Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice) Forum

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Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Oct 09, 2019 11:36 pm

Currently waiting on bar results - working for a PI firm doing litigation. Recently got an offer for a job in compliance/banking in the city I want to be in, but it pays a pretty good amount less (but has way better benefits and regular hours/low stress, basically a great work-life balance).

Curious to hear what advice/insight anyone has. The PI firm isn't bad - but the turnover is nuts and you rarely see anyone stay there for more than a year before they move on to another employer.

I've always been interested in JD advantage jobs - like compliance work - and one day moving to an in-house type position.

So basically - just curious what everyone's thoughts are on the pros/cons of leaving litigation (which I've never been a huge fan of) for a lower paying job in compliance for a reputable organization. I'm not sure what doors the compliance job opens and what jobs PI litigation will lead to considering I'm not likely to find a way into a big or medium sized firm - and even if I did, I don't know if I'm made out for the ridiculous hours litigation entails.

Please tell me your thoughts and thanks in advance!

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Oct 10, 2019 1:51 pm

Bump: the compliance job also doesn’t require bar passage - so if I don’t get ideal bar results I keep the job, vs the PI firm where I lose it same day.

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LSATWiz.com

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by LSATWiz.com » Thu Oct 10, 2019 2:11 pm

What's more important to you? Work-life balance or money?

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Oct 10, 2019 3:49 pm

A happy medium haha

But I think my biggest issue is I’m trying to figure out what this type of move does to my long-term career (if anything). I feel like litigation/personal injury isn’t going anywhere so if for some reason the JD advantage job isn’t what I imagined - then it’s not a huge setback. But if in a few years I get burned out from litigation/leave the firm since turnover is so high and I doubt I’ll be the exception to the rule - I’m not sure what job opportunities will be there.

Government jobs that value litigation experience maybe, or trying to lateral into another firm I guess.

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Oct 10, 2019 4:43 pm

Litigation is going to keep more doors open for you if you want to be an attorney. If one of your first jobs out of law school is compliance / JD-preferred, you may end up stuck and have trouble transitioning into an attorney job later. I have friends who didn't pass the bar and who went into doc review or compliance, and I suspect that employers are always wondering why they ended up not practicing law.

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trebekismyhero

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by trebekismyhero » Thu Oct 10, 2019 5:02 pm

Agree with the above poster. OP, if you think you want to be a lawyer, your first job should be a legal JD job. If you don't care and think you'll be happier doing compliance, take that gig.

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Oct 10, 2019 11:49 pm

OP, I started in compliance out of law school and have several friends who did. I moved to biglaw in my field after 4 years. Of 5 people who started with me in compliance, 2 work in biglaw, one is a house husband, one works in midlaw, and one stayed in compliance. I have a compliance colleague who moved to a prestigious litigation role for the government. It’s not a lost cause by any stretch.

That being said, I never went into compliance as a holding period until I found something better. I dedicated myself and made lots of connections and was strategic about my moves. I started at a large organization and moved somewhere smaller and more prestigious in terms of work. Compliance can be pretty cool. I did a lot of deal work and dealt with trading issues, regulatory matters, gov agencies, worked abroad, answered 5 am questions about European offerings, analyzed litigation risk for multiple deals, and more. At the wrong organization compliance can be all policy work in a back office or mindless AML shit. It all depends on where you go. I interfaced heavily with outside counsel and soaked up all the knowledge I could. Others are just waiting to GTFO and hoping to do a legal job.

PM if you want to talk more.

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by ILikeTwix » Fri Oct 11, 2019 8:10 am

I left my job at a big law firm after 3 months to work in compliance with an international corporation last December. I was attracted to benefits, low stress, work-life balance, and opportunities to work as an in-house counsel in the near future. And the biggest perk of all, no billable hours. Many corps let you work remotely. I continue to learn through CLE. I earn over 100k and I'm free to practice law as an attorney outside of my company in my free time. I handle corporate specific matters such as data privacy, anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, human rights, export/import regulations, corporate investigations, and antitrust. I work abroad and in the States, so I learn relevant policies, regulations, and laws according to the country or region.

You have to consider what you ultimately want to do. I want to work in-house, so during law school, I interned for a few corporations. I would always ask each in-house attorney about the pros & cons. To sum it all up, after 5-10 years they burned out at the firm. The holy grail was to work in-house because the security, benefits, salary, and work-life balance. Additionally, many corporations train you to operate by their policies and practice in-line with their procedures...so I decided to skip the firm. Since you have JD, you can likely negotiate a better salary. Good luck!

