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Mentor
Lateraled twice to fix the funk. Life is short don’t get stuck doing stuff you don’t want to work on. Get that sign on bonus. But I agree with A1 that some self reflection is helpful to think about the roles where you were happy/felt a good fit to strategize going forward. Don’t just lateral for the sake of it.
Subject Expert
Have you had prior jobs that felt better for you? In other words, do you have the context to know this isn’t just your normal state when having to work to feed yourself? I think sometimes K-JDs can be a bit worse about jumping to nothing in particular and finding it’s no different so that’s why I ask.
I’m still at the firm I summered at but I’ve had non-legal roles I felt way more comfortable in. I think starting during the pandemic through me for a loop and I never found my footing but don’t know how to fix that now.
Some more post-therapy context: I feel like nothing about my practice is “centralized.” Like I don’t even know what “team” I’m on. I know my supervisor and who I usually work with, but I still feel like a floater with no solid firm relationships. For example, I work with people who usually don’t work with each other.
Starting during Covid didn’t help, but it feels to set in stone now to try to retcon the firm dynamics. It feels like a fresh start with some of the confidence I’ve built over the past years will reposition me for more success.
Mostly lender side debt finance. I really enjoy the work itself (or at least don’t hate it), and the people I work with are nice enough, it just feels like the lack of centralization means I constantly miss things.
I lateraled during my first year out of law school and I’m so much happier for it. I was miserable in my old job and it just made me a very unhappy person. I knew I had to get a new job but after a slow month I got
Stockholm syndrome like maybe it’s not actually that bad because I like the people. In the end I’m so happy I left and I feel like a real person again. In retrospect I’m 100% sure now that it’s the job and not me.
Yes and it was the best decision. Granted I had more specific/graver concerns than you, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how different my experience is at my new firm, doing virtually the same work.
Enthusiast
I lateraled and the funk is still there. Ugh