Need advice: 6th year associate at a large firm. I have a potential job offer at an in house position at an international company with a sizable legal department. My spouse is currently in medical school and will not know where he matches for his residency for another 2 years. Assuming the pay is comparable, would it hurt my chances of getting another job in another city (or be less flexible) if I take the in house job over staying at a firm? For instance, if I stay at my firm I could (cont.)

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I do think it’s the case that you have less options going from in-house to in-house. At firms there’s probably tons of places you can plug and play. With in-house, they don’t need an army of replaceable bodies, they need specialized people and they don’t need to hire every year. It may not be available in every geographic market at a pay you consider acceptable. In-house hiring also is a much longer process, it can take several months to get to offer, while firms can be within a week.

All that said, it’s not like you can’t get a new job once you go in-house. You’ll have new, in-house specific skill sets you’ll be able to sell to new places, plus your skills you gained at the firm didn’t go anywhere either. If you’re financially comfortable enough that you can wait a few (or several) months between gigs, or maybe work remote at your in-house gig until you find a longer term solution, you’ll do fine in the long run. If your long term career/lifestyle goal is to work in-house and this job seems to be setting you toward your long term goals, that’s probably a better long term investment of your time than sticking it out at the firm another 2 years (which is a long time and who knows what’ll happen between now and then, e.g., you and boyfriend break up, you have a kid, he gets residency locally, you decide you hate in-house and want to go back to firm, your in-house says 100% remote is fine etc).

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Thank you SO much for the insight!

I’ve had to deal with the match process twice (residency & fellowship) - I definitely know how difficult it is to plan around. That said, the match will have a lot of control over your career soon enough - please do not give it that power 2 years early. Your spouse could match locally or they could match in a tiny city with no big firms for you to transfer to. Hypothetically, could going in-house limit your options? Sure. Could it also make you super marketable for another in-house role when you move? Possibly. Who knows - this company could decide to embrace remote work & let you work from wherever your partner matches! As much as it sucks, you just have to make the decision with the info you have right now. Are you excited about this new role? Do you think it would help you develop as an attorney? How do you feel about being at a firm right now? Do you want to stick it out for 2 more years (+ 3-5 years of residency)? Just think through what you want for your career & make the call based on that. Hang in there - and feel free to DM me if you want to discuss match planning!

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Absolutely - feel free! Very, very happy to discuss.

potentially transfer to another office, or explore going to another firm or in house. Versus if I went in house now I’m worried I will have less options. But I’m not sure if that’s even the case! What do you think?

I would think you'd have more options since you'll have both firm and in-house experience so you could do either in a new city. It's also likely you'll have remote firm and in-house options in the future. It's a good opportunity to try in-house and learn what you like before potentially moving. If you hate it, you'll have a good reason, along with the move, for explaining why you want to go back to a firm.

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