Lateraling As a First Year Forum

[Anonymous User]

Biglaw first year, made some mistakes a month or two in that led to a coworker going bananas yelling. I think that has had a domino effect, because other people hear and then talk about it. My reputation is pretty shot. I've always been slower picking things up out of the gate than most, but have always had that growth spurt where things "click," and I finish at the top. Unfortunately, this is a game of first impressions, and people have a tendency to interpret subsequent events in a way that reinforces their first impression. So things have clicked and I stopped making mistakes, but know that it's too late and I need to make a move. How does one lateral with such limited experience? Recruiter? Friends, etc.?

[sprezz]

friends might work. i had friends reach out with basically entry level openings in their firms during the first year i was an associate. about 3-4 openings. so it could happen, and if they know you are looking they might give you a call. on the flip side if they know you screwed stuff up they won't want to be the ones that recommended you if you screw them up on stop 2. so navigate that carefully. but it's at least worth a shot.

[Anonymous User]

Would also prefer to switch practice areas. I think my strengths play much better to the practice group I'd like to switch to.

[PMan99]

It's not an either / or: you should reach out to recruiters you know are good and also friends. Use friends / contacts at firms where you have them, use recruiters for other firms, don't be afraid to blindly reach out on your own either. Just be sure you have a reputable recruiter who won't spam your resume without your permission and that you and the recruiter aren't double-submitting.

If you are still getting work I wouldn't worry about lateraling at this time. You will likely have a much easier time as a second year with some experience under your belt. If you're well below target hours, that's a different story.

[Anonymous User]

Not sure if you're in corporate, but some firms place corporate associates in a generalist group and they have the opportunity to try different areas (this is not uncommon). I'm not sure what market you are in, but if it's a decent sized legal market you can lateral as a first year with some hustle. Recruiters are generally terrible, particularly for juniors (hard to justify the recruiting fee). I would identify the firms you are willing to work for and reach out to the hiring coordinator/HR and let them know. Going forward, probably best to frame it as a desire to change practice areas rather than a general desire to GTFO. Also, while it happens, firing a first year is pretty rare. Tends to be more common at lower vault firms or smaller shops, so it would be a good reality check to determine whether this has happened at your firm/office in the past.

[Anonymous User]

Not sure if you're in corporate, but some firms place corporate associates in a generalist group and they have the opportunity to try different areas (this is not uncommon). I'm not sure what market you are in, but if it's a decent sized legal market you can lateral as a first year with some hustle. Recruiters are generally terrible, particularly for juniors (hard to justify the recruiting fee). I would identify the firms you are willing to work for and reach out to the hiring coordinator/HR and let them know. Going forward, probably best to frame it as a desire to change practice areas rather than a general desire to GTFO. Also, while it happens, firing a first year is pretty rare. Tends to be more common at lower vault firms or smaller shops, so it would be a good reality check to determine whether this has happened at your firm/office in the past.

I take a long term perspective on these things, and even if I'm not fired, they're not going to develop me here or give me an opportunity to succeed. As it takes me longer to go from A to B than anyone else, the fact I go from B-Z the quicker than anyone/almost anyone else doesn't help me here. From their perspective, I think it's the right call. Failing at task 1 is a good predictor one will fail at task 2 so the calculus makes sense, and I'd do the same if I were them. As spacial snowflakey as it sounds, I'm the exception here. As a little kid I was in all the slow kids classes and held back, but then skipped a few grades so went from being the oldest to youngest overnight. During 1L, I had gotten e-mails from numerous professors that I'm in danger of failing, should consider tutoring, etc. but pulled an A/A- on most of those exams, because around December, I figured it out. Here, they already think I'm an idiot so there's really no final exam to take.

There's also the personality toll of sticking around for too long - the more everyone thinks you're incompetent, the more incompetent you think you are, which makes it all the harder to succeed. Based on small anecdotal observations, people don't hate big law for the hours - that's what they say and maybe what they think, but they hate it because their confidence and sense of security is constantly going up and down. The hours suck not because the hours suck in and of themselves, but because they're in this seesawing mental state for most of their waking lives.

[eastcoast_iub]

Totally agree that the seesawing mentality and the toll it takes on confidence and sense of security is the worst part of the job. Stresses the fuck out of me sometimes.

[Anonymous User]

Totally agree that the seesawing mentality and the toll it takes on confidence and sense of security is the worst part of the job. Stresses the fuck out of me sometimes.

Also, I lateralled as a first-year OP (with the help of a recruiter), so feel free to PM me.

