I spent 7 years in biglaw doing mostly antitrust and class actions. I left two years ago to go to the government. I don’t love it for a variety of reasons. I’d like to go in house, but not a ton of competition positions around. Though networking, I found a boutique firm of around 20 lawyers that would likely hire me (plaintiff side class actions mostly). But what I miss are the resources of biglaw - word processing, assistants, juniors. I just want to be a good middle manager! What to do?

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With your experience I wonder if you could find a counsel position at a big law firm - reasonable salary, you might be able to negotiate a lower billable target, and without the pressures of partner track?

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You can but it’s really rare for a firm to actually honor that. A lot of counsel positions turn into “partner stress and hours without the pay.” Plus when firms need to tighten the belt, counsel can be vulnerable because of their high salary but without generating business.

We all want big law $ without the brutality.

Closest you might find is a plaintiff boutique. But most of those are more brutal for less money. Nice thing about plaintiff side is they say nice things before they take your birthday. There are outliers. But few and far between.

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Yeah, the people at this firm seem really happy but they’re also really into “the good fight” so I’m not sure I trust it. Once bitten twice shy, I guess.

Wait a few months for the job market to come back and find a job in FAANG. Lots of need for antitrust lawyers in big tech.

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Mind sharing a range?

Some big companies might have anti trust roles or m&a roles.

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For additional context: I work best as a member of a medium to large team, I am a parent and the government salary isn’t paying the bills, I was not the highest biller. I’m also not drawn ideologically to plaintiff or defense work, I’m weirdly neutral as long as it’s not defending the Sacklers or something.

If you can wait out Khan leaving and get a more senior role you can come back to biglaw as a partner in 5-10 years.

I’ve heard enough to know it’s worse than i could know from the outside, sorry :(

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