Every few months, someone at the firm sends around an email to all junior associates, asking us to rank our preferences for departments and the practice areas within those departments. I think my preferences have been different each time I've filled it out. And really, it's not because I try things and end up not liking them. It hasn't been busy enough for that to happen. It's mostly due to my attempts at picking "the right" practice. The one that will give me the best training for a good job post-Big Law and yet not make me hate my life for the time that I'm here. The one that will leave me with options. The one that I will enjoy and be good at. It's a little bit ridiculous that almost two years after graduating law school, I'm still trying to figure out what kind of law I want to practice.
To the extent that other people out there are trying to figure this out for themselves, or have been there, I thought it might be good to write down my thoughts while I'm at the beginning of this process.
The closest thing I can compare picking a practice area to is choosing your major in college. In college, I simply picked the subject that I was most interested in, literally without a thought as to what I would do with it after school. That is how I ended up with a political science degree and no marketable skills as a college graduate. This is why it seems important to learn from my mistakes here, and pick a practice area that I enjoy but that will also open doors for me in any future jobs.
I know that I am more interested in transactional work than litigation. I like that "the other side" is usually rational and amicable, even when toughly negotiating. I like that a unique situation just means stretching your precedent to come up with an agreement or contract rather than being at the mercy of how a Judge or Arbitrator interprets the arguments and case law. I like that I don't have to research case law very often. But I also know that transactional work at a junior associate level is not the most interesting work out there.
So at the firm, my choices basically come down to Corporate or Finance work. Banking finance might be the most mindless (early on), but the people in the department are incredible and I love working with them. Restructuring is a very small group in the Finance Dept. and I like the work and the people. I have yet to actually do any Corporate work, but I think it might be slightly more interesting at a junior level. Securities was my favorite class in law school and I think M&A would be really exciting. The counterpoint is that Corporate is known to have the very worst lifestyle in terms of last minute emergencies and late nights/weekends. I do not know the corporate people as well as the finance people, but my initial impression is that I have more in common with the latter group. Of course, Corporate associates are known for having the best path to good in-house jobs after several years at a big firm. I'm not really sure where finance associates go after Big Law.
My struggle right now is trying to figure out whether I want to assume that an in-house job of some sort is my goal and try to do Corporate work, even if that might make the next few years a little more stressful. I think I might be a little bit happier while I'm at the firm doing finance, but I don't want to do that and be stuck with no real exit strategy. Luckily for me, I have two years to figure this out. It's not something that I stress out over, but I do keep it in the back of my mind because I want to actively consider all possibilities and make an informed choice.
There is always the possibility that I would transition to a non-legal job after working here or do something only tangentially related to the area I practice in at the firm. But planning for that doesn't seem like a great idea if it forecloses opportunities that may be very appealing down the road.
As of now, one month into the billable year as a first year associate, my strategy is to try to work with as many people as I can, take on work in every practice area that I can, and talk to friends who are more senior about career planning generally. It has been hard in practice the past two weeks because there is virtually no new transactional work. I am on a pro bono matter, but am really hoping that things pick up soon.
2 comments:
I am commenting on this post in the hopes that then follow up comments will be emailed to me, and I can read everyone's advice, because I think you and I are career goal twins.
I had similar goals to you when choosing a practice area at my first firm. Basically Corporate was my top choice, but I ended up in Banking/Finance because it was the busiest practice area at the time and they needed bodies.
Corporate also had a very rough lifestlye at my old firm and finance was known to be only marginally better. I had fewer late nights than my friends in Corporate, but there was also a lot less work to go around (given that the financial crisis was just starting). The work in Corporate seemed much more intersting than what I was doing in Finance, but that might just be a personal preference thing (to be quite honest all transactional work as a junior associate is pretty boring).
I'm doing a much more specific kind of finance now and I also worry about what my "exit strategy" is. I know that I'll be looking for another job in 6 months and having such a specific practice area really limits what I'm qualified to do.
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