At what point do you get out? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Title says it all but at what point do you start really looking to jump ship from the big law train?

6th year in NYC big law in corporate. Do you keep collecting the paycheck until they push you out or make partner or do you preemptively start looking at other options? Not necessary miserable or burnt out but more so just accustomed to the grind and no longer phased by it. However, who wants to keep that up forever? 10 or 20 more years of that sounds exhausting. Most of my class year is gone by now and I'm not "gunning" for partner. More so of the mindset that if it happens it happens with the realization that the winner of the pie eating contest just gets more pie. Pay is NYC biglaw so realistically no other options would touch what we're at now. Do we just keep riding things out collecting the paycheck until they force your hand or do you preemptively start looking to go in-house? At what point though do you become so senior that you're then limited? Who wants to hire a 8th or 9th year associate as a corporate counsel?

Welcome all thoughts.

oh dear god I feel seen. 6th year corporate associate still coasting off of the hard earned rep of years 1-4. After I had my first kid as a 4th year its been really hard to give it the same effort that I did before (and that's okay!) I know I want to get out at some point but collecting the paycheck is so nice. Up for NEP next year, not gunning for it but if it happens it happens I guess?

No clue what's next for me, feels like I'm here out of sheer laziness more than anything else...

The friction between wanting to be lazy but wanting to do just enough to not get people upset at you.

The straw that ended up breaking me (6th year as well) was when two partners took up 7-8 hours of my weekend to just put together a fee estimate for a client. No billable time for me at all (I had already maxed out my "non-billables that count as billables" time), multiple calls, including calls at 11pm on both Saturday and Sunday, etc, all so they could talk through completely bs reasons to add another $300k on to our estimate. The reason? They didn't actually want the project...they just didn't want to tell the client no to their face. The client also had asked for it on Monday and they waited until Friday afternoon to even attempt putting it together (they had the request for two weeks).

Surprising no one, client immediately said no thanks we are going somewhere else.

I just kind of sat back and said, is this really what I want to be doing? Cancelling dinner plans with my wife and locked in my office on a Saturday night writing up a literally meaningless estimate and assumptions? All to protect a partners ego because they didn't want to tell a client no?

I was lucky and got an in house gig with somewhat comparable comp. Do I have busy days that I feel like it's not worth it? Yeah absolutely. Do I have to feel like my entire life schedule is completely subject to the whims of egotistical and self centered partners? No.

Don’t really get why you didn’t say you were unavailable. I’ve never canceled Saturday night plans.