Anonymous User wrote:I'm a 1L at a (lower) T-14. I'm from Europe, and I've recently decided that my original plan won't work: I don't want to be in NYC after law school; I want to go home (meaning EU, I guess). I know that will be hard to do, and I'm open to working in the US for a couple of years. But what's my best shot if I really, really want a job in Europe? A magic circle firm? A multinational corporation? A US firm with offices overseas? An LLM from a European school? My grades are good (let's, just for the sake of the argument, assume top 20-25% after 1L), and I'm leaning transactional (but know nothing about capital markets etc.).
JohannDeMann;s post is pretty misinformed. You gotta look at the requirements to get licensed for the country in which you want to practice. For example, to become a solicitor in the UK, it only takes an ungrad degree plus a traineeship thing. The way into magic circle firms is to get a top university undergrad degree, and during your last year of college, you would apply for a training contract at those firms (I think that this is the process, but I'm not 100% sure with time frames of when you apply to what). You would work at the firm as a trainee for 2 years for about 40,000 pounds a year. Then the firm hires you (if they like you) as a solicitor and you get bumped to around 60,000 pounds. (Obviously these salaries are a lot lower than they are in US biglaw, which probably reflects the fact that you only need an undergrad degree and the very low levels of debt you have incur to become a lawyer (universities are heavily subsidized in the UK)). As a US law school grad, you're basically never going to get into one of these firms as a UK solicitor since you wouldn't fit into that mold (it's like if you were a
foreign law degree holder and wanted to come to the US and work in biglaw without ever having gone to school here, without being licensed here, and without having gone through the 2L SA hiring program). The process to become a barrister in the UK is pretty difficult, and requires a pupillage that you will quite literally never get unless you redo your entire education and get very lucky. (Although, there was some rule that allowed you to take the qualified foreign lawyers test to become a solicitor for around $12,000, and then once you were a solicitor, you could technically become a barrister---but I highly doubt many people have successfully done that, and even if you do, you probably wouldn't ever get work.)
The alternative is to work in Europe as a US attorney practicing US law, but out of a European office. This also varies largely country by country. But if you want to be in the UK, you could work at a magic circle firm doing transactional securities work. You would be licensed in NY, and would be doing pretty much the same work you would be working for a NY biglaw firm. One nice thing about going this route is that you get paid the same as a NY biglaw associate (so $160k /year salary for your 1st year); although, that salary doesn't go nearly as far in a place as expensive as London (pounds there seem to have the same value as dollars here, despite the fact that each pound costs about $1.50-1.65 (depends on transaction rates at the given time)). Beats only making 60,000 pounds a year, though.
I'd highly recommend reaching out to attorneys in the country in which you want to practice to get more information. If it's something that's more common (e.g. London offices firms came to my law school's OCI each year, and people from class go to London each year), you might be able to find alumni from your law school who you can talk to for more information about the details of what you can do there and how you can do it. I don't think anyone on TLS can provide you with information about how to broadly work in the "EU," since the process is going to vary vastly based on the specific country that you want to work in.