TL;DR: I'm still a junior associate, but if I wanted to leave Big Law at some point, what should I do to formulate a plan for exit?
I wrapped up my first year at my firm. Good experience so far. It's everything I was warned about, though some of the perks are obviously missing because of pandemic-related lockdowns.
I know I am not going to stay in BL forever. Being a partner is just not my gig. I'm at a satellite office of a vault-15ish firm and in a PE Transactional practice group. Still junior, I'm starting my second year.
I want to formulate a plan for "next" opportunities, even if that plan doesn't involve leaving Big Law for another year or 2 (but would be happy to leave sooner if I had a good opportunity, but I know I have more to learn). I am under the impression (or illusion) that if I can make a plan, I can leave Big Law and pursue a career that is ambitious, rewarding and fun.
How have other TLSers handled this? How do you make a plan? Do you narrow in on a specific career goal (or industry)? Do you just look for opportunities and take what is attractive at the time? Are your law school networks fruitful? Where do you search?
Some more tailored info: I like a lot of industries and have experience working in a few of the following: transportation and related logistics (maritime and flight), entertainment (live events mostly, but would love to work in LA), retail and market research, enterprise technology. Any of those would be cool. A FAANG company would be cool though I would prefer to integrate into operations and management over legal. I would be quite happy working in more niche, lucrative industries too that are closer to the law (litigation finance rings a bell here, but I'm sure there are others). Working for a PE client would be cool, though I think those opportunities are incredibly rare--I would probably stand a better chance of getting into PE by pulling strings from my MBA school colleagues (and based on other conversations I've seen here, that probably won't work either).
I realize this post is all over the place, so definitely appreciate any direction or suggestions on the above. Thank you in advance.
Corporate Associates: How do you make a career plan to exit? Forum
Forum rules
Anonymous Posting
Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are revealing sensitive employment related information about a firm, job, etc. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.
Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned.
Anonymous Posting
Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are revealing sensitive employment related information about a firm, job, etc. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.
Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned.
-
Anonymous User
- Posts: 431711
- Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am
-
Anonymous User
- Posts: 431711
- Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am
Re: Corporate Associates: How do you make a career plan to exit?
OP, I'm in a similar boat. Rising third year corporate associate at V50 with substantial pre-law school work experience in the middle of a transition out of law. As I'm sure others will tell you, it is not easy to make the transition, but it is definitely doable and you're wise to be thinking this far ahead to plan your move as the process isn't typically quick.
The first step here is to proactively reach out to your network. This is going to be the most important thing in your search. The strength of your network is ultimately going to determine what opportunities are available to you.
Talk to anyone you can that does something that's interesting to you or that can connect you to someone that does. You seem really agnostic about industry/role/location/etc. At some point, you're going to need to pick a direction for your job search to really gather steam. This was hard for me. I actually ended up working with a career coach who really helped me to make a wise decision about what kinds of roles/companies would be better fits for me. You can consider that, although it gets expensive (~$2k). They can also help you to craft your narrative for leaving the law and can give good advice on how to package your experience for different roles.
Good luck! Hope this was helpful.
The first step here is to proactively reach out to your network. This is going to be the most important thing in your search. The strength of your network is ultimately going to determine what opportunities are available to you.
Talk to anyone you can that does something that's interesting to you or that can connect you to someone that does. You seem really agnostic about industry/role/location/etc. At some point, you're going to need to pick a direction for your job search to really gather steam. This was hard for me. I actually ended up working with a career coach who really helped me to make a wise decision about what kinds of roles/companies would be better fits for me. You can consider that, although it gets expensive (~$2k). They can also help you to craft your narrative for leaving the law and can give good advice on how to package your experience for different roles.
Good luck! Hope this was helpful.
