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Attorneys switch/"trade up" firms after 2-3 years out of law school frequent enough. People change firms for a better city, better work, more money, the prestige, etc.

How difficult is it to trade up InHouse positions? specifically, for an IP attorney with an EE background.
Thanks.

It is my understanding that no one really knows what happens to lawyers with any statistical assurance after they enter big firm life other than they no longer work at said big firm for more than 2-4 years.


Most people here when conjecturing about what happens to these lawyers don't generally think they move on to greener pastures, but instead think they move into dumpsters. There is a chance your EE background and IP attorney status will save you from this.

jujujohn wrote:Attorneys switch/"trade up" firms after 2-3 years out of law school frequent enough. People change firms for a better city, better work, more money, the prestige, etc.

How difficult is it to trade up InHouse positions? specifically, for an IP attorney with an EE background.
Thanks.

I went in-house at this point as part of a location move. It required about 8 months of working contacts and hustling, but in the end I was on track for two offers (accepted one before second was finalized). The hardest thing about in house hiring is that it doesn't follow the law firm conventions you are used to. The biggest hurdle is to get past the HR screen- if you are just submitting resumes to HR, there's a 99% chance nobody who matters will see your resume. So the trick is to have someone on the inside give your resume to the people making the decisions. It takes a lot of work to make those connections.

The "easy" way to go in-house is to be seconded to a company by your firm, and then parlay the experience into a permanent offer. In my experience, that tends to happen with associates who are a bit more senior.

In any event, I would say going in house is very doable- especially with your background, but it does take legwork.

I think OP was asking about going from one company to another.

nealric wrote:

jujujohn wrote:Attorneys switch/"trade up" firms after 2-3 years out of law school frequent enough. People change firms for a better city, better work, more money, the prestige, etc.

How difficult is it to trade up InHouse positions? specifically, for an IP attorney with an EE background.
Thanks.

I went in-house at this point as part of a location move. It required about 8 months of working contacts and hustling, but in the end I was on track for two offers (accepted one before second was finalized). The hardest thing about in house hiring is that it doesn't follow the law firm conventions you are used to. The biggest hurdle is to get past the HR screen- if you are just submitting resumes to HR, there's a 99% chance nobody who matters will see your resume. So the trick is to have someone on the inside give your resume to the people making the decisions. It takes a lot of work to make those connections.

The "easy" way to go in-house is to be seconded to a company by your firm, and then parlay the experience into a permanent offer. In my experience, that tends to happen with associates who are a bit more senior.

In any event, I would say going in house is very doable- especially with your background, but it does take legwork.

I think the specifics of getting hired as in-house are very specific to the company and or industry. However, I do agree with nealric, in that you need some sort of connection on the inside to get your resume even looked at. I know when we have had an open in-house position we literally get flooded with thousands of applications, resume, cover letter, ect. for one position. It is too easy to get lost in the mix at that point. Again, agreeing with nealric, I had a business relationship with 3-4 managers within the company, and also I had met two of the company attorneys personally before I even applied for my position. Without it, I would have just been another resume sitting in a stack.

The best way you can answer this is w/r/t data is by using advanced searches on linkedin (or, because their search engine can kind of suck, searching linkedin via google). E.g. you could search linkedin for stone scholars who have corp/trans associate somewhere in their profile, load the first 50 results, then look at each's career path.

nealric wrote:

jujujohn wrote:Attorneys switch/"trade up" firms after 2-3 years out of law school frequent enough. People change firms for a better city, better work, more money, the prestige, etc.

How difficult is it to trade up InHouse positions? specifically, for an IP attorney with an EE background.
Thanks.

I went in-house at this point as part of a location move. It required about 8 months of working contacts and hustling, but in the end I was on track for two offers (accepted one before second was finalized). The hardest thing about in house hiring is that it doesn't follow the law firm conventions you are used to. The biggest hurdle is to get past the HR screen- if you are just submitting resumes to HR, there's a 99% chance nobody who matters will see your resume. So the trick is to have someone on the inside give your resume to the people making the decisions. It takes a lot of work to make those connections.

The "easy" way to go in-house is to be seconded to a company by your firm, and then parlay the experience into a permanent offer. In my experience, that tends to happen with associates who are a bit more senior.

In any event, I would say going in house is very doable- especially with your background, but it does take legwork.

How's your InHouse gig treating ya?
Have you made gains on your salary to be competitive with firm pays?

I have a gig lined up but it's not ideal, therefore the question of how hard is it to switch later. (between in house gigs)

Traynor Brah wrote:The best way you can answer this is w/r/t data is by using advanced searches on linkedin (or, because their search engine can kind of suck, searching linkedin via google). E.g. you could search linkedin for stone scholars who have corp/trans associate somewhere in their profile, load the first 50 results, then look at each's career path.

