Has anyone made the transition from law to public accounting or tax in industry? Are you happier? I’ve been thinking about making such a move since there seems to be more remote opportunities in accounting. Advice or talk me off the ledge?
(My background: Big 4 SALT > State AG’s office (tax) > small commercial lit firm > COVID > city attorney > in-house (real estate))

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I did the opposite transition (B4 tax --> big law tax) and I would personally never go back. What are you looking for?

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OP - I actually agree with a decent amount of what you're saying. I definitely enjoyed how easy the work was in public accounting, and there are times when I miss my B4 spreadsheets.

But, I'm also making well over 3 times what I used to. I also found a lot of the people in public accounting to be either incompetent or lazy, and I just couldn't handle working with people like that, especially when you consider how boring the work is and how much of it there was to do.

Maybe if my pay was similar they could convince me to go back, but until then, it isn't even worth considering for me.

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Curious to know what those transitions have done for you salary wise and many years this background history covers? For example, did you leave the Big4 as a staff or senior manager? What salary did you leave at and where are you now? It’s hard to provide input on your ask without knowing a bit more about YOE and salary.

Fair enough. My starting point was really low… so even a tax staff salary was a big increase for me at the time, and I left public accounting with about 2.5 YOE. I did state tax litigation for another 2.5 years after that though, so I’d say I have about 5 years of tax experience. Current salary is low $100K, but willing to take a small cut for flexibility/remote work.

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