Non-Law Job Options from Biglaw (transactional) Forum

[Anonymous User]

What are some good options for non-law positions, including more realistic options? Anecdotes welcome.

The question is focused on juniors in biglaw (transactional) who have decided that it is time to GTFO of law.

Happy New Year everyone

[crazycanuck]

I recently hired an ex lawyer into a risk management position. The goal is to eventually have him be responsible for managing our governance risk and compliance program.

[Anonymous User]

I recently accepted a job in a risk management-type position at an investment bank. Mix of finance, regulatory, risk, project management. Seems way better than big law.

[crazycanuck]

Yeah risk management is a really growing field right now. It got big after Enron then died down a bit in the mid 00s and now boards are all over it. It's definitely an area where law experience + a risk management designation could be really powerful.

[Johann]

Yeah risk management is a really growing field right now. It got big after Enron then died down a bit in the mid 00s and now boards are all over it. It's definitely an area where law experience + a risk management designation could be really powerful.

what did you look for in candidates? also shoot me a pm next time youre hiring for one.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah risk management is a really growing field right now. It got big after Enron then died down a bit in the mid 00s and now boards are all over it. It's definitely an area where law experience + a risk management designation could be really powerful.

what did you look for in candidates? also shoot me a pm next time youre hiring for one.

I didn't develop the job reqs, the CFO did, I was in the interview and on the selection committee. We didn't ask any technical questions as the person met the technical requirements (experience at a law firm in an area kind of similar to ours). It was mostly us getting a feel for them. Our biggest questions at the end were around whether the person could be put in front of the board without making us look bad, whether we felt like that person could build a team. Basically leadership and communication.

Edit: we also grilled him on big picture organization stuff. We spent time talking about how a strong grc program can be used to drive our company strategy. That was about as technical as it got.

The more I've been involved in senior management, the more I realized technical knowledge isn't really important. It's 95% "can you talk and lead people"

[crazycanuck]

Oops above is obviously me.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the responses all. Sounds like risk managment can be a receptive place to look for certain biglaw people (would be interested to hear about how an M&A associate would be received when applying though).

How about business or government positions - anybody have any interesting anecdotes there?

[Danger Zone]

Reluctantly tagging, haven't fully come around to this yet

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the responses all. Sounds like risk managment can be a receptive place to look for certain biglaw people (would be interested to hear about how an M&A associate would be received when applying though).

How about business or government positions - anybody have any interesting anecdotes there?

Depends on your background. I had a finance/regulatory background before, during and after (worked somewhere else before big law) law school, so they didn't really care what practice group I came from. Also depends on the type of role, more quantitative roles don't go to lawyers (unless they have more quant focused backgrounds). It seems like the other people from big law that were hired worked at top firms in bank/securities regulation areas.

Business positions are luck of the draw, people don't hit up big law associates looking to hire them for non legal jobs. Need to network and work harder to find those, or go inhouse and transition to the b-side

[Anonymous User]

There is a CFO at a big airline who started his career as General Counsel at that company and became CFO. He, however, has some sort of finance background in undergrad (not exactly sure but something like math, econ double major)

[FluidMosaic]

Tag

[Anonymous User]

Do not want to hijack this thread but feel I have an important message. I and many of my other classmates were transactional juniors who switched to business. The majority of us preferred being in law and realized the grass is always greener.

I returned to a botique law firm recently and am happier than I have ever been. Biglaw is not the only place to practice law and all law firms really are not the same. Before you go cutting your salary in half like a lot of my Biglaw friends who hate their new job just as much, I really encourage you to try look for a better firm.

[J90]

Do not want to hijack this thread but feel I have an important message. I and many of my other classmates were transactional juniors who switched to business. The majority of us preferred being in law and realized the grass is always greener.

I returned to a botique law firm recently and am happier than I have ever been. Biglaw is not the only place to practice law and all law firms really are not the same. Before you go cutting your salary in half like a lot of my Biglaw friends who hate their new job just as much, I really encourage you to try look for a better firm.

What sort of transactional boutique are you at now, if you don't mind my asking? Feel free to PM me. Thank you!

[Anonymous User]

I do the same exact work I did in Biglaw so there's no need to provide you with specifics. I just went to a less prestigious firm and my only criteria for my next firm was how I liked the people. Biglaw sucks because it is filled with some of the most toxic, anal, mean spirited people I have ever encountered. The new place I work at has the nicest people ever, everyone is smiling, and everyone just enjoys working there and keeping things loose with each other.

Practicing with people who don't give a shit about prestige, pointless issues, etc. has completely tranformed my experience.

[Anonymous User]

I do the same exact work I did in Biglaw so there's no need to provide you with specifics. I just went to a less prestigious firm and my only criteria for my next firm was how I liked the people. Biglaw sucks because it is filled with some of the most toxic, anal, mean spirited people I have ever encountered. The new place I work at has the nicest people ever, everyone is smiling, and everyone just enjoys working there and keeping things loose with each other.

Practicing with people who don't give a shit about prestige, pointless issues, etc. has completely tranformed my experience.

What was it about business you didnt like

[Anonymous User]

I do the same exact work I did in Biglaw so there's no need to provide you with specifics. I just went to a less prestigious firm and my only criteria for my next firm was how I liked the people. Biglaw sucks because it is filled with some of the most toxic, anal, mean spirited people I have ever encountered. The new place I work at has the nicest people ever, everyone is smiling, and everyone just enjoys working there and keeping things loose with each other.

