I'm interviewing at a firm for a litigation associate position. I've been moved on to the second round but they said it was to see if I was interested in "other positions" which I'm going to take to mean a pre-litigation associate. I'm newly licensed and have only been practicing for three months. Litigation isn't my passion but I wanted to gain experience going to trial because I was under the impression it is just a useful skill to have that will make it easier to transition to either (1 of 2)

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You should start off pre lit. You can absolutely transition later. The skills you get working up the file and identifying the issues will be crucial when and if you transition.

You’ll get used to working with adjusters and managing client expectations.

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That's great news! Thank you I was a little worried but this is actually a bit of a relief because I've found litigation to be more difficult since it doesn't play to my strengths. Thank you!

(2 of 2) govt or in house work down the road. Could I do pre lit and still make that transition later on my career? The firm is very prestigious and a household name in the state, and the pay would be very good either way. Just concerned about the long term impacts. Any guidance is appreciated!

Early in your career, it doesn’t matter what you do, so long as you’re doing something. I know plenty of people who started in presuit and moved to family law, transactional work, government, etc.

As to starting in presuit: PI firms are hesitant to send a newly minted attorney straight to litigation. And if they do (unless you get a person or firm who is truly willing to mentor you) it’s usually a red flag. You need to understand what happens on the claim building and settlement side before you start litigating. How are you going to be able to take a deposition or build in experts if you don’t understand the area of law? Lit positions in PI are usually one attorney and one paralegal handling their own caseloads without assistance from partners or other attorneys. Not a ton of hand holding. There are some firms that just throw new attorneys into the fire, but there is generally tons of turnover and a lot of costly, license threatening mistakes.

If you prove you know what you’re doing in presuit and that you’re able to multi-task, you’ll move to litigation quickly.

You are actually narrating my life story currently. So there you go. And like you said, without knowing how it works in pre-lit, how can I effectively understand to litigate

I disagree. Just look at who does pre-lit on the defense side? Adjusters. Not lawyers. And adjusters are people who got useless majors in college and who couldn’t gets better jobs, if they even went to college, because no one with options becomes an adjuster. Sure you can make money doing pre-lit but you’re cutting off your options. And generally speaking, when a PI lawyer talks about in-house, you’re talking in house at an insurance company, which will be to handle litigated claims only—because, again, adjusters handle pre-lit. Same with government. Although you may be able to get into your city/county/state civil division representing agencies in defending government claims, you’ll need litigation experience to get those jobs because all those cases are litigated. I’m a little confused by something you said—litigation isn’t your passion? If that’s the case, why PI? Anyway, if there’s no option for you to segue into litigation fairly quickly, you may find yourself stuck there forever.

My thought was that OP wanted to go “in-house” meaning corporate. Not insurance counsel.

I personally think starting in pre-lit is better. My first position was in lit, and I had no idea what I was doing and had no help. After six months I went to a bigger firm, started in pre-lit, and have a much better handle on things because I had the time to adjust to the PI world. My experience with defense attorneys that started in lit is that they are overworked and their cases are underworked. They seem to not have a good handle of the rules and are just trying to stay afloat. Could you start in lit and tread water? Sure! But I think some of the better trial attorneys that came up started in a position with less responsibility.

I’ve seen some attorneys start in lit and be phenoms. I think that’s more rare. Usually, when I see an associate start out in lit, they get overwhelmed and leave.

And how is your handle “trial attorney” on here btw?

Then sadly you’re not only misrepresenting yourself on here, but also to prospective and current clients.

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