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This is a question that is giving me a lot of anxiety lately (TBH) so I hope someone might have some insight or wisdom.

I am a corporate associate in a very industry-specific team (think energy or transportation related M&A, that sort of industry niche) in biglaw. I’m fairly senior at this point and am at the year where a lot of folks go in house at my firm. However, I would like to stick it out further to see if I might make partner (prospects look ok, can’t be sure). In the event I don’t make it to partner, I will almost certainly look to go in-house.

How hard is it for folks to go in-house at companies that are outside of their industry focus? Somewhat doable or (as I fear) a nonstarter? It’s not that I don’t like my niche area but rather that the geographic area I would like to move to doesn’t have a a TON of large companies that hire lots of attorneys.

Any thoughts or anecdotes you could share would be helpful!

As long as your experience is relevant, and you can tell a good story why, you can certainly go outside the industry. While every industry has its own considerations for M&A, I think it's a broad enough practice area that the basic skills carry over.

People tend to pick an industry and stay because that's where they build connections, but that doesn't mean you have to.