I searched, bunch of "elite" big law "exiles" went straight to cream of the crop inHouse gigs, as it should be, and are probably loving it.

Not the case here. A perennial underachiever (I) is asking how hard is it to get one of those cream of the crop InHouse gigs 3 years down the line for example.

jujujohn wrote:

nealric wrote:

jujujohn wrote:Attorneys switch/"trade up" firms after 2-3 years out of law school frequent enough. People change firms for a better city, better work, more money, the prestige, etc.

How difficult is it to trade up InHouse positions? specifically, for an IP attorney with an EE background.
Thanks.

I went in-house at this point as part of a location move. It required about 8 months of working contacts and hustling, but in the end I was on track for two offers (accepted one before second was finalized). The hardest thing about in house hiring is that it doesn't follow the law firm conventions you are used to. The biggest hurdle is to get past the HR screen- if you are just submitting resumes to HR, there's a 99% chance nobody who matters will see your resume. So the trick is to have someone on the inside give your resume to the people making the decisions. It takes a lot of work to make those connections.

The "easy" way to go in-house is to be seconded to a company by your firm, and then parlay the experience into a permanent offer. In my experience, that tends to happen with associates who are a bit more senior.

In any event, I would say going in house is very doable- especially with your background, but it does take legwork.

How's your InHouse gig treating ya?
Have you made gains on your salary to be competitive with firm pays?

I have a gig lined up but it's not ideal, therefore the question of how hard is it to switch later. (between in house gigs)

I like in-house very much. It's really a dream job. It felt like being promoted straight to partner in terms of respect and responsibilities, and I go home at 5:30.

My salary is a bit hard to predict. Base is lower than biglaw, but there's a lot more contingent compensation. I made about the same last year as I would have in biglaw all-in. However, my industry is in a cyclical downturn right now, so bonuses may be down this year. Even with no bonus, my hourly wage is certainly higher than it was. Also, I moved from NYC to a place with low COL and lower taxes, so my standard of living is much higher.

I have to admit I misread your initial post as "switching TO in-house". I can't offer direct experience on that, but I will say that most in-house jobs above the entry level go to other in-house lawyers. The in-house community can be pretty tight knit, especially within practice areas. If you are an in-house IP Lawyer at Company X in city Y, you probably know most of the other in-house IP lawyers in city Y. Once you have a good reputation, moving can be pretty easy- just call around and see who has room.

Anonymous User wrote:

jujujohn wrote:

nealric wrote:

jujujohn wrote:Attorneys switch/"trade up" firms after 2-3 years out of law school frequent enough. People change firms for a better city, better work, more money, the prestige, etc.

How difficult is it to trade up InHouse positions? specifically, for an IP attorney with an EE background.
Thanks.

I went in-house at this point as part of a location move. It required about 8 months of working contacts and hustling, but in the end I was on track for two offers (accepted one before second was finalized). The hardest thing about in house hiring is that it doesn't follow the law firm conventions you are used to. The biggest hurdle is to get past the HR screen- if you are just submitting resumes to HR, there's a 99% chance nobody who matters will see your resume. So the trick is to have someone on the inside give your resume to the people making the decisions. It takes a lot of work to make those connections.

The "easy" way to go in-house is to be seconded to a company by your firm, and then parlay the experience into a permanent offer. In my experience, that tends to happen with associates who are a bit more senior.

In any event, I would say going in house is very doable- especially with your background, but it does take legwork.

How's your InHouse gig treating ya?
Have you made gains on your salary to be competitive with firm pays?

I have a gig lined up but it's not ideal, therefore the question of how hard is it to switch later. (between in house gigs)

I like in-house very much. It's really a dream job. It felt like being promoted straight to partner in terms of respect and responsibilities, and I go home at 5:30.

My salary is a bit hard to predict. Base is lower than biglaw, but there's a lot more contingent compensation. I made about the same last year as I would have in biglaw all-in. However, my industry is in a cyclical downturn right now, so bonuses may be down this year. Even with no bonus, my hourly wage is certainly higher than it was. Also, I moved from NYC to a place with low COL and lower taxes, so my standard of living is much higher.

Above post was me- hit anon by mistake.

Anonymous User wrote:

Traynor Brah wrote:The best way you can answer this is w/r/t data is by using advanced searches on linkedin (or, because their search engine can kind of suck, searching linkedin via google). E.g. you could search linkedin for stone scholars who have corp/trans associate somewhere in their profile, load the first 50 results, then look at each's career path.

