white collar/investigations exit options? Forum

[Anonymous User]

2L with big law SA lined up for this summer in DC and hoping to focus on white collar/govt investigations type work because ive always found it to be the most interesting and more enjoyable than pure litigation or corporate.
but as time goes on I've become increasingly nervous about the high stress nature and fire drills of big law (lots of health issues as well) so was starting to wonder what/if any are the exit options for someone doing white collar/investigations type work? or if theres a similar type of practice group I should look into that will have better exit options?

any advice is appreciated

[Anonymous User]

For what its worth, I saw a first year do a stint in the NBA who was white collar and at my other firm, a guy went to Google--though he had down twelve years already there...woof.

[Anonymous User]

Isn't it basically revolving door with govt work?

[boardcookies]

Went into BL v20 for white collar—the most interesting of any practice group IMO. Quickly determined that I valued my personal life more than my career, and switched to data privacy-type work for the exit ops. I like it less, but I’m a second year getting multiple in-house interviews. Hoping something will land soon, this lifestyle is brutally awful (way worse than I thought, and I knew it would be bad as a former BL paralegal).

[Anonymous User]

Went into BL v20 for white collar—the most interesting of any practice group IMO. Quickly determined that I valued my personal life more than my career, and switched to data privacy-type work for the exit ops. I like it less, but I’m a second year getting multiple in-house interviews. Hoping something will land soon, this lifestyle is brutally awful (way worse than I thought, and I knew it would be bad as a former BL paralegal).

was white collar worse in terms of hours/stress than data privacy? were there a lot of fire drills or 2am/3am nights? or is it just generally biglaw that you find to be not what you want

[Anonymous User]

Went into BL v20 for white collar—the most interesting of any practice group IMO. Quickly determined that I valued my personal life more than my career, and switched to data privacy-type work for the exit ops. I like it less, but I’m a second year getting multiple in-house interviews. Hoping something will land soon, this lifestyle is brutally awful (way worse than I thought, and I knew it would be bad as a former BL paralegal).

This is really interesting -- what kind of data privacy work do you, and what kind of in-house roles are you looking at?

[Elston Gunn]

White collar is pretty bad for exit opps, though probably not much worse than lit as a whole. Government is doable, especially if you get real litigation experience through pro bono, but being an AUSA honestly isn’t a great gig *unless* you love the work. (People who love the work are very happy.) In house opportunities are mostly at very large companies, especially banks, where they have in house investigative lawyers to review HR complaints and simile that aren’t important enough to hire outside counsel for. I would think lateraling to a smaller firm is not that easy if you don’t have good lit experience on top of the investigations work, but not sure.

That said, it is a fairly interesting practice area while you’re actually at the firm and tends to be very profitable as compared to other lit areas, so you can stick around for a while if you’re decent and can stomach it.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone explain why investigations would be a bad option for BL?

Seems interesting, get to potentially fly to international locations (and bill for it), and lots of easy hours doing doc review/witness interviews.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone explain why investigations would be a bad option for BL?

Seems interesting, get to potentially fly to international locations (and bill for it), and lots of easy hours doing doc review/witness interviews.

1. Bad exit opps

2. "Lots of easy hours doing doc review" does not give you marketable skills, though chances are you'll be managing a team of staff/contract attorneys more than you'll be sitting down and coding docs yourself.

3. Borderline impossible to make partner in many of these groups without high level government experience (to the extent you care about that). Bad odds even if you do have that experience.

4. I don't think there's much travel involved in internal investigations these days. And when you do, you're usually traveling to like, a business park in Oklahoma or something, not exotic and fun locales. And even if you do go somewhere cool, you're working, not taking a vacation, so you really only get to experience the bad parts of travel (general discomfort, jetlag, fucking up your obligations back home, etc.). This is true of virtually all biglaw travel, though.

I am not personally in investigations but I've ended up involved in or adjacent to some by dint of my firm + my practice area. It does seem cool and interesting, by the way, but you asked about the downsides. I understand the above to be some of them.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone explain why investigations would be a bad option for BL?

Seems interesting, get to potentially fly to international locations (and bill for it), and lots of easy hours doing doc review/witness interviews.

1. Bad exit opps

2. "Lots of easy hours doing doc review" does not give you marketable skills, though chances are you'll be managing a team of staff/contract attorneys more than you'll be sitting down and coding docs yourself.

3. Borderline impossible to make partner in many of these groups without high level government experience (to the extent you care about that). Bad odds even if you do have that experience.

