Any advice for a junior lawyer trying to move from litigation to corporate? My firm is in a unique situation in that the associates working in corporate have largely left (for explainable reasons) or are on leave, the partners know that they need more associates doing this work, and they’re willing to train me, but as a second year lawyer who’s been doing almost exclusively litigation, the learning curve seems SO steep. I badly want out of litigation and I’d love to jump on this!

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Ask yourself why you think you’d like corporate more than litigation. And do you mean just general corporate or more of a niche? What would you be doing in corporate versus litigation?

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It’s pretty general - we’re general counsel for some corporations, and I’ll be doing securities, M&E, and some other things. I’m in a small centre so it’s not so specialized.

I’m very junior and already in litigation I find myself extremely stressed out due to the very adversarial people I’ve been dealing with. I’m also just not so good with public speaking and dealing with the court - it stresses me out! I’ve been dabbling in the corporate work I described for a few months out of necessity at my firm and I’ve really liked it. I guess I’m just looking for advice as to how to transition, because I’m sure there is an overlap in skill between lit and corporate!

Midlevel wondering the same thing.

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Wishing you luck!!

If you’re a junior then just ask to come across as a first year and no one will expect you to know anything then you can just learn on the job.

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Thanks! Yeah that’s the plan. I just find a lot of corporate daunting, the learning curve seems steep!

Sounds like K&S. Just ask. Sounds like they need people bad enough where they would be willing to retool.

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I think they are, I guess I’m just asking for any advice from corporate lawyers, or litigators who went to corporate. Or litigators who might have some advice to offer. It’s just all feeling a little overwhelming at the moment! Doesn’t necessarily feel like the skills I’ve learned in litigation will translate.

Are you in good standing? Ask nicely and you’ll be good to go. They won’t waste time with recruiting, you want to be in corporate anyway, everybody wins.

Thank you for this! I think I was getting a bit in my own head as the partners I’m working for now keep throwing things at me when I feel very inexperienced (most of my previous experience is in general civil litigation and insurance defence). It is a learning curve for sure but the past few days have been better at least.

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