Should I try to pivot to transactional post-clerkship? Forum

[Anonymous User]

3L @ HYS here. Have clerkships lined up for 2025-2027 (district and appellate); increasingly getting the vibe that I won't make my firm's appellate group with my credentials (appellate judge is a marginal feeder; I have good grades, but not SCOTUS-caliber by any stretch of the imagination). That said, I have a strong background in finance, including some time on a major bank's debt capital markets desk.

Does it make sense, if I can't make appellate, to try and pivot to a transactional group after my second clerkship? My law school classes are basically 50/50 transactional/litigation (with as much a focus on appellate advocacy as you can get) so I know I like transactional work in theory. My summers have been pure litigation, though, and they've been a mixed bag. Not sure I like my firm--though not sure I don't.

If I can't make partner, ideal long-term position would be in tech with deal exposure.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

This is way premature to think about—you will have much more idea of how you like litigation after these clerkships. Even if you are at a firm where you can’t make the appellate group with these credentials you will be doing sophisticated/complex litigation because of your background. Nothing in your post suggests to me that you should do transactional.

[Anonymous User]

This is way premature to think about—you will have much more idea of how you like litigation after these clerkships. Even if you are at a firm where you can’t make the appellate group with these credentials you will be doing sophisticated/complex litigation because of your background. Nothing in your post suggests to me that you should do transactional.

Well, my firm is fairly free-market, so I suspect I could take on some transactional work--that's why I'm thinking about this now.

The more I think about it the more I like deals and dealmaking--it feels like you're closer to something truly productive. I did some transactional work over my summers, but I was mostly litigation, so I didn't have really that much of a chance to experiment with other practice areas.

My thought is that if I can work on a couple deals in the year before my clerkships, that might give me more context--and maybe more credibility if I do want to pivot coming out the other end?

[CanadianWolf]

If you don't love litigation, then switch to a transactional practice area. Simple as that.

Two clerkships will be enough exposure to litigation to know your preference.

[Anonymous User]

3L @ HYS here. Have clerkships lined up for 2025-2027 (district and appellate); increasingly getting the vibe that I won't make my firm's appellate group with my credentials (appellate judge is a marginal feeder; I have good grades, but not SCOTUS-caliber by any stretch of the imagination). That said, I have a strong background in finance, including some time on a major bank's debt capital markets desk.

Does it make sense, if I can't make appellate, to try and pivot to a transactional group after my second clerkship? My law school classes are basically 50/50 transactional/litigation (with as much a focus on appellate advocacy as you can get) so I know I like transactional work in theory. My summers have been pure litigation, though, and they've been a mixed bag. Not sure I like my firm--though not sure I don't.

If I can't make partner, ideal long-term position would be in tech with deal exposure.

How much do you care about money? I work at a firm that has a (relatively) large number of transactional folks who clerked. We might give class credit for one year, especially if you were a good associate before you left. But pretty unlikely we would take someone with one year of transactional and two clerkships as a fourth year.

Also there is de minimis connection between DCM work on the bank side and leveraged finance lawyer's work. We're not calling accounts with the CIM, we're fighting over the commitment letter (and some rough edges on the primary documents, but the CL takes the brunt of it) and then running traps to get the deal executed.

[Anonymous User]

3L @ HYS here. Have clerkships lined up for 2025-2027 (district and appellate); increasingly getting the vibe that I won't make my firm's appellate group with my credentials (appellate judge is a marginal feeder; I have good grades, but not SCOTUS-caliber by any stretch of the imagination). That said, I have a strong background in finance, including some time on a major bank's debt capital markets desk.

Does it make sense, if I can't make appellate, to try and pivot to a transactional group after my second clerkship? My law school classes are basically 50/50 transactional/litigation (with as much a focus on appellate advocacy as you can get) so I know I like transactional work in theory. My summers have been pure litigation, though, and they've been a mixed bag. Not sure I like my firm--though not sure I don't.

If I can't make partner, ideal long-term position would be in tech with deal exposure.

How much do you care about money? I work at a firm that has a (relatively) large number of transactional folks who clerked. We might give class credit for one year, especially if you were a good associate before you left. But pretty unlikely we would take someone with one year of transactional and two clerkships as a fourth year.

Also there is de minimis connection between DCM work on the bank side and leveraged finance lawyer's work. We're not calling accounts with the CIM, we're fighting over the commitment letter (and some rough edges on the primary documents, but the CL takes the brunt of it) and then running traps to get the deal executed.