4. I don't think there's much travel involved in internal investigations these days. And when you do, you're usually traveling to like, a business park in Oklahoma or something, not exotic and fun locales. And even if you do go somewhere cool, you're working, not taking a vacation, so you really only get to experience the bad parts of travel (general discomfort, jetlag, fucking up your obligations back home, etc.). This is true of virtually all biglaw travel, though.

I am not personally in investigations but I've ended up involved in or adjacent to some by dint of my firm + my practice area. It does seem cool and interesting, by the way, but you asked about the downsides. I understand the above to be some of them.

But doesn't this kind of sound like the dream, unless you want to become partner? Easy job, great pay, and you get to travel (yes, they might not be the most interesting locations, and yes, you'll be working, but it still is nice to see other cities and explore them a bit during downtime).

[Anonymous User]

Can someone explain why investigations would be a bad option for BL?

Seems interesting, get to potentially fly to international locations (and bill for it), and lots of easy hours doing doc review/witness interviews.

1. Bad exit opps

2. "Lots of easy hours doing doc review" does not give you marketable skills, though chances are you'll be managing a team of staff/contract attorneys more than you'll be sitting down and coding docs yourself.

3. Borderline impossible to make partner in many of these groups without high level government experience (to the extent you care about that). Bad odds even if you do have that experience.

4. I don't think there's much travel involved in internal investigations these days. And when you do, you're usually traveling to like, a business park in Oklahoma or something, not exotic and fun locales. And even if you do go somewhere cool, you're working, not taking a vacation, so you really only get to experience the bad parts of travel (general discomfort, jetlag, fucking up your obligations back home, etc.). This is true of virtually all biglaw travel, though.

I am not personally in investigations but I've ended up involved in or adjacent to some by dint of my firm + my practice area. It does seem cool and interesting, by the way, but you asked about the downsides. I understand the above to be some of them.

But doesn't this kind of sound like the dream, unless you want to become partner? Easy job, great pay, and you get to travel (yes, they might not be the most interesting locations, and yes, you'll be working, but it still is nice to see other cities and explore them a bit during downtime).

Frankly, it doesn't sound like you actually read my post.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone explain why investigations would be a bad option for BL?

Seems interesting, get to potentially fly to international locations (and bill for it), and lots of easy hours doing doc review/witness interviews.

1. Bad exit opps

2. "Lots of easy hours doing doc review" does not give you marketable skills, though chances are you'll be managing a team of staff/contract attorneys more than you'll be sitting down and coding docs yourself.

3. Borderline impossible to make partner in many of these groups without high level government experience (to the extent you care about that). Bad odds even if you do have that experience.

4. I don't think there's much travel involved in internal investigations these days. And when you do, you're usually traveling to like, a business park in Oklahoma or something, not exotic and fun locales. And even if you do go somewhere cool, you're working, not taking a vacation, so you really only get to experience the bad parts of travel (general discomfort, jetlag, fucking up your obligations back home, etc.). This is true of virtually all biglaw travel, though.

I am not personally in investigations but I've ended up involved in or adjacent to some by dint of my firm + my practice area. It does seem cool and interesting, by the way, but you asked about the downsides. I understand the above to be some of them.

But doesn't this kind of sound like the dream, unless you want to become partner? Easy job, great pay, and you get to travel (yes, they might not be the most interesting locations, and yes, you'll be working, but it still is nice to see other cities and explore them a bit during downtime).

I mean I’m just repeating the anon above this whose post you didn’t read, but the problem with doing only the easy parts of the job is that you won’t make partner that way and you won’t make yourself an appealing candidate for other jobs down the line. If your plan is to leave law entirely and do something complete unrelated after, then sure, doing nothing but easy work is great. If you want to stay in law, it’s important to learn additional skills.

And the people I know who’ve traveled for such work literally don’t get any time to explore the cities they travel to.

[2013]

Here’s the itinerary my friend had for “biglaw travel.” Flew to Mexico on Monday night. Landed at 12 am. Had to get up at 6 for meetings. Got out at 12 am. Went to bed. Took 7 am fight back.

So exciting.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone explain why investigations would be a bad option for BL?

Seems interesting, get to potentially fly to international locations (and bill for it), and lots of easy hours doing doc review/witness interviews.

1. Bad exit opps

2. "Lots of easy hours doing doc review" does not give you marketable skills, though chances are you'll be managing a team of staff/contract attorneys more than you'll be sitting down and coding docs yourself.

