Imposter Syndrome - New Start to Career Forum

(Deciding to leave, same firm different office, Reference requests)
Anonymous User
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Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am

Imposter Syndrome - New Start to Career

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Feb 11, 2021 1:11 am

Hey all! I hope everyone in this forum is staying healthy and financially stable during these unprecedented time.

I am entering my second year as an attorney. For my first 1.5 years, I was an associate at a large toxic tort defense firm in a major market. If any of you know anything about TT, it is fucking boring, mind-numbing, and overall not very challenging. I've felt like a robot the first 1.5 years of my career and ultimately decided I was unhappy due to the area I work in, my firm not giving me other areas to work in, and the firm overlooking me in the small promotional roles I could have gotten. It is a blessing in disguise because it motivated me to start applying aggressively to work in the area I always wanted to work in: labor & employment law.

Now, I didn't have the best LS numbers (50% percentile at T2 school; URM; Good softs; Great intern experience), but I managed to land a good amount of interviews at big law and T2 big law, to my surprise. I got an offer at T2 big law in their L&E practice group with a 30% pay bump and less billable hour requirement. No surprise that I took it and am SO excited to begin in a couple weeks.

Sorry for the long preface, but my question is this: TT has made me feel like I lost a lot of my lawyerly skills, since it is so informal and I've had little to no mentorship at my current firm. What suggestions do you guys have to prepare for this new role? I plan on reviewing all my L&E supplements that I have from my L&E internships and LS courses. Anyone else experience a similar imposter syndrome feeling when lateraling early in their career? What advice do you have?

Anonymous User
Posts: 428114
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am

Re: Imposter Syndrome - New Start to Career

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Mar 28, 2021 5:50 pm

I would say the best things you can do are get to know your peers and get their insight, ask questions from peers (paralegals etc.) and get the work done right, look at the precedent forms on your document system (if possible narrow to that partner or a star associate's forms and redline to spot issues or misses. Whatever you do, make sure you hit the low hanging fruit out of the park (e.g., spell check everything, clean formatting, double check client name, dates, make sure no legacy references from precedent, etc.). Good luck, you will do great!

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