The thing is I also didn't really get how valuable billable hours were when I started so I didn't give 100% when I should have. I was probably among the most staffed out of the gate likely because I'm very good at legal research so probably did well on those 2-hour projects and probably had the best grades, but it's pure speculation. By not giving 100% I stopped getting staffed on the big projects that are critical to development so most of it's on me, but at the end of the day I just want to succeed. I like my firm a lot and very much wanted to be a profitable investment for them, but that ship's sailed and from a risk-reward standpoint, it's a no brainer to get a do over if I can.

[Anonymous User]

Fellow biglaw first year here. Nothing much to add but I feel like I'm in a similar boat.

I have always been a struggle at first, but then do really well type of student/employee. Also feel like I have damaged my reputation here. Minor mistakes in the first few months, but then was on a good stretch for a few months. Now have received a lot of work and the stress is getting to me. Finding it really difficult to juggle multiple deals (in corporate) and keep effing up minor details, which is pissing people off (although the most harsh feedback has come in the form of passive aggressive emails of course). Would almost prefer someone yelling at me so we could just air everything out.

Anyway, I have followed up with recruiters and received some positive feedback. Turned down a callback a couple months ago because I felt like it was "too soon" and it was another biglaw firm, so it felt like more of the same. Trying to go in-house but finding that is tough as a know-nothing first year. Hope everything works out for you.

[Anonymous User]

Fellow biglaw first year here. Nothing much to add but I feel like I'm in a similar boat.

I have always been a struggle at first, but then do really well type of student/employee. Also feel like I have damaged my reputation here. Minor mistakes in the first few months, but then was on a good stretch for a few months. Now have received a lot of work and the stress is getting to me. Finding it really difficult to juggle multiple deals (in corporate) and keep effing up minor details, which is pissing people off (although the most harsh feedback has come in the form of passive aggressive emails of course). Would almost prefer someone yelling at me so we could just air everything out.

Anyway, I have followed up with recruiters and received some positive feedback. Turned down a callback a couple months ago because I felt like it was "too soon" and it was another biglaw firm, so it felt like more of the same. Trying to go in-house but finding that is tough as a know-nothing first year. Hope everything works out for you.

Thanks. You have to look at being staffed on multiple things at once as an opportunity, and not as a risk. You can rehabilitate your reputation. That said, very early on there's a scapegoat in each class for when something is bad. if you're being blackballed, you will be publicly ridiculed for spending 8 hours on a 4 hour assignment, because you had to redo the other person's work too. For me that was the moment where I stopped caring as much about making it here, and wanted to play for a different team. Granted, I would never throw anyone under the bus, but I did mention that certain things on the original had to be changed. I guess it is possible that I was intentionally sent a document with incorrect information, but assuming I wasn't and just copied the content off the original document and nobody checked over my work, we'd have committed malpractice. It's the damned if you do, damned if you don't moments where you're just like, "Screw it - I want to join the rival firm, and compete against them." Venting isn't constructive. Good luck to you. Focus on individual steps, not the 2 projects at once.

[Anonymous User]

Totally agree that the seesawing mentality and the toll it takes on confidence and sense of security is the worst part of the job. Stresses the fuck out of me sometimes.

Also, I lateralled as a first-year OP (with the help of a recruiter), so feel free to PM me.

The thing is I also didn't really get how valuable billable hours were when I started so I didn't give 100% when I should have. I was probably among the most staffed out of the gate likely because I'm very good at legal research so probably did well on those 2-hour projects and probably had the best grades, but it's pure speculation. By not giving 100% I stopped getting staffed on the big projects that are critical to development so most of it's on me, but at the end of the day I just want to succeed. I like my firm a lot and very much wanted to be a profitable investment for them, but that ship's sailed and from a risk-reward standpoint, it's a no brainer to get a do over if I can.

I am lateraling as a second year and I will just say that you only get so many lateral moves in your biglaw career: one, maybe two before you're out for good. If you're like most and just looking to scrape out 4-5 years, build up a nest egg (or pay down loans), and hop in-house or do something else that you actually want to do, lateraling too early can put you in a bind if your second firm also doesn't work out. So it's a do-over, but it's not necessarily free.

[Anonymous User]

Totally agree that the seesawing mentality and the toll it takes on confidence and sense of security is the worst part of the job. Stresses the fuck out of me sometimes.

Also, I lateralled as a first-year OP (with the help of a recruiter), so feel free to PM me.

The thing is I also didn't really get how valuable billable hours were when I started so I didn't give 100% when I should have. I was probably among the most staffed out of the gate likely because I'm very good at legal research so probably did well on those 2-hour projects and probably had the best grades, but it's pure speculation. By not giving 100% I stopped getting staffed on the big projects that are critical to development so most of it's on me, but at the end of the day I just want to succeed. I like my firm a lot and very much wanted to be a profitable investment for them, but that ship's sailed and from a risk-reward standpoint, it's a no brainer to get a do over if I can.

