Are there times when one can land in house after graduating from Top 14 law school Forum

(Discuss Advantages vs Disadvantages, Making the Switch From Private Practice to In-House, Compensation & Hours, Work-Life balance, In-House Reviews & Experiences)
2020lawhopeful

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Are there times when one can land in house after graduating from Top 14 law school

Post by 2020lawhopeful » Tue Jul 05, 2022 4:03 pm

I will be starting law school a little later in life in my 30s. I've wanted to practice law since I was young, but opportunity to attend law school didnt present itself until now. Have a 178 on the LSAT and it looks like I would be a competitive applicant at - Georgetown, Northwestern, NYU, University of Chicago, Michigan or UVA.

I want to practice law in New York. My dream career would be an attorney at one of the investment banks like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Wells Fargo, etc.

They says its hard to land an inhouse position outside of law school, but have read its been done when a law school graduate, graduates top of their class, has excellent grades, valuable work experience (I have finance and have been running two businesses myself since my parents passed in 2020), and they intern in law school at an in house position. And have connections, which I do. So considering I graduate from law school May 2027 or 28

1). Is it possible to land an in house position in New York at a big name firm (that is not an investment bank) outside of law school considering I meet the above conditions?
2). If I do graduate law school in 2027 or 28, and work either as an associate or luck out at in house position somewhere, is it possible with only 2-3 years of legal experience by 2030, I could land a position, in house at an investment bank?

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Re: Are there times when one can land in house after graduating from Top 14 law school

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Jul 05, 2022 4:26 pm

AIG hires straight out law school in their New York and Houston offices.

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Mullens

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Re: Are there times when one can land in house after graduating from Top 14 law school

Post by Mullens » Wed Jul 06, 2022 10:53 am

You might be able to land one of those jobs out of law school but you’d be far better served doing 2-3 years as an associate at a V10 corporate practice in NYC (in finance or M&A) and then going in-house. The above listed companies regularly hire people from those firms and it’ll likely (1) improve your short-term and long-term marketability, (2) help you learn/train legal skills better than if you go directly in-house and (3) lead to higher compensation and a better title at the banks than if you go in-house directly from law school.

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Re: Are there times when one can land in house after graduating from Top 14 law school

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Jul 06, 2022 12:37 pm

Mullens covered this already, but I would strongly recommend against going in-house right away, especially if you want to work at a bank.

1. Compensation will be lower.

2. You will have zero experience in being a lawyer, and it will be difficult to learn in-house. You learn more-or-less nothing useful for transactional practice in law school. Firms are in the business of turning law students into lawyers. Banks are not.

3. Your experience will always be inferior to an attorney that started at a firm. Banks hire outside counsel for a reason whether to handle more difficult matters, for niche services, leading complex legal projects and managing the army of lawyers on them etc. You won't be getting that experience in-house.

4. Transferability. You can go from biglaw to in-house. If you start in-house, it will be very difficult for you to go biglaw (everyone in biglaw will wonder what the hell happened to you during big law recruiting).

You mentioned you're starting law school later in life, so I understand that you may be juggling a family and other time commitments that makes you want to skip the whole junior in biglaw lifestyle. That being said, most law firms are significantly more flexible than banks. GS will have you come in 5x a week from 9-6pm. Even the strictest law firms only require 3x a week in office. If you need an hour or two every afternoon to pick up kids from school, no one will notice/bat an eye in biglaw, and that is definitely not the case at banks.

At the very least, I would give biglaw a shot for a year or two. Don't listen to the shit you hear on this forum - it's not that bad (some of us even quite like it!)

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Re: Are there times when one can land in house after graduating from Top 14 law school

Post by 1styearlateral » Wed Jul 06, 2022 12:55 pm

2020lawhopeful wrote:
Tue Jul 05, 2022 4:03 pm
I will be starting law school a little later in life in my 30s. I've wanted to practice law since I was young, but opportunity to attend law school didnt present itself until now. Have a 178 on the LSAT and it looks like I would be a competitive applicant at - Georgetown, Northwestern, NYU, University of Chicago, Michigan or UVA.

I want to practice law in New York. My dream career would be an attorney at one of the investment banks like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Wells Fargo, etc.

