Prestigious Secondment or Lateral? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Short and sweet situation:

TL;DR- managed to line up several desirable lateral offers but firm has come through with a prestigious secondment at the 11th hour. Want to give it its due thought.

I am a 3-5 years midlevel associate at a leading firm in one of the USA's three largest markets. After months of interviewing, I now have outstanding offers from several peer firms to lateral. I would be switching from my current practice group (bankruptcy/insolvency litigation) to a more finance-oriented practice. All have offered signing bonuses that are fair and two specifically have really put their best foot forward on explaining to me in detail how they think they can best integrate me into the practice. They seem to have been very thoughtful about my actual future at the firms over throwing me into a meat grinder.

I'm not sure if my current firm has heard about my leaving through the grapevine or not, but times are fairly lean at the firm and I'm not billing a whole lot after a few of my major cases wrapped up. I did meet hours previous year though and had good feedback from my work on those cases. I had good reviews and am, to my knowledge, well liked etc. They offered me a secondment earlier this week to one of the firm's biggest clients (think Blackstone/JPM/Vista/EQT/Goldman/Blackrock). It was clearly communicated to me that this was a "we like and trust you and think you can be valuable in building a relationship with this client vs. a 'you need to start looking to leave'" type of secondment. The position itself would be a general-counsel type of role with one of their strategic investment groups, it would not be special situations or insolvency.

That said, I do not see a future in my current group. No matter what, even if I stayed with my firm, I would want to switch to a different group (likely finance, funds, etc). I do, however, think that my firm would be receptive to this (but it is not guaranteed).

Any advice here? Is this secondment worth a second thought on outstanding offers? Is it a huge career-changing networking opportunity or is it just a delay to a transition that is inevitable? For additional context, I have absolutely zero desire to make partner. My perfect goal/situation in life would be to work 50 hours/week and make 200k+. Whatever gets me closest to that out of Biglaw is what I ultimately want.

**********
Just an edit to thank everyone for their respective advice. Accepted my offer with another firm today.

Thanks all,

[ExpOriental]

I recommend quitting the law and becoming a beet farmer

[Anonymous User]

I recommend quitting the law and becoming a beet farmer

Yeah I should have become a Twitch streamer for sure but let's assume I'm going to stay in this racket a few more years haha

[Anonymous User]

Short and sweet situation:

TL;DR- managed to line up several desirable lateral offers but firm has come through with a prestigious secondment at the 11th hour. Want to give it its due thought.

I am a 3-5 years midlevel associate at a leading firm in one of the USA's three largest markets. After months of interviewing, I now have outstanding offers from several peer firms to lateral. I would be switching from my current practice group (bankruptcy/insolvency litigation) to a more finance-oriented practice. All have offered signing bonuses that are fair and two specifically have really put their best foot forward on explaining to me in detail how they think they can best integrate me into the practice. They seem to have been very thoughtful about my actual future at the firms over throwing me into a meat grinder.

I'm not sure if my current firm has heard about my leaving through the grapevine or not, but times are fairly lean at the firm and I'm not billing a whole lot after a few of my major cases wrapped up. I did meet hours previous year though and had good feedback from my work on those cases. I had good reviews and am, to my knowledge, well liked etc. They offered me a secondment earlier this week to one of the firm's biggest clients (think Blackstone/JPM/Vista/EQT/Goldman/Blackrock). It was clearly communicated to me that this was a "we like and trust you and think you can be valuable in building a relationship with this client vs. a 'you need to start looking to leave'" type of secondment. The position itself would be a general-counsel type of role with one of their strategic investment groups, it would not be special situations or insolvency.

That said, I do not see a future in my current group. No matter what, even if I stayed with my firm, I would want to switch to a different group (likely finance, funds, etc). I do, however, think that my firm would be receptive to this (but it is not guaranteed).

Any advice here? Is this secondment worth a second thought on outstanding offers? Is it a huge career-changing networking opportunity or is it just a delay to a transition that is inevitable? For additional context, I have absolutely zero desire to make partner. My perfect goal/situation in life would be to work 50 hours/week and make 200k+. Whatever gets me closest to that out of Biglaw is what I ultimately want.

I would lateral because of the practice group issue and not look back. You’ve already answered your question by saying you don’t see a future at your current firm. You’ve been looking for a reason.

The same problems will be there when you return from the client if you stay at the firm.

[gregfootball2001]

Would you rather be at this company than at a law firm? If so, take the secondment and stay at the company long term. If not, lateral now while you have the offers.

