Moving from in house to law firm with no law firm experience- anyone ever done this? I’m a mid-career tax lawyer who went from B4 to Fortune 100 in-house. I’ve never worked at a law firm before. I’m in a mid tier city (Not NYC but more like an Atlanta or Denver). My dream role would be a tax utility player (individual, corp, SALT, expat, M&A, estate, controversy, whatever) in a large regional firm. Is this idea nuts? Is there a need for lawyers like me? Or is it too late…

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I'm a partner in a small firm, where I'm "the tax lawyer." That means I see it all - controversy, SALT, international, federal, you name it.

There are things I can do with my eyes closed - responding to an IRS summons, for example. Then there are things that I do once in a blue moon, like foreign country LLCs. It's interesting, I do well, but it's also stressful because there is a LOT to know, and it can take hours to refresh my recollection on a topic.

Even if you get your wish, I'm willing to bet you'll find yourself staying in certain lanes. One lane I'm almost never in: M&A (because no one hires small firms for that). As a result, I am a bit hamstrung from moving to a bigger firm, because many of them look for that background.

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Right there with you P2. In fact, your background and experience are identical to mine, and I have tried to jump to a bigger firm, but without M & A experience, it's a non starter..

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I’m in a regional firm of about 170 attorneys. Middle market clients. I do a lot of different tax areas, M&A, executive comp, tax credits, a little bit of SALT, etc. but I wound say your list is likely too broad for a regional firm. People don’t usually cross the controversy versus transactional line, and usually, unless it’s very basic, estate planning is a speciality in and of itself.

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It’s been insane the past few years but getting more reasonable now. I bill about 2,300 hours on average. We just hired an associate. But he’s still to green to reduce my hours much.

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I was in house for 8 years and moved to BL in 2021. DM me if you want to talk abt it

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