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see title, my best friend ever, who will start at Kirkland and Ellis's Chicago office, told me that all he can think about right now is his exit options, I thought this was kinda weird, a couple of associates who I've had the opportunity to talk to at my offered-accepted law firm for next summer also alluded to fantastic exit options, thoughts?

it's never a bad idea to plan ahead

you could be stealthed as a first year

Do your best to enjoy your time at the firm, but at many 95%+ will not make partner and 80%+ will leave within a few years, either for not being up to snuff or because a better option comes along. Going into big law without thinking about what your 2nd job will be is sort of like going into law school without researching the legal hiring market.

How do you know the exit options? I mean, really know them. Is it best just to use Vault and other general prestige ideas as a rough correlative?

spondee wrote:How do you know the exit options? I mean, really know them. Is it best just to use Vault and other general prestige ideas as a rough correlative?

Probably. There's no robust data set, but you can get a feel by asking around. You'll see some firms feed people into banks, most firms feed people into the GC's office of corporations they represent (and you can find out what corporations they represent fairly easily), some firms feed into DoJ / prosecutorial work, some firms feed into certain government programs, etc.

It's very hard to draw distinctions between similar firms, but easier to see the difference across markets. If you want to work for a bank after working for a firm, DC is probably a bad idea, for example.

Some firms are quite candid about careers their attorneys go on to after the firm, others pretend nobody ever leaves.

disco_barred wrote:Some firms are quite candid about careers their attorneys go on to after the firm, others pretend nobody ever leaves.

This. I talked to one firm that was fairly open about the fact that they sent a lot of people to federal government positions, especially DOJ and SEC, and had a lot of former employees there who provided solid connections in that direction.

vanwinkle wrote:

disco_barred wrote:Some firms are quite candid about careers their attorneys go on to after the firm, others pretend nobody ever leaves.

This. I talked to one firm that was fairly open about the fact that they sent a lot of people to federal government positions, especially DOJ and SEC, and had a lot of former employees there who provided solid connections in that direction.

I think this largely depends on the sector. Regulatory lawyers like to boast about a revolving door with the enforcement agencies, because it's great for the practice to have those folks on the team. M&A lawyers, by contrast, have a paycheck inferiority complex and don't want to admit that banks are able to poach folks away.

a dc firm that i interviewed with told my that they even encourage attorneys to work in fed agencies for a year or two and then come back to the firm. id imagine everyone wins bc then you come back to the firm with some great connections and get to take a break from biglaw and evaluate if you want to permanently exit or stick with biglaw

The chance of making partner at most large firms is small. If you are headed to a large firm, failing to consider exit options at this stage seems strange.