Personal Injury to Corporate/Securities Forum

[Anonymous User]

I have a tough career choice now to make. I interned at and failed to get the return offer to a mid-sized NYC firm that specializes in corporate/securities work. I really enjoyed working on securities deals and M&A deals they placed me on. And the reason that I didn't get return offer is, I'm pretty sure, 99% not because of bad performance or something like that. It's most like because (1) the transactional side of the market is pretty bad and the firm doesn't have enough new deal flow, and (2) they may want to hire some big-law folks who got laid off on the market. Now I have an offer with a 5-person personal injury firm in NYC and it pays enough to feed me. My question is whether I can take this job, work there for 4-6 months, and look for transactional lawyer position when I pass the bar and get licensed. I'm also wondering about other recent graduates' and junior folks' job searching experience on the transactional side. Thank you everyone for reading and sharing your opinion.

[Born-Ready29]

Being honest I feel like that’s very unlikely unless you shmooze in all the right places. Unfortunately, this field is so quick to label and judge a young attorney that if your first gig is in PI that’s going to be your narrative. I would try like hell to get into some kind of transactional work in any capacity. Do what you need to do and a job is better than no job but if you can help it I would get into a transactional practice to build appropriate experience even if it’s for less than a year then jump to the securities job you want under the idea that’s the kind of work you really want to do.

[Lawman1865]

I have a tough career choice now to make. I interned at and failed to get the return offer to a mid-sized NYC firm that specializes in corporate/securities work. I really enjoyed working on securities deals and M&A deals they placed me on. And the reason that I didn't get return offer is, I'm pretty sure, 99% not because of bad performance or something like that. It's most like because (1) the transactional side of the market is pretty bad and the firm doesn't have enough new deal flow, and (2) they may want to hire some big-law folks who got laid off on the market. Now I have an offer with a 5-person personal injury firm in NYC and it pays enough to feed me. My question is whether I can take this job, work there for 4-6 months, and look for transactional lawyer position when I pass the bar and get licensed. I'm also wondering about other recent graduates' and junior folks' job searching experience on the transactional side. Thank you everyone for reading and sharing your opinion.

Sorry to hear about not making it with your internship. I generally agree with the above poster, that would be an unusual route to securities/corporate practice (excepting maybe a smaller niche practice that you can shmooze into). If you have to make the money, go for it and see if you can swing something into corporate, but I know PI would better translate to other types of law, like insurance, family law, etc. That is the point really, most firms are not actively hiring new lawyers for corporate practices right now.

I think a little better strategy, although still relatively risky and by no means guaranteed, if you really need something, is to find a corporate-type job in government, perhaps in a niche area, and then leverage that into a job after a year or two (when the market hopefully has improved and firms are hiring again). But that is all to say that you truly want to stay involved in corporate, rather than other types of law that you may find enjoyable.

As far as finding that job, just keep hitting the job boards, and the other usual sites (e.g. your law schools job page, LinkedIn, etc). Keep finding attorneys and shmoozing, have a resume for multiple different types of law (you can have on for corporate, real estate, litigation, etc), and use those when presented with an opportunity in those fields). Frankly in your situation, without knowing much else about your credentials, it may pay to not be "too" picky. In that vein, maybe taking the PI position, killing it there, and then learning more about other portable fields of law may be interesting as well (I know some PI firms include other "generalist" departments).

Good luck.