3. Borderline impossible to make partner in many of these groups without high level government experience (to the extent you care about that). Bad odds even if you do have that experience.

4. I don't think there's much travel involved in internal investigations these days. And when you do, you're usually traveling to like, a business park in Oklahoma or something, not exotic and fun locales. And even if you do go somewhere cool, you're working, not taking a vacation, so you really only get to experience the bad parts of travel (general discomfort, jetlag, fucking up your obligations back home, etc.). This is true of virtually all biglaw travel, though.

I am not personally in investigations but I've ended up involved in or adjacent to some by dint of my firm + my practice area. It does seem cool and interesting, by the way, but you asked about the downsides. I understand the above to be some of them.

OP here who posed the "why is investigations a poor BL option." Thanks for that feedback.

Looks like #2 is the big one -- lack of marketable skills.

[Anonymous User]

Everyone I know who has to travel for work hates it. Whatever the field. It's not glamorous it's just exhausting.

[Anonymous User]

Here’s the itinerary my friend had for “biglaw travel.” Flew to Mexico on Monday night. Landed at 12 am. Had to get up at 6 for meetings. Got out at 12 am. Went to bed. Took 7 am fight back.

So exciting.

I'm the OP who listed downsides. I was going to share a similar story but you beat me to it, about someone who flew to London and back again in the span of 24 hours, just to conduct a single interview:

8 hours there (incl. security, wait times etc.
2 hours to travel to the interview site and prep
2 hours of actual interview
1 hour of "downtime," mostly spent getting food and just recharging as much as possible
8 hours back

This might seem extreme, but it's really not. It's fairly typical. IIRC he didn't stay overnight because he needed to be around to pick his kids up the next day or something like that. Oh, and apparently it was pouring rain the whole time he was there.

Sounds super fun, right?

[Anonymous User]

Can someone explain why investigations would be a bad option for BL?

Seems interesting, get to potentially fly to international locations (and bill for it), and lots of easy hours doing doc review/witness interviews.

1. Bad exit opps

2. "Lots of easy hours doing doc review" does not give you marketable skills, though chances are you'll be managing a team of staff/contract attorneys more than you'll be sitting down and coding docs yourself.

3. Borderline impossible to make partner in many of these groups without high level government experience (to the extent you care about that). Bad odds even if you do have that experience.

4. I don't think there's much travel involved in internal investigations these days. And when you do, you're usually traveling to like, a business park in Oklahoma or something, not exotic and fun locales. And even if you do go somewhere cool, you're working, not taking a vacation, so you really only get to experience the bad parts of travel (general discomfort, jetlag, fucking up your obligations back home, etc.). This is true of virtually all biglaw travel, though.

I am not personally in investigations but I've ended up involved in or adjacent to some by dint of my firm + my practice area. It does seem cool and interesting, by the way, but you asked about the downsides. I understand the above to be some of them.

I'm not so sure about the bolded above. This may, at least partially, be because a lot of firms are changing what "partner" means. If you do a review of top firms' partnership classes you will see a decent number of white-collar/investigative associates making partner. Now, given how opaque share partnership has become, it's impossible to tell which of those are making shares without having an inside source. But BigLaw firms definitely make white-collar partners from associates.

As far as exit opportunities, the key is to have a marketable specialty within investigations. Privacy is very hot right now but there are others out there, e.g., healthcare, imports, government contracts. These areas all throw off plenty of investigations work and also have viable in-house opportunities (although it's likely to look different than firm investigations practice, likely to be much more compliance-oriented).

[Anonymous User]

Can someone explain why investigations would be a bad option for BL?

Seems interesting, get to potentially fly to international locations (and bill for it), and lots of easy hours doing doc review/witness interviews.

1. Bad exit opps

2. "Lots of easy hours doing doc review" does not give you marketable skills, though chances are you'll be managing a team of staff/contract attorneys more than you'll be sitting down and coding docs yourself.

3. Borderline impossible to make partner in many of these groups without high level government experience (to the extent you care about that). Bad odds even if you do have that experience.

4. I don't think there's much travel involved in internal investigations these days. And when you do, you're usually traveling to like, a business park in Oklahoma or something, not exotic and fun locales. And even if you do go somewhere cool, you're working, not taking a vacation, so you really only get to experience the bad parts of travel (general discomfort, jetlag, fucking up your obligations back home, etc.). This is true of virtually all biglaw travel, though.

