Tax associate taking on non-specialist work Forum

[Anonymous User]

How unusual is it for a specialist (tax) to also take on non-specialist work? I am committed to tax but I did a stint in cap markets and would be equally as happy with the work. To note, I am a junior still. Alternatively, do you foresee less room for growth because of divided attention?

[Anonymous User]

In my experience, it would be very, very rare. Tax requires constant learning, and most tax partners would find it bizarre and annoying if you're not entirely devoting yourself to it. Even in general I think it's pretty rare to get work that's outside of your current group.

Source: fourth year tax associate that's worked at two firms.

[Anonymous User]

I disagree with the previous poster, but I think that just shows that this is a firm-specific (and really, a group-specific) question. I do construction work, but I occasionally help out with general commercial agreements. Those are more related areas than tax and cap markets may be, but it's certainly still outside of the "construction" realm.

[asdfasdf2]

This occurred at my prior firm and was encouraged by some of the tax partners. It seemed to be a response to over- and underhiring in each respective group. It was not universally admired among the tax associates subjected to it, but not universally hated either. A couple of the people asked to do it did not last that long at the firm afterwards, however, so read into that what you will.

[Anonymous User]

In my experience, it would be very, very rare. Tax requires constant learning, and most tax partners would find it bizarre and annoying if you're not entirely devoting yourself to it. Even in general I think it's pretty rare to get work that's outside of your current group.

Source: fourth year tax associate that's worked at two firms.

Strong agree with this, based on my years of experience at Skadden tax fwiw.

[nealric]

I think this is very firm dependent. Some firms have a strong ring fence between practice groups, while others don't mind a level of fluidity. I worked on a few non-tax matters as a tax associate, and the tax partners didn't mind as long as I was available when they needed me on tax.

While I agree that a junior tax associate has to focus on learning and growing as a tax practitioner, a few side projects here and there shouldn't derail that growth. Working with the corporate groups could be very beneficial to better understand the process of how they work deals, which can help with your ability to anticipate when and how your input as a tax practitioner will be needed. It's also good to get to know the corporate partners well, as they are your internal clients. That said, if you end up spending more than 25% or so on non-tax matters it could become too much of a distraction. I have heard of people starting down that road and ending up switching to corporate entirely.

[Anonymous User]

It depends in some part on how your firm measures financial performance, and whether your hours will "count" towards your tax group or purely towards the non-tax group.

[papermateflair]

I'm sure all tax lawyers are different, but the ones at my firm are very much in the mindset that tax is the best. They're very passionate about tax, and they want associates who are fully engaged in tax work. I don't think they'd be *offended* by someone saying they want to split their time with another practice area, but...I don't think they'd be thrilled about it, and honestly it would probably make you first to get pushed out if your hours weren't great, someone didn't like you, etc. There's so much to learn in tax that you really can't split time for too long if you want to try something out, otherwise you fall behind and it'll be hard to justify billing you out as a mid-level if you really only have half the experience of other mid-levels. Maybe you can split for a year but after that someone is likely going to force you to make a decision.

[Anonymous User]

Based on my experience at my firm and interviewing with other firms, this tends to be a thing for firms with smaller tax departments, and absolutely not a thing at firms with bigger tax departments.

I did a good chunk of corporate work when I was a junior, and it was useful for general drafting skills and understanding how transactions work, but it can become a problem pretty quickly. When corporate deals start taking up a significant amount of your time, you miss out on the tax work you need to learn the practice, as many others have noted. The problem can compound if you do good work for corporate partners as they'll try to keep their deals leaner but have you staffed on the tax side with the hope of you taking on substantive corporate work (this still happens to me quite frequently as a senior associate on things like joint ventures).

If your in a "free market" staffing type firm, this can be difficult to navigate as a junior and you may need to get tax partners involved to make sure you're not getting overly staffed on corporate matters and not pissing corporate partners off when you're turning down assignments. It's very easy to have slow periods from a tax perspective and get yourself swamped with corporate work, leading to little time for tax work.