I am lateraling as a second year and I will just say that you only get so many lateral moves in your biglaw career: one, maybe two before you're out for good. If you're like most and just looking to scrape out 4-5 years, build up a nest egg (or pay down loans), and hop in-house or do something else that you actually want to do, lateraling too early can put you in a bind if your second firm also doesn't work out. So it's a do-over, but it's not necessarily free.

IME, there is some truth to the concern that job hoping gives employers pause, but I think it is overemphasized on TLS. I've seen plenty of people hop around firms without too much scrutiny (including one guy who moved to a new firm every year until he was a 5th year, ultimately landing at a V10). However, part of the limitation in lateraling too much (which gives the TLS hype some limited credence) is a reflection of the biglaw person's typical shelf life.

[Anonymous User]

Totally agree that the seesawing mentality and the toll it takes on confidence and sense of security is the worst part of the job. Stresses the fuck out of me sometimes.

Also, I lateralled as a first-year OP (with the help of a recruiter), so feel free to PM me.

The thing is I also didn't really get how valuable billable hours were when I started so I didn't give 100% when I should have. I was probably among the most staffed out of the gate likely because I'm very good at legal research so probably did well on those 2-hour projects and probably had the best grades, but it's pure speculation. By not giving 100% I stopped getting staffed on the big projects that are critical to development so most of it's on me, but at the end of the day I just want to succeed. I like my firm a lot and very much wanted to be a profitable investment for them, but that ship's sailed and from a risk-reward standpoint, it's a no brainer to get a do over if I can.

I am lateraling as a second year and I will just say that you only get so many lateral moves in your biglaw career: one, maybe two before you're out for good. If you're like most and just looking to scrape out 4-5 years, build up a nest egg (or pay down loans), and hop in-house or do something else that you actually want to do, lateraling too early can put you in a bind if your second firm also doesn't work out. So it's a do-over, but it's not necessarily free.

IME, there is some truth to the concern that job hoping gives employers pause, but I think it is overemphasized on TLS. I've seen plenty of people hop around firms without too much scrutiny (including one guy who moved to a new firm every year until he was a 5th year, ultimately landing at a V10). However, part of the limitation in lateraling too much (which gives the TLS hype some limited credence) is a reflection of the biglaw person's typical shelf life.

I'm in a place where I'm much more concerned about getting an offer than long term negatives. I see these as reasons I might be screwed as opposed definitely being screwed. I picked the wrong practice group, and annoyed the wrong people. I'm still getting grief for one mistake at the very beginning. I didn't really explain the circumstances surrounding it and when asked to explain vaguely tapped around it, because it would've presented an hr issue and I didn't expect it to still come up months later. However, it's also possible the mistake is being blown up, because they simply don't like me.

[sprezz]

this is starting to feel flamey but whatever: if you suck at going from A to B so bad then how about you not switch practice groups?

[Anonymous User]

I have experience doing work the other group does. I also messed up my first assignment there, which resulted in a meeting where I was taken off the project, but I progressed enough that it was a nonissue and I was only told my reviews were "outstanding." Of course, there could be sugarcoating because once a business decides to hire somebody, there's no sense in saying anything else. Nevertheless, the things I'm good at are all useful in that group whereas they're probably disadvantageous in the one I chose.

[Anonymous User]

OP again - not sure if this is worth mentioning to anyone. I've had 2 opportunities to raise it, but I've only seriously considered disclosing it after realizing that the situation has harmed my ability to get my work since. Basically, because I was willing to work over Thanksgiving, I had read all the documents for a case before anyone else had so was able to get a few partners up to speed.

A third year was put on the team as well, and immediately asserted her authority. I started getting a bunch of make work that kept me there till midnight for a few weeks - basically every night I was doing the same thing over and over. When partners called to ask factual questions, she'd get upset because she was responsible for me so my instructions were to check in with her before responding. Often this seemed stupid so I would just give the answer, and not tell her somebody had called. When she found out she would get upset, and accuse me of not respecting her authority.

This cycle repeated for a few days until she started to make threats about getting me off the matter and saying negative things about me to partners if I didn't follow her exact instructions word for word so I stopped asking questions, and would do these pointless tasks all night every night and then send an e-mail about the pointless task to everyone as per her instructions.

If I responded to anything related to the matter or another matter the threats would get more severe, and insults and aggressive yelling would follow. I would try to brush it off, but it was hard because by this point that matter was basically all of my waking hours and they were in a dysfunctional relationship with somebody I had become genuinely afraid of. Somewhere along here I burnt out, and really wanted to get off the matter. At 2 AM one night, after she went through a bid on how I was a fucking idiot who has no respect for authority, I sent her intentionally poor work product, which was obviously a bad decision. However, she then forwarded it to everyone else and I was taken off the matter. She's now gone (I think voluntarily), and nothing about the fact she's crazy excuses sending intentionally poor work product, but the situation continues to haunt me and is brought up at every performance review.

