How specialized are you really? At my firm certain associates would get designated as the “experts” in GLBA, HIPAA, COPPA etc, but we’d do general privacy work too. It’s surprising to me that it makes sense for the firm to specialize you that much if you really don’t do any CCPA/FTC work. (If it’s FCRA I understand more.)Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 5:47 pmThis is all very helpful, thank you! I’m a biglaw privacy attorney in a niche practice area (think GLBA/HIPAA/FINRA/COPPA/FCRA). Are these positions also in demand for in house counsel roles, or are most companies looking for more generalist privacy attorneys (like GDPR, CCPA, FTC, etc.)? How hard would it be to sell a niche privacy role for a more general privacy role? And when do you think the best time is to make the switch from biglaw to in house privacy counsel?
Companies in your specific niche will be happy to hire people who have focused in their sector-specific law, though I imagine it’s pretty rare to just hire, eg, pure GLBA counsel.
If the specialty is FCRA, that might be tough to sell for a generalist privacy role, as we generally think of that as more of a regulatory specialty than privacy per se. CRAs would probably be more than fine with it for their privacy roles though. I’m not familiar with FINRA privacy requirements (other than the securities version of the GLBA privacy rule), so not sure how that could be sold.
The other specialties, I definitely think you can work with. The important thing will be to play up your generalist work (I’m sure you’ve worked on projects that are more about general privacy principles than super narrow applications of the sectoral law), and also demonstrating that you have a good understanding of at least CCPA, and *some* understanding of GDPR. If you aren’t very familiar with them, I would try to read up as much as you can, or try to do that kind of work at the firm. I do understand though that US firms usually farm their GDPR work out to EU/UK offices, and that’s what my firm did.
As far as timing, I think it starts being feasible (but hard) at 3 years, and there’s no reason not to leave whenever you can get a job you’re happy with (especially if you hate Biglaw and your debt is manageable). You probably limit your earnings potential at that specific company by anchoring yourself to a lower starting salary, but you should have plenty of marketability to other companies, and I doubt they offer less just because you left your firm earlier. But I don’t really know.
I’d say year 6-7 is probably when you’re at your peak marketability. Too much more senior and the roles you’re best qualified for will be more insistent on previous in-house experience.