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So, the only offer it looks like I’m going to get is from a satellite office of a big NYC firm that only does transactional work. That’s great, I’m lucky, and I’m going to accept. But the problem is that the work doesn’t line up with my lifetime career goals. I want to be a judge one day. Now, putting aside all the other issues that make that hard to do (political connections, etc.), I don’t think starting out as, say, a capital markets attorney will set me up well for that. I’m not interested (at least right now) in going in-house, which is usually where transactional attorneys go to settle down. So, here’s my career plan.

Caveat: I know a lot of this is far away and subject to change. What I’m concerned with is its viability. ~Can~ I do something like this? Or does the legal profession not facilitate this?

Step 1: Run with the transactional work at the firm until I get the boot.
Step 2: Do clerkship(s).
Step 3: Start over in litigation.
Step 4; ?????
Step 5: ???????????????
Step 6: Judge, maybe.

Is that something that can happen? I’d be sad if I had to give up the dream.

Caveat: haven't done this and have limited firm experience. But based on my experience with clerking, I think you can use a clerkship to shift from corp to lit - I think clerking gives you a really great opportunity to say "I started out working on X, but during my clerkship I was exposed to a really wide range of practice areas, and realized that my talents and interests really lend themselves more to lit." Plus, the experience is just more applicable to litigation, so clerking will make you more attractive to lit.

However, I wouldn't stick at the transactional firm until you get the boot - I'd try to clerk right after graduation or as soon after that as possible, and use the clerkship term to network with litigation firms, and jump ship after the clerkship. Maybe a year after graduation would work better, since clerkships are much less valuable to corporate firms, and they might not want to hold your offer open during the clerkship. But I think the more time you spend at the corporate firm, the harder the switch would be.

Are you a 2L? Why not give it a shot and try to do 3L OCI if you hated it?

I don't have an answer for you, but PM me if you'd like. I was in a somewhat similar situation.

I wanted to do lit, but got a transactional position at a top firm and have decided to do corporate for that reason.

(prestige whore)