[Anonymous User]

Would you rather be at this company than at a law firm? If so, take the secondment and stay at the company long term. If not, lateral now while you have the offers.

I'd definitely love a position at this company, but I'm not sure how feasible it would be to translate a 3-6 months term into a full time position there, in the sense that I'm not sure it happens very often.

[jotarokujo]

Would you rather be at this company than at a law firm? If so, take the secondment and stay at the company long term. If not, lateral now while you have the offers.

I'd definitely love a position at this company, but I'm not sure how feasible it would be to translate a 3-6 months term into a full time position there, in the sense that I'm not sure it happens very often.

but if someone wants it does it happen? i think it's pretty easy generally to turn a secondment into a full time position, just people often don't want to do that

[gregfootball2001]

Would you rather be at this company than at a law firm? If so, take the secondment and stay at the company long term. If not, lateral now while you have the offers.

I'd definitely love a position at this company, but I'm not sure how feasible it would be to translate a 3-6 months term into a full time position there, in the sense that I'm not sure it happens very often.

I only have anecdotal information, but my impression is that it happens quite a bit. I did a secondment and was offered a job (decided to stick with big law), and two of my friends that did various secondments took jobs with their companies. If the company is looking to fill a space permanently, and you've already been trained for a few months, many companies would much rather hire you than go through the interviewing/training process.

[Anonymous User]

It sounds to me like they may actually be looking to trim the fat off your bankruptcy group, especially if it is slow right now but they're trying to do it in a diplomatic way. In between the lines of what they said, I would think they want you to "build the relationship" with the client by eventually just transitioning to a full time offer there. This isn't unusual especially for mid-level associates who they might know don't have a long term path at the firm to becoming partner/don't want to do it, but who are promising. If you are a midlevel associate, and don't want to become partner, you only have a couple more years anyways before they basically start evaluating you on a pre-partner level as a senior associate. If so, it's not worth lateraling for only a couple years and might as well go in house now.

[Anonymous User]

It sounds to me like they may actually be looking to trim the fat off your bankruptcy group, especially if it is slow right now but they're trying to do it in a diplomatic way. In between the lines of what they said, I would think they want you to "build the relationship" with the client by eventually just transitioning to a full time offer there. This isn't unusual especially for mid-level associates who they might know don't have a long term path at the firm to becoming partner/don't want to do it, but who are promising. If you are a midlevel associate, and don't want to become partner, you only have a couple more years anyways before they basically start evaluating you on a pre-partner level as a senior associate. If so, it's not worth lateraling for only a couple years and might as well go in house now.

Do you know if the secondee-to-AGC transition is common at the JPMs and Blackrocks (etc) of the world? From what I know it's common for corporate attorneys at my firm to do a rotation and come back, but I haven't been able to determine how many people are able to convert their rotations into full-time jobs (will be doing some digging on this). While that's definitely something I would be interested in, I'm leery of risking failure when I could land at a somewhat nicer firm for another 2-4 years over the uncertainty of foregoing multiple outstanding offers for what amounts to a potential shot at an in-house gig.

The risk being that I do not really want to stay in my current practice group, and if I fail to convert the secondment into a full-time job I'll have to go back to my firm and either (1) request a practice group switch or (2) start the lateral process over again. Without going into too many details on timeline, I'm confident I have at least another three years of Biglaw available to me (keep in mind I'm being very vague about my actual class year to stay discreet).

[alawyer2018]

It sounds to me like they may actually be looking to trim the fat off your bankruptcy group, especially if it is slow right now but they're trying to do it in a diplomatic way. In between the lines of what they said, I would think they want you to "build the relationship" with the client by eventually just transitioning to a full time offer there. This isn't unusual especially for mid-level associates who they might know don't have a long term path at the firm to becoming partner/don't want to do it, but who are promising. If you are a midlevel associate, and don't want to become partner, you only have a couple more years anyways before they basically start evaluating you on a pre-partner level as a senior associate. If so, it's not worth lateraling for only a couple years and might as well go in house now.

Do you know if the secondee-to-AGC transition is common at the JPMs and Blackrocks (etc) of the world? From what I know it's common for corporate attorneys at my firm to do a rotation and come back, but I haven't been able to determine how many people are able to convert their rotations into full-time jobs (will be doing some digging on this). While that's definitely something I would be interested in, I'm leery of risking failure when I could land at a somewhat nicer firm for another 2-4 years over the uncertainty of foregoing multiple outstanding offers for what amounts to a potential shot at an in-house gig.

