What does it take to transfer?

[Verity]

Let's say you receive offers from law firms with multiple offices. Let's say you end up working for a Vault 50, for example, in their Palo Alto office. After a few months, being an east-coast person, let's say you want to return home. Is it generally possible to ask them to transfer you to the NYC office? Anyone know of cases like this?

[Aberzombie1892]

There are so many things that this is dependent on that it is difficult to give you an answer.

However, if each office decides on who it takes on as a summer associate independently, you are out of luck.

[Verity]

There are so many things that this is dependent on that it is difficult to give you an answer.

However, if each office decides on who it takes on as a summer associate independently, you are out of luck.

That's really the question: do different offices of the same firm keep their whole HR environments separate? Is intra-firm transferring even common/possible?

[thesealocust]

There are so many things that this is dependent on that it is difficult to give you an answer.

However, if each office decides on who it takes on as a summer associate independently, you are out of luck.

That's really the question: do different offices of the same firm keep their whole HR environments separate? Is intra-firm transferring even common/possible?

It happens but it's fairly rare. Firms are willing to help out, but it's usually trailing spouse type situations. I can't imagine this is ever something you could plan out in advance, since the only real benefit to the firm is moral: Switching geographies would often mean switching clients / teams / practice areas, doubtful that would ever be a good use of resources for a firm. But it does happen.