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I SAed with the main (NY) office of a firm this summer, and I'm considering asking if I can start as an associate at a satellite office (in another relatively large city).

Does anybody have any experience with this?

This post is relevant to my interests.

Anonymous User wrote:I SAed with the main (NY) office of a firm this summer, and I'm considering asking if I can start as an associate at a satellite office (in another relatively large city).

Does anybody have any experience with this?

Actually just did this two days ago with a V20 firm. Formally requested to switch offices (I went from satellite to other satellite, though). It took all of 24 hours to approve, and they were really great about it. I had pretty solid reasons for wanting to be in City 2, however, so something more than "you know, I'd really rather start here" probably won't be enough.

Best of luck.

I did this with my SA firm (main office to satellite). Prior to making the formal request, I had an attorney at the main office who knew the practice group head in the satellite office make an email introduction. That way I had the satellite office practice group head's approval (not formal, but at least his encouragement) prior to asking the firm formally. Worked out pretty easily.

ETA: I also had a good reason for wanting to be in the other office and I happened to be interested in an area that they were growing in the satellite office. Those issues are probably relevant to your attempt as well.

It definitely depends on the firm. I think the more "national" firms will be much more accommodating in this respect than other firms.

This is all very encouraging.

Is it more difficult to transfer after working one year in the main office? If this is too much of a deviation from the original question, just ignore me.

Anybody else have any experience with this?

No direct experience yet (2L), but this was a major concern of mine when selecting firms so I made sure to ask all the firms that i had offers with about their policy about inter-firm transfers.

From what I've gathered, it is much easier to transfer within firms with coordinated hiring models than for firms that silo recruiting by office location. Coordinated recruiting = attorneys from all locations participate in a firmwide hiring committee, they have mixed-office interview schedules during EIP as opposed to different schedules for different offices, offices do not make independent hiring decisions to the extent where it would be possible for you to get an offer at one location and get rejected at another location of the same firm.

Other factors that facilitate transferring include whether your practice area interest matches up with the practice needs of the desired office, whether you've been staffed on cross-office matters, whether the firm prefers homegrown v. lateral associates when hiring mid-levels, whether or not they like you enough to want to keep you at the firm, whether the firm has visitor offices and encourages associates to work from different locations, and whether you start out at the HQ (it seems to be much easier to transfer from a firm's HQ-->satellite than the other way around).

The firm I ended up going with (V25) has an extremely flexible transfer policy, even an internal database where associates are informed of the various needs and growing practices by office to facilitate location-switching.

Has anyone else had experience asking about this before they summered?

I want to be in DC, but may need to be in NYC after graduation in 2013 (significant other consideration, although will know where I need to be by July 2012). If I like my DC option (big offices in NYC and DC, both do corporate) better for the summer, how do I ask about the possibility of summering in DC and then going to NYC full-time?