I searched, bunch of "elite" big law "exiles" went straight to cream of the crop inHouse gigs, as it should be, and are probably loving it.

Not the case here. A perennial underachiever (I) is asking how hard is it to get one of those cream of the crop InHouse gigs 3 years down the line for example.

Well right that's what you'd expect of stone scholars. Search for people with credentials/starting points similar to your own and see what comes up. There's probably going to be more data and detail (pretty stong correlation between "elite" credentials and not having a linkedin/putting anything on it) so you'll get a better idea of what's typical.

Anonymous User wrote:

jujujohn wrote:

nealric wrote:

jujujohn wrote:Attorneys switch/"trade up" firms after 2-3 years out of law school frequent enough. People change firms for a better city, better work, more money, the prestige, etc.

How difficult is it to trade up InHouse positions? specifically, for an IP attorney with an EE background.
Thanks.

I went in-house at this point as part of a location move. It required about 8 months of working contacts and hustling, but in the end I was on track for two offers (accepted one before second was finalized). The hardest thing about in house hiring is that it doesn't follow the law firm conventions you are used to. The biggest hurdle is to get past the HR screen- if you are just submitting resumes to HR, there's a 99% chance nobody who matters will see your resume. So the trick is to have someone on the inside give your resume to the people making the decisions. It takes a lot of work to make those connections.

The "easy" way to go in-house is to be seconded to a company by your firm, and then parlay the experience into a permanent offer. In my experience, that tends to happen with associates who are a bit more senior.

In any event, I would say going in house is very doable- especially with your background, but it does take legwork.

How's your InHouse gig treating ya?
Have you made gains on your salary to be competitive with firm pays?

I have a gig lined up but it's not ideal, therefore the question of how hard is it to switch later. (between in house gigs)

I like in-house very much. It's really a dream job. It felt like being promoted straight to partner in terms of respect and responsibilities, and I go home at 5:30.

My salary is a bit hard to predict. Base is lower than biglaw, but there's a lot more contingent compensation. I made about the same last year as I would have in biglaw all-in. However, my industry is in a cyclical downturn right now, so bonuses may be down this year. Even with no bonus, my hourly wage is certainly higher than it was. Also, I moved from NYC to a place with low COL and lower taxes, so my standard of living is much higher.

that's interesting, regarding the bonuses.
the offer i am getting has a bonus fixed at 10%, 10% of a low 100K base, getting low balled no?

jujujohn wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

jujujohn wrote:

nealric wrote:

jujujohn wrote:Attorneys switch/"trade up" firms after 2-3 years out of law school frequent enough. People change firms for a better city, better work, more money, the prestige, etc.

How difficult is it to trade up InHouse positions? specifically, for an IP attorney with an EE background.
Thanks.

I went in-house at this point as part of a location move. It required about 8 months of working contacts and hustling, but in the end I was on track for two offers (accepted one before second was finalized). The hardest thing about in house hiring is that it doesn't follow the law firm conventions you are used to. The biggest hurdle is to get past the HR screen- if you are just submitting resumes to HR, there's a 99% chance nobody who matters will see your resume. So the trick is to have someone on the inside give your resume to the people making the decisions. It takes a lot of work to make those connections.

The "easy" way to go in-house is to be seconded to a company by your firm, and then parlay the experience into a permanent offer. In my experience, that tends to happen with associates who are a bit more senior.

In any event, I would say going in house is very doable- especially with your background, but it does take legwork.

How's your InHouse gig treating ya?
Have you made gains on your salary to be competitive with firm pays?

I have a gig lined up but it's not ideal, therefore the question of how hard is it to switch later. (between in house gigs)

I like in-house very much. It's really a dream job. It felt like being promoted straight to partner in terms of respect and responsibilities, and I go home at 5:30.

My salary is a bit hard to predict. Base is lower than biglaw, but there's a lot more contingent compensation. I made about the same last year as I would have in biglaw all-in. However, my industry is in a cyclical downturn right now, so bonuses may be down this year. Even with no bonus, my hourly wage is certainly higher than it was. Also, I moved from NYC to a place with low COL and lower taxes, so my standard of living is much higher.

that's interesting, regarding the bonuses.
the offer i am getting has a bonus fixed at 10%, 10% of a low 100K base, getting low balled no?

That's a very low offer compared to what's standard in my industry and company size. However, in-house salaries can very a lot based on those factors.

Besides salary, other benefits can make a big difference in what true compensation is. Does the offer come with a pension? 401k match? Does the company grant stock along with bonuses?

nealric wrote:

jujujohn wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

jujujohn wrote:

nealric wrote:

jujujohn wrote:Attorneys switch/"trade up" firms after 2-3 years out of law school frequent enough. People change firms for a better city, better work, more money, the prestige, etc.