I'm not particularly concerned with short-term money--more with long-term money and potential exits if I can't make partner. So a class cut wouldn't be all that bad, all things considered.

And I'd actually want to go to a group that was more focused on buyout work if at all possible--so M&A/PE. I think that's more interesting than pure-play finance work. Creditor-side RX also seems like an interesting option, though my firm doesn't do a lot of it.

[Anonymous User]

Bumping this with a bit more context: my familial/personal financial situation is such that being a litigator, while I might enjoy it more, doesn't exactly make a lot of sense (frankly I should have pivoted to M&A banking instead of going to law, but can't change the past). As long as I was on track to do appellate work I could justify it in the spirit of doing the most influential/complex thing possible, but now that I doubt I can make that, hustling to something more economically sensible seems the best move.

So maybe a better version of this question is: what area of the law teaches you the most about dealmaking and negotiation s.t. you can use it in a non-legal context?

[The Lsat Airbender]

Chasing a business-side banking role may or may not have a lot of upside, but that doesn't mean it's the most "economically sensible". You need to discount hypothetical earnings a decade from now against the higher possibility of burning out or being mediocre because you enjoy the work less.

Anyway it's hard to imagine what sort of personal factors require more money than one can earn making 3rd-, 4th-, 5th-year salary plus clerkship bonus and then going in-house or to government.

[Anonymous User]

Chasing a business-side banking role may or may not have a lot of upside, but that doesn't mean it's the most "economically sensible". You need to discount hypothetical earnings a decade from now against the higher possibility of burning out or being mediocre because you enjoy the work less.

Anyway it's hard to imagine what sort of personal factors require more money than one can earn making 3rd-, 4th-, 5th-year salary plus clerkship bonus and then going in-house or to government.

You've got my situation backwards but I see how you got there; so, to be clear, this is not about short-term gains from salary, this is about learning how to actually negotiate/close deals so that I could theoretically strike out on my own to do it.

Obviously I'll need to learn valuation and sourcing, etc, independently--but does joining a firm's PE or M&A group give you enough of an insight into how these deals work to start building that knowledge base?

[Anonymous User]

Chasing a business-side banking role may or may not have a lot of upside, but that doesn't mean it's the most "economically sensible". You need to discount hypothetical earnings a decade from now against the higher possibility of burning out or being mediocre because you enjoy the work less.

Anyway it's hard to imagine what sort of personal factors require more money than one can earn making 3rd-, 4th-, 5th-year salary plus clerkship bonus and then going in-house or to government.

You've got my situation backwards but I see how you got there; so, to be clear, this is not about short-term gains from salary, this is about learning how to actually negotiate/close deals so that I could theoretically strike out on my own to do it.

Obviously I'll need to learn valuation and sourcing, etc, independently--but does joining a firm's PE or M&A group give you enough of an insight into how these deals work to start building that knowledge base?

If this is what you want to do or wanted to do why are you clerking for three years?! This is sort of insane. You're going to need to figure out a really good answer to give to interviews.

[Anonymous User]

Chasing a business-side banking role may or may not have a lot of upside, but that doesn't mean it's the most "economically sensible". You need to discount hypothetical earnings a decade from now against the higher possibility of burning out or being mediocre because you enjoy the work less.

Anyway it's hard to imagine what sort of personal factors require more money than one can earn making 3rd-, 4th-, 5th-year salary plus clerkship bonus and then going in-house or to government.

You've got my situation backwards but I see how you got there; so, to be clear, this is not about short-term gains from salary, this is about learning how to actually negotiate/close deals so that I could theoretically strike out on my own to do it.

Obviously I'll need to learn valuation and sourcing, etc, independently--but does joining a firm's PE or M&A group give you enough of an insight into how these deals work to start building that knowledge base?

If this is what you want to do or wanted to do why are you clerking for three years?! This is sort of insane. You're going to need to figure out a really good answer to give to interviews.

I'm clerking for two years, not three--8/2025-8/2027. I'll have one year at a firm (in an NYC office with a strong transactional presence) first.

And the rationale prior was to go for appellate/make a play for a SCOTUS clerkship, but I fell short there. A couple too many Ps and struck out on the true heavy hitter COAs.

Edit: what's funny is that I had to come up with an answer in all my litigation/clerking interviews for why I wasn't trying to be a transactional attorney. Maybe I should have taken that as a hint.

[anon3030]

It does not make sense based on the fact that you might not make the appellate group at your current firm. With your credentials after clerking, you can find an appellate gig somewhere else. Maybe not at the most prestigious firms but you seem like someone who needs to learn that is OK.

