Publishing out of law school
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 4:04 pm
I'm currently working as a derivatives (ISDA/Prime Brokerage) contract negotiator for an investment bank. While the work is actually pretty interesting, and there is plenty of room to grow within the confines of the role (ie. Expanding the suite of agreements negotiated), I am looking to see how I can get a more well-rounded skill set for my career from a legal perspective. My job is predominantly transactional in nature and largely eludes the regulatory aspects (Dodd Frank, EMIR) of the field ie. Think of a capital markets lawyer who drafts all the underlying documents for a listing but does not have to do any research or compliance work with the 33 and 34 acts. My gut feeling is I could at some point in the distant future move to a firm (big or small) that specializes in this area, as I already do all the transactional work my counterparts at firms do (I negotiate directly with the counterparty’s outside counsel). The only thing missing for me is the kind of regulatory and legal breadth my counterparts at firms are probably getting. To make a long story short, I am wondering how I can get that kind of regulatory and legal experience outside of my current role. My superior and colleagues all welcome any extracurricular research done internally (ie. Memos or primers circulated to the team), as we do work with a bunch of regulations (CEA, EMIR, FATCA) for which we consult specialized internal counsel. However, if in the future I explore other career options, it will be hard to point to those internal memos as concrete accomplishments in the legal/regulatory sphere. Are there publications – perhaps related to the bar or industry groups – that would take submissions from those outside academia and out of law school?