I am not personally in investigations but I've ended up involved in or adjacent to some by dint of my firm + my practice area. It does seem cool and interesting, by the way, but you asked about the downsides. I understand the above to be some of them.

I'm not so sure about the bolded above. This may, at least partially, be because a lot of firms are changing what "partner" means. If you do a review of top firms' partnership classes you will see a decent number of white-collar/investigative associates making partner. Now, given how opaque share partnership has become, it's impossible to tell which of those are making shares without having an inside source. But BigLaw firms definitely make white-collar partners from associates.

As far as exit opportunities, the key is to have a marketable specialty within investigations. Privacy is very hot right now but there are others out there, e.g., healthcare, imports, government contracts. These areas all throw off plenty of investigations work and also have viable in-house opportunities (although it's likely to look different than firm investigations practice, likely to be much more compliance-oriented).

Same anon as previous. Just adding that if you look, you will find that top white-collar/investigations partners appear to be making the same/similar to top corporate partners. This, however, appears to require top government experience. FWIW

[2013]

Here’s the itinerary my friend had for “biglaw travel.” Flew to Mexico on Monday night. Landed at 12 am. Had to get up at 6 for meetings. Got out at 12 am. Went to bed. Took 7 am fight back.

So exciting.

I'm the OP who listed downsides. I was going to share a similar story but you beat me to it, about someone who flew to London and back again in the span of 24 hours, just to conduct a single interview:

8 hours there (incl. security, wait times etc.
2 hours to travel to the interview site and prep
2 hours of actual interview
1 hour of "downtime," mostly spent getting food and just recharging as much as possible
8 hours back

This might seem extreme, but it's really not. It's fairly typical. IIRC he didn't stay overnight because he needed to be around to pick his kids up the next day or something like that. Oh, and apparently it was pouring rain the whole time he was there.

Sounds super fun, right?

Yeah, people glamorize it a lot. One other associate I know had to go to middle of nowhere Michigan in the dead of winter for a week to do interviews.

Another I know flew into Paris, then to Moscow, then to Tokyo and back to the east coast in a span of like 5 days at the request of a client for interviews and a meeting I believe. Listening to the journey was exhausting. I think fight time alone equaled a day. Friend did get to go to some fancy restaurant in Tokyo, though.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone explain why investigations would be a bad option for BL?

Seems interesting, get to potentially fly to international locations (and bill for it), and lots of easy hours doing doc review/witness interviews.

1. Bad exit opps

2. "Lots of easy hours doing doc review" does not give you marketable skills, though chances are you'll be managing a team of staff/contract attorneys more than you'll be sitting down and coding docs yourself.

3. Borderline impossible to make partner in many of these groups without high level government experience (to the extent you care about that). Bad odds even if you do have that experience.

4. I don't think there's much travel involved in internal investigations these days. And when you do, you're usually traveling to like, a business park in Oklahoma or something, not exotic and fun locales. And even if you do go somewhere cool, you're working, not taking a vacation, so you really only get to experience the bad parts of travel (general discomfort, jetlag, fucking up your obligations back home, etc.). This is true of virtually all biglaw travel, though.

I am not personally in investigations but I've ended up involved in or adjacent to some by dint of my firm + my practice area. It does seem cool and interesting, by the way, but you asked about the downsides. I understand the above to be some of them.

But doesn't this kind of sound like the dream, unless you want to become partner? Easy job, great pay, and you get to travel (yes, they might not be the most interesting locations, and yes, you'll be working, but it still is nice to see other cities and explore them a bit during downtime).

Frankly, it doesn't sound like you actually read my post.

I did read it, but I know it's hard not to be catty in this industry. My point was premised on that if the job is so easy, there is no real reason to leave in the first place and you can just coast your way through a nice senior position. Sure, you might not become partner, but most people are not going to make that any way, even when they want it. If by the time you're over it, you can still go to a government job or just switch out of law entirely. But I think we come from different backgrounds. I grew up quite poor and in my household the most important thing was just to have a salary and be able to provide, intellectual satisfaction be damned. So I guess if salary is less important and you just want a more fun job, then I agree with your overall point. But I joined biglaw for the salary and just to coast my way to an early retirement. Just different vantage points, I get where you're coming from though.

[Anonymous User]

I think part of the point is that it’s bad for your future to be the person who has no skills besides the easy doc review or whatever. Eventually what you’re required to do will get harder anyway so goodbye coasting, or you’ll get squeezed out because you haven’t done the harder stuff. Government isn’t going to be interested in you if you’ve only done the easy stuff, and “just switch[ing] out of law entirely” is easier said than done.

