I’m a biglaw midlevel associate and hoping to go in house in a year or so. If I wanna take a year off for my passion project, should I do it after getting some experience as IHC? It’s already hard enough to land a good IHC role without any prior IH experience so I feel like if I take a year off now (or before having a foot in the door as IHC, it might get really tough to find a role when I’m returning to work.

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You’re at a tough point in your career to take time off for anything other than medical or parental leave. Assuming your passion project is not professionally relevant, I think you’re likely to struggle to find a position upon returning either way. However, if the ultimate goal in in-house, having in-house experience will make you a more attractive candidate up your return.

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No one can make this call for you. You’ve got to decide where your priorities are. Are you comfortable potentially taking a very large hit to or sacrificing your legal career for your passion project? What’s your plan if you can’t land the in-house role you want when you get back? You’ve got to decide if the risk is worth the reward.

What kind of passion project?

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Moving abroad to learn new skills (unrelated to law)

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Unless you can find a job in house where your language skills, cultural knowledge, etc would be relevant, yes it will make it harder to find a job when you’re back. If you’re willing to take the risk, then go live your best life I guess. Could you do a short term “exchange” for language and cultural immersion instead? Or maybe do some fractional work on the side to keep up with the resume? I think it would still impact you but maybe not as much as a full year off

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