Getting company in-house role w/ finance practice Forum

[Anonymous User]

I know the truism here generally: finance practices get you stuck in finance/bank in-house roles. This is admittedly pretty limiting. So here I wanted to ask: are there people here who have made a transition to an in-house role at a company or know someone who has? If so, how was it done? How can I start now and what is the best advice you can give? I don't want to do any work in a bank, and to be honest I'm ready to just leave law entirely if it comes to that.

[Anonymous User]

I know the truism here generally: finance practices get you stuck in finance/bank in-house roles. This is admittedly pretty limiting. So here I wanted to ask: are there people here who have made a transition to an in-house role at a company or know someone who has? If so, how was it done? How can I start now and what is the best advice you can give? I don't want to do any work in a bank, and to be honest I'm ready to just leave law entirely if it comes to that.

what is your year and what kind of finance practice? Massive difference between a 3rd year doing ABLs for a bank and a 5th/6th year who does a lot of reps for direct lenders or who does public company work.

finance is a bit like BK where the sweet spot is a bit later than M&A.

[Anonymous User]

I know the truism here generally: finance practices get you stuck in finance/bank in-house roles. This is admittedly pretty limiting. So here I wanted to ask: are there people here who have made a transition to an in-house role at a company or know someone who has? If so, how was it done? How can I start now and what is the best advice you can give? I don't want to do any work in a bank, and to be honest I'm ready to just leave law entirely if it comes to that.

what is your year and what kind of finance practice? Massive difference between a 3rd year doing ABLs for a bank and a 5th/6th year who does a lot of reps for direct lenders or who does public company work.

finance is a bit like BK where the sweet spot is a bit later than M&A.

I'm 4th, and doing lender side large cap syndications.

[Anonymous User]

I know the truism here generally: finance practices get you stuck in finance/bank in-house roles. This is admittedly pretty limiting. So here I wanted to ask: are there people here who have made a transition to an in-house role at a company or know someone who has? If so, how was it done? How can I start now and what is the best advice you can give? I don't want to do any work in a bank, and to be honest I'm ready to just leave law entirely if it comes to that.

what is your year and what kind of finance practice? Massive difference between a 3rd year doing ABLs for a bank and a 5th/6th year who does a lot of reps for direct lenders or who does public company work.

finance is a bit like BK where the sweet spot is a bit later than M&A.

I'm 4th, and doing lender side large cap syndications.

Yeah, the large-cap syndication bit is edging you closer to an in-house bank role. There are a few ways to skirt around this:

1. Get savvy around general cap markets work; if you're at Cahill or Cravath or any other practice where the lender side of large cap has a ton of overlap with the cap markets side, you will learn the cap markets end of things and any good 5/6th+ year on the lender side should be intelligent enough to know the ins and outs of the issuer's process. You can then jump to a large company which is in the bond market a bunch.

2. Get smart around the large cap-but-private borrower market. Think mega-cos that are privately-owned but frequently in the syndicated loan market -- same general idea as #1 in that you should have a general idea of what the practice demands on the borrower side of things, as your serial players in the large cap market will have dedicated AGCs whose roles are dominated by credit compliance.

In any case, you're looking at a capital markets-leaning role and once you make it into that, you can expand your horizons into roles that are ancillary to that. A lot of law is finding ways to take your existing skillset and market the marketable parts into areas you're trying to dip into.