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by JuliusCaesar » Fri Oct 11, 2019 8:45 am

ILikeTwix wrote:I left my job at a big law firm after 3 months to work in compliance with an international corporation last December. I was attracted to benefits, low stress, work-life balance, and opportunities to work as an in-house counsel in the near future. And the biggest perk of all, no billable hours. Many corps let you work remotely. I continue to learn through CLE. I earn over 100k and I'm free to practice law as an attorney outside of my company in my free time. I handle corporate specific matters such as data privacy, anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, human rights, export/import regulations, corporate investigations, and antitrust. I work abroad and in the States, so I learn relevant policies, regulations, and laws according to the country or region.

You have to consider what you ultimately want to do. I want to work in-house, so during law school, I interned for a few corporations. I would always ask each in-house attorney about the pros & cons. To sum it all up, after 5-10 years they burned out at the firm. The holy grail was to work in-house because the security, benefits, salary, and work-life balance. Additionally, many corporations train you to operate by their policies and practice in-line with their procedures...so I decided to skip the firm. Since you have JD, you can likely negotiate a better salary. Good luck!
How did you get it so quickly? Connections?

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by Aptitude » Fri Oct 11, 2019 10:05 am

Curious to hear what advice/insight anyone has. The PI firm isn't bad - but the turnover is nuts and you rarely see anyone stay there for more than a year before they move on to another employer.

I've always been interested in JD advantage jobs - like compliance work - and one day moving to an in-house type position.
I would leave for the compliance job without even a 2nd thought.

Because the PI firm has so much turnover, there may be stuff happening later down the road that you haven't seen yet (aside from just stressful hours). And you're likely to end up leaving anyways just like everyone else.

The compliance job sounds way better. And if it's at a Fortune 500 company, there's plenty of ways to transfer or get promoted through the company. There are plenty of networking opportunities for you to actually meet people or interact with people from legal within these companies.

This was a good post:
I did a lot of deal work and dealt with trading issues, regulatory matters, gov agencies, worked abroad, answered 5 am questions about European offerings, analyzed litigation risk for multiple deals, and more. At the wrong organization compliance can be all policy work in a back office or mindless AML shit. It all depends on where you go.
Fortune 500 companies use job titles pretty liberally. At one company I know (an extremely large tech company), "compliance" can mean many, many different types of roles and work. When I interviewed, what they described to me was just mindless repetitive work the legal department didn't want to deal with. But they also had far more interesting roles with "compliance" in the descriptor too.

Also, what another person said about non-billable hours is definitely a big perk. There are other advantages. A lot of Fortune 500 companies are allowing lots of work from home. Also, generally your Management tends to be better at managing than law partners. There's more pressure on them to not be dicks, or they can also easily be fired or create HR issues for their own higher-ups. They have to answer to more people, whereas a law partner, especially at small firms, can be out of control.

You'll rarely see an out-of-control manager like you see some law partners. And if they are, they won't last very long. You can usually wait them out until they get replaced. Or you can just try a transfer after a year within a big company.

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by ILikeTwix » Fri Oct 11, 2019 4:19 pm

JuliusCaesar wrote:
ILikeTwix wrote:I left my job at a big law firm after 3 months to work in compliance with an international corporation last December. I was attracted to benefits, low stress, work-life balance, and opportunities to work as an in-house counsel in the near future. And the biggest perk of all, no billable hours. Many corps let you work remotely. I continue to learn through CLE. I earn over 100k and I'm free to practice law as an attorney outside of my company in my free time. I handle corporate specific matters such as data privacy, anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, human rights, export/import regulations, corporate investigations, and antitrust. I work abroad and in the States, so I learn relevant policies, regulations, and laws according to the country or region.

You have to consider what you ultimately want to do. I want to work in-house, so during law school, I interned for a few corporations. I would always ask each in-house attorney about the pros & cons. To sum it all up, after 5-10 years they burned out at the firm. The holy grail was to work in-house because the security, benefits, salary, and work-life balance. Additionally, many corporations train you to operate by their policies and practice in-line with their procedures...so I decided to skip the firm. Since you have JD, you can likely negotiate a better salary. Good luck!
How did you get it so quickly? Connections?
No connections needed. There are several open positions for in-house compliance on Indeed and LinkedIn. Some do not require prior firm experience. JDs are valued.

