Thoughts on in house role? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I am looking for advice or opinions on a potential job switch. I’ll try to keep this post brief. Hard to believe but I’ve been on TLS for 10 years and could use some advice once again.

I’m a 6th year associate at an AmLaw 200 firm in a just okay city—think St. Louis, Nashville, Cleveland. I was making about $155-165 but had my pay cut like everyone else in our firm. I’m way over goal on hours right now.

I don’t work the hours like most of you in large firms but I’m in a demanding practice. I probably bill 1,900 to 2,000 hours a year, plus hundreds of non-billable hours (firm requirement). I don’t work the weekend all the time but several times a year I deal with around the clock situations. Most of my vacations are working vacations. I think I’ve had 3 real weeks of vacation in my time at the firm. Work is not distributed evenly. I get most of the work and get criticized if I delegate. Bizarre.

In the next year or two I’ll be income partner eligible. So far, I’ve had good reviews and our CEO/chairperson said I’ll be running the PG one day. I have no book of business to speak of and if I become partner I assume my billable hours will decrease. Income partners probably make no more than $200k. Equity is a crap shoot. Anywhere from $250k to a million, my guess.

Right now I’m beyond burnt out. I just don’t care about the work or the job anymore, which is unusual for me. I’m at the point where I can tell people no or find someone else and don’t get questioned for it, so I’ve been doing that a lot.

Recently a F500 bank approached me about a transactional job. It’s going to pay $20-30k more than my pre-cut pay. Not sure about bonuses or benefits yet. Hours will be more stable. Probably not a lot of upward mobility.

Does anyone have any thoughts or opinions on a move like this? Should I just stick it out at the firm for a few more years? Any advice would be great.

[1styearlateral]

Just my 2 cents about working in banking (I am not in-house with a banking institution but work with them all the time): seems like very boring work a monkey could do. Unless you’re at the top, the pay also seems pretty meh. And like you said, upward mobility is probably limited, especially since it seems most top positions are filled from the outside—not within. Not sure what your area of expertise is, but if it is not banking/finance I’d wait for something better to come along.

[Anonymous User]

I am looking for advice or opinions on a potential job switch. I’ll try to keep this post brief. Hard to believe but I’ve been on TLS for 10 years and could use some advice once again.

I’m a 6th year associate at an AmLaw 200 firm in a just okay city—think St. Louis, Nashville, Cleveland. I was making about $155-165 but had my pay cut like everyone else in our firm. I’m way over goal on hours right now.

I don’t work the hours like most of you in large firms but I’m in a demanding practice. I probably bill 1,900 to 2,000 hours a year, plus hundreds of non-billable hours (firm requirement). I don’t work the weekend all the time but several times a year I deal with around the clock situations. Most of my vacations are working vacations. I think I’ve had 3 real weeks of vacation in my time at the firm. Work is not distributed evenly. I get most of the work and get criticized if I delegate. Bizarre.

In the next year or two I’ll be income partner eligible. So far, I’ve had good reviews and our CEO/chairperson said I’ll be running the PG one day. I have no book of business to speak of and if I become partner I assume my billable hours will decrease. Income partners probably make no more than $200k. Equity is a crap shoot. Anywhere from $250k to a million, my guess.

Right now I’m beyond burnt out. I just don’t care about the work or the job anymore, which is unusual for me. I’m at the point where I can tell people no or find someone else and don’t get questioned for it, so I’ve been doing that a lot.

Recently a F500 bank approached me about a transactional job. It’s going to pay $20-30k more than my pre-cut pay. Not sure about bonuses or benefits yet. Hours will be more stable. Probably not a lot of upward mobility.

Does anyone have any thoughts or opinions on a move like this? Should I just stick it out at the firm for a few more years? Any advice would be great.

Depends what you want. I'm at the point where I would take a 50% paycut and really do anything if it gave me stable hours and a six-figure paycheck. I'm a 7th year M&A associate at a V100 that's lateraled a few times (V10 to V100) and I've figured out I definitely don't want to be a law firm into the counsel/partner stage so I would 100% take a transactional job at a bank with stable hours.

[clarion]

I agree with both of the prior posters. The work may be pretty bland, although it certainly isn't a rule depending on the practice. But ultimately, boring work is likely to be far more palatable when work isn't your entire life.

Without knowing any more than you've shared, if you're truly miserable at your current job and not just dealing with some short-term depression/disgruntledness as a result of your paycut v hours, I think it's worth a jump. But if you're a striver and upward mobility is very important to you, then a banking institution may not "fit the bill." Either way, it seems to me like you should be firing off some applications and getting a feel for the options available to you.