I've been hesitant to bring the professional bullying up, because the whole thing was very awkward and I don't want to turn it into a big human resources thing. Would this be something I should bring up the next time it's mentioned? The way it's been interpreted is that if I work too many hours, I'll have egregiously bad judgment. Basically I put something ridiculous into a document expecting her to read it, and use it to trash me, which is what happened. I didn't put much thought into it, and didn't see it having long term consequences.

I've never mentioned the work product was intentionally poor to get me off the matter, because that would seemingly only make it worse so I've played it off as being burnt out, and not thinking things over as effectively. Would mentioning this months later only make it worse? Objectively speaking, I don't think anybody would care about it if I was billing more hours, but this has impacted my billable hours. I also don't think the fact I bore the wrath of a stressed out sociopath doesn't change the fact that I sent out incredibly poor work product - if anything saying it was intentional could make it worse so I don't know how to go about it.

[L’Étranger]

A third year associate has zero authority. I'm not saying tell them to fuck off, but basically, you can if you want to.

Associates make mistakes. If stuff like this happens to anyone, it's okay, just move on. People really do forget.

[Anonymous User]

A third year associate has zero authority. I'm not saying tell them to fuck off, but basically, you can if you want to.

Associates make mistakes. If stuff like this happens to anyone, it's okay, just move on. People really do forget.

It keeps on getting brought up though. I'm still asked about it 7 months later. I'm assuming it was the first time she had authority on a matter, I don't know. I thought she was smart and had respect for her, but she interpreted any perceived disagreement or midnight yawn as rebelling against her authority. Her reputation was being tough to deal with when stressed, but not like this. Despite having 60 pounds on her, I literally felt like a battered spouse and just hearing her name still scares the shit out of me. I'm also not sensitive. I've been yelled at by partners, and it's embarrassing but not scary. With her, there were times that if she had a gun, I'm 99% sure she'd have shot me.

[L’Étranger]

Don't dwell on personal stuff. It sucks. Brush it off. Just do good work going forward.

[20160810]

This is probably a major overreaction.

[Anonymous User]

Don't dwell on personal stuff. It sucks. Brush it off. Just do good work going forward.

I was just asked about it again a few days ago, which is why I'm dwelling. It was implied it's why I don't get as much work as others. It could also be that it's a good objective paper trail basis upon which to lay someone off, but I didn't get the impression I was being laid off - just you need to bill more, because of this you gotta not only work hard but do everything impeccably. The lateraling idea is more related to the feeling that my peak potential in this practice area is maybe above average when long term you have to be an expert in something to survive.

[20160810]

Don't dwell on personal stuff. It sucks. Brush it off. Just do good work going forward.

I was just asked about it again a few days ago, which is why I'm dwelling. It was implied it's why I don't get as much work as others. It could also be that it's a good objective paper trail basis upon which to lay someone off, but I didn't get the impression I was being laid off - just you need to bill more, because of this you gotta not only work hard but do everything impeccably. The lateraling idea is more related to the feeling that my peak potential in this practice area is maybe above average when long term you have to be an expert in something to survive.

You certainly can lateral. Generally if you can get hired at one biglaw firm you can get hired at another. But you're going to need to have a good answer for the question of why you're leaving immediately, and you can expect some skepticism, so your idea of switching practice groups is probably a good one if you go this route (since "I'm doing corp but want to do lit" is a good answer to why you're leaving).

But keep in mind that once you've lateraled, you're going to be stuck for a while. Leaving one firm quickly can be written off for a number of reasons. Leaving two firms quickly will mark you as a pariah.

Which is why I wouldn't rush to do that. You said you have a slow learning curve. If you want to leave, you seem to get that you're likely going to need to switch groups, which means a reset on that learning curve. So you're very likely to have the same experience of making rookie mistakes. And really nobody loves it at any firm when associates do that.

So your best bet might be to stay put for 6 months and see if you can't mend fences with good work.

[DELG]

Can you rotate groups in the firm

[20160810]

Can you rotate groups in the firm

This is a good idea but might not solve the problem because whoever runs Group B is overwhelmingly likely to call whoever runs Group A and ask what this guy is like

[DELG]

Can you rotate groups in the firm

This is a good idea but might not solve the problem because whoever runs Group B is overwhelmingly likely to call whoever runs Group A and ask what this guy is like

Totally agree and OP will probably lateral eventually but if at all possible better to learn a new practice group here, get away from the people bringing him down, and have the skills to move to a new firm in the desired group.

IME firms are actually remarkably willing to let associates move even if they didn't build a stellar rep in the first group.