I totally get just wanting to make the money and get out of there, just not sure that anything in big law is going to let you reliably coast to early retirement without misery.

[Anonymous User]

A few notes based on my vary limited experience.

White Collar work can run the gamut from large internal investigations (which is what the posters above are describing) to white collar criminal defense, which kind of has its own skill set. I'm not sure the later has much more marketable skills, but it is more hands on in my experience.

My general sense, and this may be a product of my firm vs. the industry at-large, is that the days of anyone doing massive, life-consuming doc review for extended periods of their career outside your first year are gone, in part because clients will not pay for it anymore. Maybe there are still places where second years can crank out 1,000 of their 2k hours for the year doing doc review, but I really do not think it is the norm anymore.

[Anonymous User]

I think part of the point is that it’s bad for your future to be the person who has no skills besides the easy doc review or whatever. Eventually what you’re required to do will get harder anyway so goodbye coasting, or you’ll get squeezed out because you haven’t done the harder stuff. Government isn’t going to be interested in you if you’ve only done the easy stuff, and “just switch[ing] out of law entirely” is easier said than done.

I totally get just wanting to make the money and get out of there, just not sure that anything in big law is going to let you reliably coast to early retirement without misery.

I've actually been wondering about this. I agree that employers obviously want the employees with more substantive experience, but how will they really know who that is? Interviews are only so effective in weeding out the slackers. For proof, look at any law school OCI, where large contingents lie their way into a firm/practice area they know nothing about/have no interest in, but they just want a job. And after you get in, and you just work hard, won't you be fine any way? Especially in certain employers, where you can hide a bit while learning the ropes. Take the government for example. I've done internships there and noticed people screwing out for days at a time. That is the kind of employer who is going to make a big deal about you underperforming a bit while you learn the ropes?

[Anonymous User]

I mean, generally speaking, people who have actually done the substantive work that an employer is looking for do a much better job talking about that work in an interview than people who haven’t done the work. Most job interviews aren’t like OCI, which is all about assessing potential because no law student has actually done any of the work they’ll be hired to do. If you’re a lateral, you’ll be expected to talk about what you’ve actually done in a way that you can’t ask a student to do. I know that my employer digs pretty deep into what actual specific things interviewees have actually done.

So I mean this may not be the best example for white collar/investigations, but if the employer wants to hire into a position that requires taking depositions, a candidate who can say they’ve taken X number of depositions and can discuss specifically what worked and what didn’t in those depositions is going to come across better than a candidate who hasn’t taken any depositions. Even if the latter flat out lies about it - which seems like a really bad idea - they’re still not likely to have the same kind of insight about the process as someone who’s actually done them.

There’s a pretty big difference between lying about whether you’re interested in M&A during OCI, and lying about whether you’ve actually run any deals in a lateral interview.

Like, I get that biglaw interviews aren’t necessarily perfect at assessing people as candidates, but they’re not useless, either. The idea that people just go into an interview and their actual experience and skills don’t matter *at all* has come up before (not sure if you’re that poster) and just seems ridiculously unrealistic. Even if you’re prepared to lie, there are some things you won’t know to lie about if you just haven’t done the level of work an employer’s looking for.

(I mean obviously it’s shades of gray, and maybe someone who’s prepared depo outlines or something can talk a good enough game about them to look like an attractive candidate; maybe a candidate can express enough informed enthusiasm to make it through an interview; maybe your level of experience is close enough, depending on what you’re applying for. But I’ve seen candidates get caught in puffing up their actual experience and it kills their candidacy. Interviewers can generally tell if you’ve done the work that they know inside out. And if you get hired into a position that requires you to know things you don’t already know, sure, maybe you can just get up to speed and it’s fine, but maybe you’re going to make a bad impression and not get the benefit of the doubt going forward. Hiring someone you know doesn’t have the experience you want and being willing to train them is different from hiring someone you expect to be able to hit the ground running. The government is actually less forgiving about this because they have fewer resources than biglaw firms.)

[Anonymous User]

When it comes to talking about a depo in an interview with a prospective employer, the space between the partner who did the depo and the associate who reviewed all the docs and wrote the depo outline is not that great. In fact, the associate who prepared the depo will probably be able to discuss it even better than the partner who did the depo. (Different story if we're talking about quality of performance within a depo itself.)