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Long story short, I worked at a boutique for about 2.5 years after law school (elite undergrad, t14, above median but no honors), had recruiters contacting me semi-frequently, pretty much got the first biglaw job I seriously applied for (and had probably four interview offers in a span of about 6 weeks), figured "oh this is easy", had a tough ten months, had an opportunity to go back to my first job and take on a few very exciting projects (plus my wife was pregnant and wanted me around more)...

...now with all the pay raises I want back into big law, in part because the boutique is not keeping up with the biglaw pay scale raises.

Only issue is, I've been sending around my resume and applying to a few places, and I'm getting ZERO positive responses. Like I said, in the past, it felt like lateral'ing into big law was an easy move. I'm now reading online that my initial experience was highly atypical, and it's apparently something near impossible to lateral into?? Is this true? Did I just seriously ruin my entire career?

No you didn’t ruin your career.

What practice group are you in? Lateral hiring is definitely significantly less hot than it was 12 months ago, but it’s still moving pretty rapidly, so just keep trying. Firms will definitely be wary given that you only stuck it out 10 months though so have a good reason in your interview.

I practice in a niche technical area of regulatory law, a WaPo article described the practice area as "esoteric" (a lot of my colleagues found this to be a compliment).

What's a "good" reason?

brightthru2014 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 09, 2022 5:19 pm

I practice in a niche technical area of regulatory law, a WaPo article described the practice area as "esoteric" (a lot of my colleagues found this to be a compliment).

What's a "good" reason?

If you’re referring to the article you appear to be referring to, it looks as if there’s probably a pretty limited number of biglaw firms with that specific need at any time - and capital markets associate hiring has generally dropped off, so that may be why your experience is different this time around. Just keep plugging away until someone needs that speciality.

No point lying about it, but everyone who interviews you is going to be wondering if you just couldn’t handle the biglaw pace in your first 10 month stint, but probably won’t be rude enough to ask - so better to just tell them something up front that handles that concern. Defer to you on what’s believable / grounded in truth.