Currently in-house in a great situation overall. I have an opportunity to move to a firm at 25% base pay increase. This would be my first law firm experience, so trying to understand what to expect and if it is worth it.

My thinking is that a firm offers upside that in-house often does not as far as comp. But also I would have the opportunity to build stronger expertise in my practice area. Am I crazy for considering this?

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DONT DO ITTTT. I was in house and switched to big law. Bad decision. Thought AM 200 might be better… bad decision…. Now I’m back in house.

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25 percent is not enough, whats ur practice area brw

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not worth it unless u get into biglaw or a reputable boutique

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You're not crazy - a lot of people do this and it ends up being a great move that helps them master their practice. But if this is a biglaw job and your current gig is more normal hours-wise, do know that you will have incredibly stressful periods and that 25% bump will feel not worth it at times. Just depends on your long term goals.

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IMO, the main drawback of firm life is the push to build your own book of business. You are your own Sales and Marketing team. If you can’t schmooze people into being clients, or grind out long hours, or have some niche specialty, your shelf life at a firm is a bit limited. It is its own kind of stress. If the GC of your company retires, you typically still have a job, as you still have the company as a client. But if the one partner who gives you 80+% of your work retires, or switches firms, you may be looking for a new job.

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Get ready to work 25% more.

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Probably, I was just tying it to the pay increase. As someone who has half days every Friday and never works past 5pm, you couldn’t pay me a million to go back to a firm.

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Firm bad. In house good.

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Oof. I think it depends on (a) how much you need/want the additional income and (b) how much your current work-life balance you can tolerate losing. I'm a 4th year in big law planning to move in-house within the next year and can't explain how much I hate working in big law and private practice in general. Every client acts like they're your only client and it gets so old.

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I went from biglaw to in house IP, and took a 50% pay cut. Won’t go back for even double my current salary. I now work half of what I did in biglaw. Keep in mind that even though salary is higher in a law firm, benefits (401k match, insurance, fringe) may be worse to compensate.

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