How difficult is it to trade up InHouse positions? specifically, for an IP attorney with an EE background.
Thanks.

I went in-house at this point as part of a location move. It required about 8 months of working contacts and hustling, but in the end I was on track for two offers (accepted one before second was finalized). The hardest thing about in house hiring is that it doesn't follow the law firm conventions you are used to. The biggest hurdle is to get past the HR screen- if you are just submitting resumes to HR, there's a 99% chance nobody who matters will see your resume. So the trick is to have someone on the inside give your resume to the people making the decisions. It takes a lot of work to make those connections.

The "easy" way to go in-house is to be seconded to a company by your firm, and then parlay the experience into a permanent offer. In my experience, that tends to happen with associates who are a bit more senior.

In any event, I would say going in house is very doable- especially with your background, but it does take legwork.

How's your InHouse gig treating ya?
Have you made gains on your salary to be competitive with firm pays?

I have a gig lined up but it's not ideal, therefore the question of how hard is it to switch later. (between in house gigs)

I like in-house very much. It's really a dream job. It felt like being promoted straight to partner in terms of respect and responsibilities, and I go home at 5:30.

My salary is a bit hard to predict. Base is lower than biglaw, but there's a lot more contingent compensation. I made about the same last year as I would have in biglaw all-in. However, my industry is in a cyclical downturn right now, so bonuses may be down this year. Even with no bonus, my hourly wage is certainly higher than it was. Also, I moved from NYC to a place with low COL and lower taxes, so my standard of living is much higher.

that's interesting, regarding the bonuses.
the offer i am getting has a bonus fixed at 10%, 10% of a low 100K base, getting low balled no?

That's a very low offer compared to what's standard in my industry and company size. However, in-house salaries can very a lot based on those factors.

Besides salary, other benefits can make a big difference in what true compensation is. Does the offer come with a pension? 401k match? Does the company grant stock along with bonuses?

none of what you've mentioned.
FML

jujujohn wrote:

nealric wrote:

jujujohn wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

jujujohn wrote:

nealric wrote:

jujujohn wrote:Attorneys switch/"trade up" firms after 2-3 years out of law school frequent enough. People change firms for a better city, better work, more money, the prestige, etc.

How difficult is it to trade up InHouse positions? specifically, for an IP attorney with an EE background.
Thanks.

I went in-house at this point as part of a location move. It required about 8 months of working contacts and hustling, but in the end I was on track for two offers (accepted one before second was finalized). The hardest thing about in house hiring is that it doesn't follow the law firm conventions you are used to. The biggest hurdle is to get past the HR screen- if you are just submitting resumes to HR, there's a 99% chance nobody who matters will see your resume. So the trick is to have someone on the inside give your resume to the people making the decisions. It takes a lot of work to make those connections.

The "easy" way to go in-house is to be seconded to a company by your firm, and then parlay the experience into a permanent offer. In my experience, that tends to happen with associates who are a bit more senior.

In any event, I would say going in house is very doable- especially with your background, but it does take legwork.

How's your InHouse gig treating ya?
Have you made gains on your salary to be competitive with firm pays?

I have a gig lined up but it's not ideal, therefore the question of how hard is it to switch later. (between in house gigs)

I like in-house very much. It's really a dream job. It felt like being promoted straight to partner in terms of respect and responsibilities, and I go home at 5:30.

My salary is a bit hard to predict. Base is lower than biglaw, but there's a lot more contingent compensation. I made about the same last year as I would have in biglaw all-in. However, my industry is in a cyclical downturn right now, so bonuses may be down this year. Even with no bonus, my hourly wage is certainly higher than it was. Also, I moved from NYC to a place with low COL and lower taxes, so my standard of living is much higher.

that's interesting, regarding the bonuses.
the offer i am getting has a bonus fixed at 10%, 10% of a low 100K base, getting low balled no?

That's a very low offer compared to what's standard in my industry and company size. However, in-house salaries can very a lot based on those factors.

Besides salary, other benefits can make a big difference in what true compensation is. Does the offer come with a pension? 401k match? Does the company grant stock along with bonuses?

none of what you've mentioned.
FML

Sounds like a pretty serious lowball to me unless the job is in a small town with really low COL. But don't fret too much. It's not the only company in the world and you are in a marketable niche. Are you in biglaw now? If not, I know some companies have HR departments that make offers according to a fairly rigid formula. Your previous salary may be keeping a lid on what they are offering if it's not currently at biglaw levels.