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Lit associate in a major market. Class of 2017 (T-13, strong but not stellar grades), clerked on a non-2/9/DC COA for a year, been at my current firm 7 months. I hoped to get some appellate exposure but I'm not in the appellate group and am currently staffed on some no-end-in-sight massive litigations. Thinking about testing the waters to see if I can lateral into an appellate group, but a move at this point seems pretty early. Am I right in thinking that if I jump now and it's not a good fit, I'll have a very tough time jumping again to move on to a 3rd firm sometime in 2020? Should I stick this out and then reevaluate in January during lateral season? Not sure what the typical practice is here. I don't hate my firm or anything but I have a nagging feeling that I would regret not seeking out a better situation.

Anonymous User wrote:Lit associate in a major market. Class of 2017 (T-13, strong but not stellar grades), clerked on a non-2/9/DC COA for a year, been at my current firm 7 months. I hoped to get some appellate exposure but I'm not in the appellate group and am currently staffed on some no-end-in-sight massive litigations. Thinking about testing the waters to see if I can lateral into an appellate group, but a move at this point seems pretty early. Am I right in thinking that if I jump now and it's not a good fit, I'll have a very tough time jumping again to move on to a 3rd firm sometime in 2020? Should I stick this out and then reevaluate in January during lateral season? Not sure what the typical practice is here. I don't hate my firm or anything but I have a nagging feeling that I would regret not seeking out a better situation.

I might be out of my depth here - but how flexible is your firm with work assignments? Is it possible for you to do work for your firm's appellate group at all while doing mostly your group's work? Or is that not feasible because you're slammed?

OP here. Don't want to out my firm/office but the appellate group is quite insular - their partners hire their own distinct summer associates and exist somewhere in between a friendly separate firm in the same building and just another group of the same firm. In hindsight, I should have been more knowledgable about this up front or more aggressive in trying to squeeze in there before my plate was loaded up with some massive cases that could easily form the bulk (if not entirety) of my billables for the next few years.

I guess I am trying to weigh whether lateraling too early is bad, or whether waiting too long - while continuing to work on the usual biglaw pre-trial lit - might harm my chances of getting into an appellate group.

Appellate openings are rare enough that you should apply whenever one opens up.

Anonymous User wrote:Appellate openings are rare enough that you should apply whenever one opens up.

100% seconded. That being said, once you get the offer at a new firm, you should put considerable effort into evaluating whether this new firm has everything you’d be looking for in the long haul (health of group, partnership prospects, good mentors etc). Easier said than done, but the goal of course would be to avoid lateraling to a third firm, which goes to your concern so apologies if I am stating the obvious.

That said if the experience is horrible, sounds like your creds are good enough that you could theoretically lateral again; it’s just far from ideal.