Practicing with people who don't give a shit about prestige, pointless issues, etc. has completely tranformed my experience.

To follow up, how many hours do you work and what is the pressure like w/r/t hours? How much vacation time do you have? What are the chances of partnership (and how long is the track)? Do you see yourself staying there long-term? Is this litigation or transactional?

[Anonymous User]

I do the same exact work I did in Biglaw so there's no need to provide you with specifics. I just went to a less prestigious firm and my only criteria for my next firm was how I liked the people. Biglaw sucks because it is filled with some of the most toxic, anal, mean spirited people I have ever encountered. The new place I work at has the nicest people ever, everyone is smiling, and everyone just enjoys working there and keeping things loose with each other.

Practicing with people who don't give a shit about prestige, pointless issues, etc. has completely tranformed my experience.

What was it about business you didnt like

I did half in house half business. The in house legal work is extremely basic and a lot of law firms have resistance hiring you because of how low your legal writing skills become (I got many rejections and I know my friends Biglaw firm receives HUNDREDS of in house applications and they wholesale reject them all).

Business decisions are also extremely basic and require little specialized experience. A lot of business is frankly confidence and bravado. If I wanted to business, I could have gotten an mba. I just like being a "specialist" who others with minimal knowledge in my area rely upon. It all depends upon your personality, but you chose a pricier law degree over an MBA for a reason right??

[Anonymous User]

Bump

[somewhatwayward]

For all the people talking about risk management, is that like compliance work? It sounds somewhat broader while compliance might be specifically focused on the technical regulations of a certain area or something, but I have been hesitant to consider compliance work because the people I deal with in compliance seem pretty miserable so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about risk management versus compliance.

I do the same exact work I did in Biglaw so there's no need to provide you with specifics. I just went to a less prestigious firm and my only criteria for my next firm was how I liked the people. Biglaw sucks because it is filled with some of the most toxic, anal, mean spirited people I have ever encountered. The new place I work at has the nicest people ever, everyone is smiling, and everyone just enjoys working there and keeping things loose with each other.

Practicing with people who don't give a shit about prestige, pointless issues, etc. has completely tranformed my experience.

I don't know where you worked in big law but my subjective experience is very different...the only thing I can really relate to in this is "pointless issues" lol. But mean spirited and toxic? Not IME. Prestige plays a major role in hiring but once at the firm I haven't noticed it that much. I want to work with the best junior associate and I don't give a shit that he didn't go to a T14. I see a lot more of that meritocratic attitude than I see prestige obsession. I don't doubt your experience but you're kind of making it sound like it's universal (and you'll scare the children - I mean 3Ls - won't anyone please think of the children?1!? )

Big law will burn you out but I think more commonly it is the conflicting impossible-to-meet demands and unpredictable long hours esp while eg attending to a pointless issue during your best friend's wedding or whatever that eventually get to you. I guess in some firms it is that plus toxic people.

[somewhatwayward]

Oh also this isn't for everyone but palantir would consider hiring a JD (or big lawyer a few years out) for some of their substantive positions, so totally non-law-related work. I know someone who works there so if interested shoot me a PM. I should note, speaking of prestige, that palantir is pretty prestige oriented so a JD from an elite school will help a lot.

[crazycanuck]

For all the people talking about risk management, is that like compliance work? It sounds somewhat broader while compliance might be specifically focused on the technical regulations of a certain area or something, but I have been hesitant to consider compliance work because the people I deal with in compliance seem pretty miserable so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about risk management versus compliance.

Compliance is generally a part of risk management(risk of non-compliance). Risk is a very broad field and can mean a lot of things though. For instance, my org has almost no compliance requirements, but we are really big into strategic risks and using those strategic risks to drive our corporate strategy. Risk will often cover a lot of areas like operations, business continuity planning/disaster recovery planning, compliance, finance/accounting, marketings, sales, production, insurance, customer service, legal, etc. Some organizations even put IT security into the risk management bucket (We have IT security and the risk team work together a lot).

A lot of risk management is figuring out where the sweet spot is between taking advantage of an opportunity and controlling the risks that come with that opportunity (but not controlling it too much). It's a growing field right now and has, I think, a lot of potential for smart people to carve out a niche and potentially change it a lot. It's a pretty new technique for businesses (started to occur in the 90s, then in early 00s put in place to meet SOX requirements, and now that SOX is mostly imbedded orgs are figuring out ways to make risks work for them, make them a better more efficient organization, and figuring out ways to make risk management drive strategy. I think it could be an exciting field to be in. I do some risk management (part of my job is to oversee/work with our risk management team) and I think it's a really interesting/cool area. We are starting to use risk management as part of our performance reviews, so one of the projects we have the team working on is figuring out the key risk indicators for executives and leadership team, tracking those risk indicators throughout the year to see how they are managing their risks, and that will play into their performance measurement and job evaluations. We will also use those indicators for business planning and strategic planning. Hopefully we'll be able to use trending data to determine what times of the year we are more exposed to our risks, and begin to develop strategies to address or take advantage of those risks (risk isn't always a bad thing, risks present opportunities too) ahead of time. It's probably my favourite part of my job right now.

Just an overview of ERM:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterpris ... management

[Anonymous User]

Bump