3:00 anon here. I'm busy at work, and I'm nervous about this thread because my career trajectory (biglaw --> capital defense --> not capital defense) is unusual enough to pose some risk of outing, but this is also the rare thread where that unusual experience could actually be useful to someone else, so I'll try to answer your questions and issues as time permits.
Anonymous User wrote:4. Besides the money, I'm looking at biglaw because it offers a really great chance to get trained on complicated legal matters by exceptionally well resourced companies. Government and non profit attorneys have advised me to do biglaw before transitioning for that reason. Does that make sense?
I actually think there's some wisdom to your wanting to buy/finance a place before transitioning into public interest, as long as you understand the risks that (a) you may not be allowed to make the transition at all; and (b) as another poster pointed out, you are likely to need to move to get your first capital defense job, so you should probably save the money but not purchase until you've accepted the new job. It's hard to make ends meet on a capital defense salary, and I met many others in the field (both men and women) whose significant other's salary paid the bills. If you don't have that, there's an argument for stockpiling the money to get your mortgage taken care of.
However, there's little wisdom to the idea of heading to biglaw *as training for capital habeas work.* There is almost no translation between the two fields, and no employer on either side of the fence thinks there is. You will likely have to take a seniority cut to move from biglaw to habeas and retrain, and you will likely have to do the same again if you move on from habeas. To try to spell that out:
1. You'll interview lay witnesses in both places, but there's no translation between interviewing the CFO and CEO of a large company and interviewing your client's mother/the rape victim in the prior the prosecution used for aggravation/the mentally ill witness who was institutionalized in the same facility as your client.
2. You'll work with experts in both places, but there's no translation between working with civil damages experts and working with a forensic pathologist to prepare a declaration about how and when the victim died and why the bullet wounds don't correspond to any weapon the prosecution has connected to your client.
3. Writing complaints and answers does not translate to drafting habeas petitions.
4. Writing a summary judgment motion has almost no connection to writing a 100 page submission on why the federal court should consider your claims under 2254(d)(1)/(d)(2).
5. There's mild overlap between discovery motions in both places but the standards are different - arguing a civil MTC doesn't directly prep you for arguing why the DA is improperly withholding postconviction discovery under your state's PC laws.
6. There is no overlap whatsoever between counseling "the client" (AGC of your company sitting in an office worried about a trade secret case) and counseling "the client" (incarcerated for 25 years, often with various forms of mental disability or illness, adamant that you cannot investigate their social history because they don't want to traumatize their family, and insistent that you make some argument that isn't even legally cognizable.)
7. Investigating a case in biglaw might involve reviewing reams of documents before sitting in an office conference room and interviewing selected witnesses about a challenged billing practice. Those witnesses are guaranteed to be non-violent and are usually cooperative as their employment often depends on it. Investigating a habeas case involves flying across the country, knocking unannounced on the door of an eyewitness who thinks they saw your client in the parking lot that day (not knowing if they'll come to the door with a gun, under the influence of any number of substances, etc., and often heading solo into neighborhoods that you wouldn't want to find yourself in after dark), and establishing the rapport needed to see if their recollections have changed over the years (and if so, whether they will give you a written declaration under penalty of perjury to that effect.)
I could go on like this all day. When you refer to biglaw as "really great chance to get trained on complicated legal matters by exceptionally well resourced companies" - that's not wrong (although it makes you sound like you are still in OCI interview mode), but it's just that that training has nothing whatsoever to do with the career you think you want. Not trying to needle you, but as someone who knows the rocky transition you are proposing to make all too well, you need to spend a lot of time at this juncture getting your mind around both working worlds you're proposing to inhabit. They couldn't possibly be further removed from each other - and I'm getting the strong impression that you don't yet have a clear picture of either one.
ETA Also, as I'm thinking about how biglaw --> capital habeas works, there's even less translation than I described above between the work of a *junior* associate and habeas. I wrote the above from the perspective of an attorney many more years into practice. As a biglaw junior, you won't be interviewing most witnesses, you won't be working with the experts, you may not be drafting many briefs, you likely won't be arguing discovery hearings, etc. You'll be reviewing documents, researching, occasionally drafting pleadings and portions of briefs, making the "training on complicated legal matters" even less relevant.