Difficulty of lateralling from secondary market BL to primary market BL Forum

[Anonymous User]

For personal reasons, I am looking to lateral from a secondary market to either LA or NY in a few years.
Credentials are okay (T25, 3.6). I will start off at a secondary market BL in corporate practice where I have ties.

[Anonymous User]

If you're in a corporate practice, you can likely lateral before a full year is over - maybe like 8 months? If your current firm has an office in LA/NY, best to just transfer within the firm. You should also inquire as to bar exam considerations.

[Anonymous User]

If you're in a corporate practice, you can likely lateral before a full year is over - maybe like 8 months? If your current firm has an office in LA/NY, best to just transfer within the firm. You should also inquire as to bar exam considerations.

Not OP, but how difficult would it be to lateral into primary market BL if you're in a secondary market regional firm?

[Anonymous User]

If you're in a corporate practice, you can likely lateral before a full year is over - maybe like 8 months? If your current firm has an office in LA/NY, best to just transfer within the firm. You should also inquire as to bar exam considerations.

Not OP, but how difficult would it be to lateral into primary market BL if you're in a secondary market regional firm?

Generally speaking, doing that gets easier if you had the credentials to get primary market BL and have connections at the firms you’re targeting.

[Anonymous User]

Corporate lateral hiring right now in the upper echelons of biglaw is insane. If it's still this crazy in a year when you might start looking, it should be very easy to get hired at at least the next-from-top-tier if not even very top-tier biglaw firms in either NY or LA. Of course, the frenzy could slow down; in normal times, I would say this would be a harder (but far from impossible) transition to make and would probably take around 6 months to a year of active searching.

[Anonymous User]

A lot depends on what you mean by secondary market and biglaw. If you're at a market paying and/or v100 type firm, doing substantially the same work as the more famous firm just a zero or two less, then you should be able to lateral.