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What are the exit options for an associate in Big Law at a well-regarded tax department in NY (doing general corporate tax)?

What are the common career paths? Is gov't work a feasible option, or does that require D.C. big law/regulatory experience? In-house? Boutique?

(Note: I have reviewed taxtalent.com, but was hoping to get more perspectives from lawyers)

Community of practicing tax attorneys on this website has to be tiny. I would take all the incoming 0L responses with a grain of salt. You might try taxtalent for a more realistic response.

That said, I'm interested in this as well. Are you deals, controversy or planning?

some go to accounting firms, but that doesn't seem much like an exit

I would imagine that working for the IRS or Department of Treasury is a popular exit. Nothing to back this up besides common sense though. I know some independent tax lawyers who do pretty well, that might be an option.

patrickd139: I will be starting in the fall and was attempting to weigh my options in tax. It would be working on the tax aspects of M&A, financings, etc. I thought this fell under the umbrella of "planning"?

Anonymous User wrote:patrickd139: I will be starting in the fall and was attempting to weigh my options in tax. It would be working on the tax aspects of M&A, financings, etc. I thought this fell under the umbrella of "planning"?

Sorry, I meant to put "estate" before "planning." You're right, though.

Why tax? Any experience?

I know that Chief Counsel in the IRS is pretty popular, which probably means it isn't very easy to get. I'm there for the summer and have overheard some hiring discussions about particular candidates and the standards have seemed fairly high. It's pretty tough to accurately gauge that since each branch within each division does their own hiring the candidates need very relevant experience within that particular niche. That's about all I can say, which is probably of pretty minimal value to you.

OP, why would you not want to start your own tax practice after you get some experience? This board generally avoids talking about it, but the money is in starting your own business if money is something that motivates you.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:OP, why would you not want to start your own tax practice after you get some experience? This board generally avoids talking about it, but the money is in starting your own business if money is something that motivates you.

Tax is not an area that lends itself to solo practitioners, at least aside from personal income tax. And biglaw tax lawyers do not deal with personal income tax. (You'd get more exposure to individual tax issues in trusts & estates or employee benefits.) Corporate and partnership tax, which is the work biglaw tax lawyers do, is almost entirely deal-driven, so you need deal lawyers around to do deals and provide you with work. The small amount of general, non-deal-driven corporate tax work is mostly concentrated in high-level corporations that will only hire big-name law and accounting firms anyway.

Common tax exits are the IRS/Treasury/state tax bureaus, smaller law firms where you'll probably be the only tax person, accounting firms, and tax departments at corporations, usually banks or private equity (but GM, for example, has something like 10 in-house tax lawyers).

in house at banks, insurance companies, PE, anyone who makes investments. Tons of exit options (I know lots of tax lawyers)

Anonymous User wrote:in house at banks, insurance companies, PE, anyone who makes investments. Tons of exit options (I know lots of tax lawyers)

Even better if you can develop a new tax structure and start a business around it (I know people who have done this - but good luck coming up with a viable, marketable structure)

dingbat wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:in house at banks, insurance companies, PE, anyone who makes investments. Tons of exit options (I know lots of tax lawyers)

Even better if you can develop a new tax structure and start a business around it (I know people who have done this - but good luck coming up with a viable, marketable structure)

Like Derivium Capital? http://www.forbes.com/global/2005/1017/030A.html

ben4847 wrote:

dingbat wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:in house at banks, insurance companies, PE, anyone who makes investments. Tons of exit options (I know lots of tax lawyers)

Even better if you can develop a new tax structure and start a business around it (I know people who have done this - but good luck coming up with a viable, marketable structure)

Like Derivium Capital? http://www.forbes.com/global/2005/1017/030A.html

Nice.

Not what I was thinking of, but I can't list the ones I'm thinking of due to confidentiality issues. Let's just say there are honest and legal structures too.

The key is to set the structure up before making the investment, not to retroactively try to avoid paying tax.