The risk being that I do not really want to stay in my current practice group, and if I fail to convert the secondment into a full-time job I'll have to go back to my firm and either (1) request a practice group switch or (2) start the lateral process over again. Without going into too many details on timeline, I'm confident I have at least another three years of Biglaw available to me (keep in mind I'm being very vague about my actual class year to stay discreet).

FWIW, my general reaction based on the high level information you've provided is that it sounds like you're in a dead end spot at your current firm and, unless you switch to a different practice group there, you'll be unhappy. It also sounds like you have at least a couple very promising offers from other firms. I would either: (a) accept one of those offers or (b) use the offers as leverage to get to where you want to be in your current firm. I'd probably choose option a. I don't think the secondment is the right move here -- if you don't get an offer to join the company at the end of the secondment, you won't have much leverage with your current firm to make demands about a change in practice group.

[Anonymous User]

It sounds to me like they may actually be looking to trim the fat off your bankruptcy group, especially if it is slow right now but they're trying to do it in a diplomatic way. In between the lines of what they said, I would think they want you to "build the relationship" with the client by eventually just transitioning to a full time offer there. This isn't unusual especially for mid-level associates who they might know don't have a long term path at the firm to becoming partner/don't want to do it, but who are promising. If you are a midlevel associate, and don't want to become partner, you only have a couple more years anyways before they basically start evaluating you on a pre-partner level as a senior associate. If so, it's not worth lateraling for only a couple years and might as well go in house now.

Do you know if the secondee-to-AGC transition is common at the JPMs and Blackrocks (etc) of the world? From what I know it's common for corporate attorneys at my firm to do a rotation and come back, but I haven't been able to determine how many people are able to convert their rotations into full-time jobs (will be doing some digging on this). While that's definitely something I would be interested in, I'm leery of risking failure when I could land at a somewhat nicer firm for another 2-4 years over the uncertainty of foregoing multiple outstanding offers for what amounts to a potential shot at an in-house gig.

The risk being that I do not really want to stay in my current practice group, and if I fail to convert the secondment into a full-time job I'll have to go back to my firm and either (1) request a practice group switch or (2) start the lateral process over again. Without going into too many details on timeline, I'm confident I have at least another three years of Biglaw available to me (keep in mind I'm being very vague about my actual class year to stay discreet).

Not JPM, but I know someone who went secondee -> in-house position at a different bulge bracket i-bank. Make of that what you will.

[Anonymous User]

Your class year here could be a pivotal fact in figuring out if you could convert the secondment into a full time offer. Most people and friends I know of who have received full time offers from secondments were well-positioned to go in house - i.e. a lot of relevant experience/were at timeline where many go in house anyways (think 4-7th year associates) and often had formed a prior, long-running relationship with the client while already at the law firm, so the secondment merely acted as a preview of sorts.

From what you are saying, this doesn't seem to be the case as your secondment is in a different practice area from what you do/you do not have a lot of relevant corporate experience as you have been doing bankruptcy your entire career. Do you have extensive prior experience with the client you are doing a secondment with? If not, this might be a red flag as your law firm might know you won't receive an offer at the end of your secondment, but this is a subtle hint to use the free time to looking into other options.

[Anonymous User]

Off topic but what's considered fair signing bonus currently?

OP not sure I'm qualified to advise you but in your position I'd take the secondment and try to stay, and if you don't like it lateral to the finance positions.

[CanadianWolf]

Difficult decision as you will be entering a new practice area in either situation and because both options are in new settings.

Do you want to maintain a working relationship with your current firm ?

[Sad248]

My perfect goal/situation in life would be to work 50 hours/week and make 200k+. Whatever gets me closest to that out of Biglaw is what I ultimately want.

Maybe others can comment on this, as I do not have the level of seniority to know for sure, but from the post I'm understanding you want to stay at your firm for 10+ years. Assuming it's not up or out at your firm and you can become counsel (again, maybe others can also comment how likely this is, generally, at my firm I generally see people become partner or leave still), how likely is it that you'll become counsel at your firm you think?

If your plan is to more be in biglaw for a couple more years and then go in-house, I'd just leave. You'll get a wider breadth of experience it sounds like, another firm and more contacts under your belt, plus the sign up bonuses net you more money as well. If you stay at your firm, you'll likely be back in six months, without sign up bonuses and disliking your practice area.

[Anonymous User]

Off topic but what's considered fair signing bonus currently?

OP not sure I'm qualified to advise you but in your position I'd take the secondment and try to stay, and if you don't like it lateral to the finance positions.

Signing bonus for me was 30-40k range. I know one person who go 50k at their new firm but have heard those amounts are slowing down substantially.