[Anonymous User]

It does not make sense based on the fact that you might not make the appellate group at your current firm. With your credentials after clerking, you can find an appellate gig somewhere else. Maybe not at the most prestigious firms but you seem like someone who needs to learn that is OK.

Well, the odds of not making appellate have made me reassess how much I care about pure professional prestige. I think I've built my career mostly on what my peers think of me/what I found most personally prestigious, which is a bad approach.

And while I like appellate work, I don't see it as being all that valuable long-term without that prestige boost that I no longer think has utility. Something like M&A/PE would seem to give a skillset that's far more broadly applicable, especially if I'm looking to exit the law completely in a few years. It just gets heavily looked down upon at my school (there's a certain dirtiness to transactional work that snootier HYS grads aren't interested in taking), so I shied away from it.

If I'm wrong and appellate work/litigation generally does have applicability outside of law, I'm happy to hear it. I remember Peter Thiel saying at a talk I heard him give once that he saw biglaw in general (and biglaw lit in particular) as being completely without transcendental meaning--which at the time I didn't understand, but now I think I'm starting to get. He actually also missed out on SCOTUS--and as a result we got Paypal.

[Anonymous User]

It does not make sense based on the fact that you might not make the appellate group at your current firm. With your credentials after clerking, you can find an appellate gig somewhere else. Maybe not at the most prestigious firms but you seem like someone who needs to learn that is OK.

Well, the odds of not making appellate have made me reassess how much I care about pure professional prestige. I think I've built my career mostly on what my peers think of me/what I found most personally prestigious, which is a bad approach.

And while I like appellate work, I don't see it as being all that valuable long-term without that prestige boost that I no longer think has utility. Something like M&A/PE would seem to give a skillset that's far more broadly applicable, especially if I'm looking to exit the law completely in a few years. It just gets heavily looked down upon at my school (there's a certain dirtiness to transactional work that snootier HYS grads aren't interested in taking), so I shied away from it.

If I'm wrong and appellate work/litigation generally does have applicability outside of law, I'm happy to hear it. I remember Peter Thiel saying at a talk I heard him give once that he saw biglaw in general (and biglaw lit in particular) as being completely without transcendental meaning--which at the time I didn't understand, but now I think I'm starting to get. He actually also missed out on SCOTUS--and as a result we got Paypal.

So what I'm getting is you read zero to one proceeded to have an identity crisis and now no longer want to be a lawyer. Weirdly I just had the same thing happen to a friend.

[Anonymous User]

It does not make sense based on the fact that you might not make the appellate group at your current firm. With your credentials after clerking, you can find an appellate gig somewhere else. Maybe not at the most prestigious firms but you seem like someone who needs to learn that is OK.

Well, the odds of not making appellate have made me reassess how much I care about pure professional prestige. I think I've built my career mostly on what my peers think of me/what I found most personally prestigious, which is a bad approach.

And while I like appellate work, I don't see it as being all that valuable long-term without that prestige boost that I no longer think has utility. Something like M&A/PE would seem to give a skillset that's far more broadly applicable, especially if I'm looking to exit the law completely in a few years. It just gets heavily looked down upon at my school (there's a certain dirtiness to transactional work that snootier HYS grads aren't interested in taking), so I shied away from it.

If I'm wrong and appellate work/litigation generally does have applicability outside of law, I'm happy to hear it. I remember Peter Thiel saying at a talk I heard him give once that he saw biglaw in general (and biglaw lit in particular) as being completely without transcendental meaning--which at the time I didn't understand, but now I think I'm starting to get. He actually also missed out on SCOTUS--and as a result we got Paypal.

So what I'm getting is you read zero to one proceeded to have an identity crisis and now no longer want to be a lawyer. Weirdly I just had the same thing happen to a friend.

Never read zero to one, but otherwise spot on tbh

[The Lsat Airbender]

You've got my situation backwards but I see how you got there; so, to be clear, this is not about short-term gains from salary, this is about learning how to actually negotiate/close deals so that I could theoretically strike out on my own to do it.

Obviously I'll need to learn valuation and sourcing, etc, independently--but does joining a firm's PE or M&A group give you enough of an insight into how these deals work to start building that knowledge base?

Do transactional if you actually want to be a transactional lawyer. You'd be starting an M&A group as a 3rd-year, which puts you behind the 8-ball in terms of becoming some kind of Reginald-Lewis-esque deal wizard.

If you really just want to get out of the law altogether, probably easiest to jump to an MBA.