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Our Philadelphia-area boutique firm whose practice works exclusively with nonprofits and charities is hiring due to growth. Tax is the basis of Exempt Org work. That is why I am posting here. Great practice working to further charitable missions of our clients. Good WLB (1300 hour billable requirement). Opportunity for the right person to work remotely. DM me or email to recruiting@laurasolomonesq.com. Www.laurasolomonesq.com
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Could you elaborate about what parts of the best practice going that you like and the ones don’t like? Will help people to assess what other things might fit better.
The learning curve on tax starts getting a little easier at the 4-5 year mark. Has that not been your experience?
I’m a fourth year and it’s definitely been a little easier, but not enough to make it bearable, unfortunately. While I’ve learned a lot it barely feels like a dent.
what year are you?
I’m a 6th year and this is the first year in which I started to feel like I know what I’m doing. It takes time and time investment outside of work to beat the learning curve. You just gotta keep at it. But if that’s not your cup of tea, you can always switch to corporate with a class year haircut (or two).
If you can handle a pay cut go work for IRS counsel for a while. National office will let you specialize and learn and if you don't like the government you can always go back to big law in a couple years.
The amount of brain power is incredibly draining. I am leaving tax as a 3rd year because I can’t stand feeling like a useless idiot anymore. Trust me you aren’t the only one.
I am trying to move in house in a non-tax role. It has been hard to get interviews, and I am going to take a pay cut for sure, but I think it is worth it.
Thank you, this is it exactly. I liked the challenge in the beginning but four years in it feels like it hasn’t gotten any easier. If anything, it feels harder because people expect me to know so much more now.
Thanks all! I am currently a fourth year. I’ve been at two different firms and I cannot tell you how garbage my self esteem is from this job. I did very well in law school but I just cannot seem to keep up with a biglaw tax practice in a substantive level. I don’t have an LLM, and I worry that’s part of the problem.
I feel like if I could specialize in one part of tax law I would feel better. As a fourth year, I feel like I barely have the basics down for M&A transactions, partnership tax, REIT stuff, debt work and tax-exempt work. It’s so broad and simply too much to know.
I would appreciate any suggestions! I rally just want a job where I am not consistently made to feel like the dumbest person alive.
In reviewing your itemization of your tax practice areas, you are not specializing enough. Would it be feasible for you to take a year away from work to get a tax LL.M. and then try to get into a more specialized sub-practice (tax) area? Or do you just want out of tax entirely?
I find it strange that your employer has not let you specialize. I work at big4 in Sweden and we have specialists in CIT, VAT, payroll, pension, TP, excise duties and customs. We only do work within our respective fields since it would be impossible to keep up to speed with all new regulations, court cases etc and also work with such mix. If totally understand that its overwhelming trying to work with everything at the same time, I would not be able to manage that. Perhaps another employer would be better where you can specialise in the field you like the most?
Big 4 is very different than big law.