Existential Crisis - When do you know when to quit Big Law Forum

[Wearthewildthingsr]

Hi everyone,

I'm sure people on this forum have had experience with this and so I wanted to get all of your thoughts. I'm a fourth year in Big Law and have just paid off all my student loans as well as any other debt. I have a six month emergency fund and I am a bit burned out.

I currently work in a secondary market and am looking to move back to NYC as that's where my family is from, but just talking to recruiters and seeing what the job requirements are for all these big law listings, it's turning me off. I'm voluntarily getting back onto the hamster wheel for a few more years for what? I don't know if it's a good time to go in-house with the pandemic and all but I wanted to get people's thoughts on whether you think this is a good time to step away from big law or what thoughts went through your head when you yourself decided to quit big law forever, and what career trajectory you took.

Sorry if this has been reposted before in the past but I figure with the pandemic still raging on, it'd be appropriate to make another one and see what unique challenges people are now facing.

[xoxoBlairWaldorf]

What is your current practice like and does your firm have a NYC office?

I work in a biglaw secondary market and all my friends from law school are in NYC. The lifestyle is pretty rough compared to what I have, so personally I wouldn’t be willing to do NYC biglaw and would choose to go in house or government.

[2013]

Going to a NY Biglaw firm for a few years may help you land a better in-house gig.

[purplegoldtornado]

Not helpful, but just wanted to say congrats!

[Prize24]

It depends on what your personal and professional goals are. I also paid off my loans by the end of my 4th year but left Biglaw as a senior associate. In addition to making sure I had a hefty emergency fund it was also important to me that I had enough money for a down payment on a home and furnishings etc. and any other big ticket items I wanted. You need to know that you will not miss the Biglaw money when you do leave and you also need to be sure about what you want to do next career-wise. By the time I left I was completely burnt out and had no desire to be a partner anyway. I also had the skills and confidence to function independently in an in house role.

[Anonymous User]

I knew I wanted out before I started.

The most important thing for me was talking to my wife about the financial implications and realistic expectation so I didn’t accidentally put myself in golden handcuffs.

The hardest thing for her to budge on was my insistence that we couldn’t afford to buy where we need to live (since I would end up in banking or consulting for less pay, at least early on, and more hours). This is really because Manhattan luxury condo/apartment prices are pretty out of sync with amount of rent they command.

We are planning to move to a much nicer place downtown near my office next year. Was going to make the move in August this year but with Covid we decided to postpone.

We are planning to buy a house/townhouse near a college in outer boroughs for 400-600k and rent them out. I don’t really think it’s a better investment than SP 500 but it was a compromise to satisfy my wife’s (our parents’ too) insistence that we need to own some real estate of our own.

This was all planned before I even graduated from law school. I saw too many people getting trapped by the salary and just keep dreaming of that magical in house job that will pay them ALMOST as well even as their biglaw salaries rise faster than what in house positions offer.