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For those of you who are at your third firm, how long were you at your first before making your first move and how long were you at your second? Was it hard to land your third firm job? What was your reason for leaving?

I lateralled once and had some interviews to lateral again, but ultimately didn't pull the trigger. The interviews were significantly more challenging the second time around. Part because I had more experience, so there was more substantive probing, but also in large part because people were suspicious of two relatively quick jumps (under 2 years each, at the time). One quick jump, no one cared about. If I really just wanted to switch, I could have, but I didn't think the change was worth the risk, cost of reintegrating, etc.

There are a lot of factors that go into this. If you stayed at your first job for 4 years, it'll be easier to pull off a quick second lateral than if you left your first job as a 1st/2nd year, and are jumping again as a 3rd/4th year. If you're in a hot practice area, people will care less about job hopping. If you have some really compelling reason to move, people will overlook quick jumps. I'm sure you can come up with more.

Just from my experience and talking to others, I think a solid 2 years (so not like 2-years-and-a-day) is the line a lot of people draw mentally. Since I broke the 2 year mark a while ago, I've sent some targeted feelers out and gotten much better overall responses than when I was trying to do the same at under 2 years. It's not that everyone will overlook you trying to switch jobs again - some partners aren't willing to overlook any prior career movement. But for those that will, they'll probably have done so by 2 years, if at all.

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Anonymous User wrote:I lateralled once and had some interviews to lateral again, but ultimately didn't pull the trigger. The interviews were significantly more challenging the second time around. Part because I had more experience, so there was more substantive probing, but also in large part because people were suspicious of two relatively quick jumps (under 2 years each, at the time). One quick jump, no one cared about. If I really just wanted to switch, I could have, but I didn't think the change was worth the risk, cost of reintegrating, etc.

There are a lot of factors that go into this. If you stayed at your first job for 4 years, it'll be easier to pull off a quick second lateral than if you left your first job as a 1st/2nd year, and are jumping again as a 3rd/4th year. If you're in a hot practice area, people will care less about job hopping. If you have some really compelling reason to move, people will overlook quick jumps. I'm sure you can come up with more.

Just from my experience and talking to others, I think a solid 2 years (so not like 2-years-and-a-day) is the line a lot of people draw mentally. Since I broke the 2 year mark a while ago, I've sent some targeted feelers out and gotten much better overall responses than when I was trying to do the same at under 2 years. It's not that everyone will overlook you trying to switch jobs again - some partners aren't willing to overlook any prior career movement. But for those that will, they'll probably have done so by 2 years, if at all.

This is helpful. Thank you.