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Oct 11, 2019 4:25 pm

Thanks for the info above. I'm not the OP but have been following the thread. I do see in-house compliance positions that are JD preferred fairly often, but rarely do I see one that doesn't want prior subject matter experience. I'll keep an eye out.

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Oct 11, 2019 10:29 pm

OP here - thanks for all the advice, I really appreciate it!

I took the compliance job and think I'm set on it. It's with a financial/banking organization and from what I can tell the networking/creating relationships/learning opportunities seem pretty great. I worked before law school (government job, and a consulting-esque business role) and my goal has always been geared towards working in-house or GC one day. My 2L firm was corporate transactional which I really enjoyed but was no-offered, so I accepted the highest paying job on the table. It's honestly not that bad, and it's pretty cool how much latitude and experience associates get (in trial, taking depos, etc. literally weeks after bar results). But I honestly don't see myself A) being in litigation long-term (i'm not going to magically find a backdoor into a great firm on a partner track) or B) staying at this firm for more than a year or two (just based off the widely known and discussed turnover here).

I think my biggest concern is seemingly giving up on being an "attorney" before I even really gave it a shot. And I don't like the idea of choosing a low-stress/work-life balance/enjoyable job when now is the time for me to suck it up and earn my stripes (maybe just reverse-millennial psychology).

It's good to hear that there's been some great experiences with "compliance" on here.

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by Aptitude » Sat Oct 12, 2019 12:18 pm

I think my biggest concern is seemingly giving up on being an "attorney" before I even really gave it a shot.
Largely exaggerated on here. You can find your way back in, especially since you had already worked as one - it just depends on what type of law and where. The bigger issue is the lost time if you decide to go back. For instance, if you go back in 5 years, you won't be paid as an attorney with 5 years experience (though some of your compliance experience will be valued it's not exactly the same).
And I don't like the idea of choosing a low-stress/work-life balance/enjoyable job when now is the time for me to suck it up and earn my stripes (maybe just reverse-millennial psychology).
I believe it's better to enjoy life in your 20s, 30s if you're still single, have no family, and less responsibilities. You can take longer vacations to wherever you want, you can explore and have more financial freedom.

When you're in your 40s, 50s, most people have kids to think about and college funds, and multiple car payments etc. The trip to Ibiza with your college buddies are no longer realistic. Gambling and partying heavily in Vegas won't be the same if you have kids.

You can switch jobs and explore more earlier too. I see compliance people in tech jump around a lot. They'll do a few years at 1 tech company through their vesting period, then get poached by another tech company, and so on.
What's more important to you? Work-life balance or money?
If making a lot of money is important, it won't be done through a salary or traditional legal track. Being from a city known for its large population of multi-millionaires/billions, the ones I know their "money" definitely doesn't come from salary. It's almost always through the stock market or another business unrelated to their original salaried work (real estate or another type of business investment). They have an extremely different mentality than how most people here think as well.

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Oct 13, 2019 11:13 pm

As the above posters have mentioned, compliance is very broad and can mean different things depending on the company. After law school, I went into compliance and immediately worked on substantive matters in a niche area (think export controls and economic sanctions). From there, I worked for a company leading compliance at a corporate level, and I have not gone into consulting at a large firm. While working for the company, I managed outside counsel, made key legal/compliance decisions, led internal investigations, etc. In a low COL market, I make between $160-170K with a nice bonus 5 years out of school. That being said, I know some people who graduated from my law school that went into “compliance” doing AML work and only make $25 dollars an hour. It is about getting in the right area and making the most out of it. What area of compliance are you going into? What have they told you that you will be doing?

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Oct 14, 2019 5:37 pm

What does AML stand for exactly?

And it’s for a banking organization - no specific topics - but from what I understand the position deals with state and federal regs which is basically too long to list.

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Re: Litigation vs. Compliance (career advice)

Post by The Lsat Airbender » Mon Oct 14, 2019 6:15 pm

Anonymous User wrote:What does AML stand for exactly?

And it’s for a banking organization - no specific topics - but from what I understand the position deals with state and federal regs which is basically too long to list.
Anti-money laundering. Banks are statutorily required to do however much due diligence so it's generally regarded by management as a deadweight cost and the personnel are treated accordingly.

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