First-year associate here! I accepted a job at a litigation firm because I graduated in the middle of a pandemic and I absolutely love the team/workplace culture but long term I want to be in-house. Do I need to make a move to transactional ASAP or is it okay to stay in litigation for a year or two?

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Just my two cents- it is very hard to make the transition from litigation to in house. That said, I did it- but it took over a year of looking and 5 years of litigation and general business rep experience before I could. When I made the switch the guidance from my mentor was as a litigator I could either go in house around 3-5 years as a generalist and be very junior, take a pay cut and learn on the job, or wait it out til the 10+ year mark and come in as in house litigation counsel. Not sure if that is true but based on job postings I found for my experience it did seem to be accurate. Certainly, in most of my interviews I had to play up my transactional experience— and I had to edit my resume accordingly. So- you might not need to switch, but you should look for some transactional opportunities you can put on your resume when you’re ready to go in house.

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General civil- small firm so I did some commercial but not a ton

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I'd start to move to transactional ASAP, but note that I wouldn't share that your looking to move in-house... All things being equal, firms want people who plan to stick around long term, at least at the outset.

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I would switch to transactional ASAP. You’re still early in your career so it’ll be easy now but the longer you wait, the harder it is to switch.

Try and be more specific than just “I want to go in-house” or “I want to be transactional” though, when you’re interviewing as a lateral. That is not a career path. Lateral hiring is not like first year hiring, they want to hear specifics.

Finance/capital markets/fund formation seem to be areas in high demand for good (well paying) in-house jobs after 4-5 years, but certainly not the only areas. If you’re ok with not much pay, corporate generalist (basically just deal with any and all contracts that come up) can be an option even when you’re pretty junior. Regulatory and compliance is also in high demand (I wouldn’t call this transactional). Often they’re looking for a combo of transaction management plus regulatory/compliance work.

I’d check out LinkedIn and goinhouse.com , look at the job options that come up and think about what appeals to you to do 5 years from now and what you need to do now to set yourself up for that.

I meant switching to a new firm with the goal of seeking out an in house job in 5+ years. Many of the firms with regulatory/compliance or corporate positions are seeking several years of experience, usually 2-4.

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