the easiest way to survive biglaw for as long as possible.

To your specific questions, it is not a mistake to lateral this early and it is not a mistake to wait a year, but I wouldn't wait longer than that.

OP here. Thanks for the perspective. That's exactly what I'm worried about. I'm in a practice where I could easily see myself lasting for years because there's great balance, but the question is what would happen after that. The seniors in my group have mentioned their extremely limited exit options, and I can't see myself practicing in-house for the kinds of clients I work for after leaving biglaw.

I think I'm a little hesitant to call it quits with my firm because it might sour some relationships and give future employers some pause as to why I was only at my firm for less than a year, but seeing as changing groups within firms isn't usually possible, lateralling soon seems like the right move to avoid specializing too far in a practice I don't see a future for myself in.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of niche area are you in?