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2.5 years into biglaw (real estate). My firm is full of lovely people and the hours aren't any crazier than usual biglaw, I'm just... over it. I hate billing time, I'm not wildly into working for so many different clients, and I loved being in-house during the two externships I did at different companies in law school. I'm starting to feel like I really can't go 5 years before bailing out.

So my question is, how do I start looking to transition? Should I just be checking job listing sites and googling companies I know and like? If anyone has advice or can point me to relevant previous threads I'd really appreciate it!

best thing to do is network and hit up your buddies who work in f500 to push your resume along when you see an opening anywhere. spamming your resume is a crapshoot. I've been passively applying via linkedin for a couple years now and barely have even gotten an interview from anywhere (this is nyc). my paper credentials are very strong, so I don't think it's me, I just think there are way too many people applying for publicly posted positions. and from personal experience the people I know who went in house did it via networking.

Anonymous User wrote:best thing to do is network and hit up your buddies who work in f500 to push your resume along when you see an opening anywhere. spamming your resume is a crapshoot. I've been passively applying via linkedin for a couple years now and barely have even gotten an interview from anywhere (this is nyc). my paper credentials are very strong, so I don't think it's me, I just think there are way too many people applying for publicly posted positions. and from personal experience the people I know who went in house did it via networking.

I think for your first inhouse job this may be the case. Even then, I got an inhouse job in 2014 from a regional biglaw firm doing tech trans and corporate with 2.5 years experience outside of that respective market. Things are also much easier for tech trans, privacy, and SEC lawyers. I essentially rebranded myself inhouse to be a tech trans and privacy lawyer. 4-5 years out, I basically got an interview for every privacy job (from indeed.com) that I applied for and maybe half of the tech trans jobs that I applied for.

I think things are a little harder for corporate and real estate lawyers. Things are A LOT harder for litigators....

I found my two corp/transactional in-house positions using Indeed.

As a side note, I agree with the poster who said it's A LOT harder for lit associates. From what I have seen, in-house legal departments just don't have a need for in-house lit associates since we use outside counsel for that stuff. I also have some friends who are lit associates that just couldn't get any bites, even with amazing credentials. Most of them wound up going from biglaw to boutique firms.

I have no idea what the market looks like for real estate associates, but I assume companies like CBRE would need them?

I found goinhouse.com to be a great resource. I got several interviews from there, even as a second year.

I actually found my in-house job through a recruiter. This recruiter, like most recruiters, focuses on lateral moves. However, I'd made it clear that I was primarily interested in going in-house, and when she heard about this opportunity, she reached out to me immediately. It's certainly worth a shot.

Anonymous User wrote:4-5 years out, I basically got an interview for every privacy job (from indeed.com) that I applied for and maybe half of the tech trans jobs that I applied for.

Are you a CIPP?

Also check out Ventureloop if you want to work for startups.