Break into Biglaw after Non-Attorney Role? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hi all,

A little background - I graduated in 2015 from a T10 school with a GPA at median. I really wanted biglaw, either in NYC or my secondary regional market, but struck out pretty hard. I'm not entirely sure why, but I believe it had something to do with me being a K-JD who couldn't really articulate what they wanted to do very well other than being interested in transactional work. Due to striking out at biglaw I went through some shitty times my 3L year and ended up failing my state's bar.

I was extremely fortunate that I was able to land one of those rare and elusive "JD preferred" jobs in my home state doing derivatives documentation for a large I-Bank. (I currently make slightly below market for big/midlaw in my regional market, so cue people telling my I'm an idiot for leaving...)

So fast forward 3.5 years - this summer a recruiter reached out to me about a transactional role at a V50 firm in NYC. I met with the partners there, and I think the consensus was that they really liked me since I had a lot of client facing work "in the trenches" with a well known/respected bank, had strong, articulable reasons why I wanted to work as an attorney in the practice group, etc. (I also had a good story about how I chose my home state over NYC for personal reasons, not mentioning that I struck out lol.) Ultimately though, the lack of bar passage was a deal breaker for them at least for the time being.

To avoid making this too long... I just took the NY bar, not sure if the firm has hired anyone for the practice group yet. Either way, my question is more general: I had pretty much assumed that biglaw would be off the table due to several years work experience in a non-attorney role? Is this actually the case? Or was a biglaw firm having interest in me an anomaly?

[albanach]

A bunch of partners met you. And you were referred by a recruiter, so an expensive hire.

There's no way that happened unless they seriously considered you as a candidate.

[Anonymous User]

OP here.

I don't doubt that they were seriously considering me, and hopefully still will be when I hear that I passed the NY bar in 6 weeks lol (fingers crossed/knock on wood).

I guess my question was whether biglaw after a non-attorney role was possible more generally, or was this interview a pretty far outlier from the norm? I was under the impression that it was impossible to lateral in to any associate role from anything other than another biglaw firm.

[s1m4]

Im at a trx practice in biglaw, major market, made it in switching practice groups from a very small and unknown boutique. At my firm there are 2 standard non OCI hire situations: standard laterals from other biglaw, or completely random hires from shitlaw, small firms, government, real estate brokers and sales agents, etc. I fee like ive seen "one" of everyone. There is always a way that someone random like me and you sneaks into biglaw, and you just need to find one partner to say "lets try to hire this person, I think they can be good". You just gotta keep pounding sand - there are no guarantees/standards, but many people moved into biglaw from your position.

[2013]

Your credentials alone will get you interviews. You could probably snag a first-year job. I doubt the firm that liked you was going to hire you above first year anyway.

It could’ve been an anomaly, but you should keep applying to see if that’s the case.

[acr]

Could we chat about this over PM? I have some questions for you about your career and transition, as I'm in a similar boat as you. If you're up for it, just shoot me a PM! Thanks!