They says its hard to land an inhouse position outside of law school, but have read its been done when a law school graduate, graduates top of their class, has excellent grades, valuable work experience (I have finance and have been running two businesses myself since my parents passed in 2020), and they intern in law school at an in house position. And have connections, which I do. So considering I graduate from law school May 2027 or 28

1). Is it possible to land an in house position in New York at a big name firm (that is not an investment bank) outside of law school considering I meet the above conditions?
2). If I do graduate law school in 2027 or 28, and work either as an associate or luck out at in house position somewhere, is it possible with only 2-3 years of legal experience by 2030, I could land a position, in house at an investment bank?
:roll:

All the above is correct, but you'll work just as much in-house in IB than in a law firm, but make much less. Also, your chances of making director with a law degree are probably zero.

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2020lawhopeful

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Re: Are there times when one can land in house after graduating from Top 14 law school

Post by 2020lawhopeful » Wed Jul 06, 2022 8:03 pm

Thanks so much everyone for the replies. I am extremely grateful for the time you all took to assist me with this complicated inquiry, as I attempt to plan my future.

Just one further question if you all don't mind taking a moment to assist me one step further (again, I really appreciate all the beneficial replies).

So if hypothetically I graduate from the top 14 law school in June 2028 (with the great class rank, connections) and I work as an associate in big law from June 2028 (or November) as that is when the bar results come out, will working 1.5 - 2 years as an associate there then be enough experience to get inhouse as a bank, as opposed to the hired out of law school option mentioned prior? In 2030, Ill be 40, and I'd feel better, I think about my older age if then I transitioned from associate to at least in house at a bank, so do you think 1.5-2 years big law experience could be sufficient between 2028-2030? Thanks again

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Mullens

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Re: Are there times when one can land in house after graduating from Top 14 law school

Post by Mullens » Wed Jul 06, 2022 9:14 pm

The best time to go in-house is typically 3-5 years after law school (both to actually get hired and for compensation) because it’s those years where you really start to handle substantive work.

Probably going to be hard to go in-house with less than 2 years of experience but sounds like you might have the resume to do it. Probably better not to focus too much on this specific plan because a lot could happen to derail it (bad grades, poorly timed recession, life circumstances, etc).

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nealric

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Re: Are there times when one can land in house after graduating from Top 14 law school

Post by nealric » Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:38 am

I would second a recommendation to not go in-house straight out of school in most cases. Very few in-house law departments are set up to train junior people, and even if they were don't take on the breadth of matters a law firm does (good for training).

Institutionally, it can be easy to get stuck doing low-level tasks if you came straight in-house. For example, suppose you are a straight out of law school newbie at Company X. They are most likely going to give you low-level work because you lack experience and knowledge doing higher level work. You might be given (for example) the duties of reviewing low-level purchase contracts (like, take a look at this contract to buy a bunch of copiers). If you are unlucky and nobody takes you under their wing, you could just become the designated person for that sort of stuff and not be given the opportunity to move on. Say, down the road the Company X is looking to buy Company Z and the internal deal team is choosing which internal counsel will be staffed. Do they pick the person who has been looking at copier contracts their whole career, or the person who worked on a similar deal when they were at at Big & Prestigious LLP?

Obviously, that sort of thing isn't universal, but it is a distinct risk. Overall, it's usually a lot easier to come in at a higher-level role than get promoted to it. Most companies have a tendency to fill higher-level roles with outside hires rather than within.

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Re: Are there times when one can land in house after graduating from Top 14 law school

Post by fmrez » Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:53 pm

You sound like a smart person (178 LSAT) so don't take this the wrong way: law school grades often are a crapshoot. You seem to be building your plans around assuming you will be ranked in the top of your class, but you should realize that your grades will depend entirely on your law school exams which are wildly different from the LSAT, and your work experience on those exams will mean zero. Trust me, your peers at UChi, NYU, etc are also very good at taking exams and maybe better as they might be bringing to the table all the random quirky academic-ness that law professors drool over when they are grading papers.

FWIW, I did OCI at a T6 a few years ago and the only non-law firm entity conducting interviews was Hewlett-Packard.

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