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Will Feb bar exams be converted to online?
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What is the lateral hire process like?
What’s the answer comrades?

Me. Every single day. Since I started practicing.

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Agree. Hard spot. And I had no desire to do the relationship building. I went in-house. However there were some attorneys like that that stayed. And the work was shared and their books gradually grew naturally. Just took longer. The one became a go to situation for so many people. But he did a business litigation so his rates were high. His path was more a gradual slope than a curve. It’s possible to do it and grow that book but a much harder path
Well, OP, making junior partner doesn’t really help all that much either. For one, in my big law firm, I got a nicer office but had to pay all my own health insurance, still was (even more so) constantly harassed about “building” a book without a lot of support or the ability to cut hourly rates or take on flat-fee projects. (I eventually left to do my own thing.) What’s worse, large law firms are abandoning pure income/equity structures to a hybrid, so not only do you have to borrow money for a sliver of equity with no say in anything, once you leave it has to be paid back. Thankfully, I never had to do this. My point is, once you climb the mountain from associate to partner, you’re faced with even a higher peak to traverse. And I have first hand knowledge about how vicious equity partners often are to each other. Especially the underperforming ones. But it isn’t all sour grapes, as they say, you get an invaluable skill set. But the biggest hurdle to building a book is that you can’t (in my experience) cut rates or take flat-fee projects. So it is difficult. Now don’t know how those rarities in big law work: all equity partners with lockstep pay (we all know who they are), but I do know that that isn’t always the complete truth of the matter either. So as a senior associate, if you can’t build a book, at least show you have the potential to do so, which I did back in the day by growing relationships with existing clients. While that’s all behind me now, I don’t regret it for an instance. Basically wanting to be one of my clients led me to start the company I run today (and I still have a small law firm where I take select clients on the side for work I like that dovetails with my roll as GC of the company I co-founded).
The judge I’m clerking for had a similar story that he told me one evening while grabbing drinks. He was in this same spot at his firm, senior associate doing appellate work but always working for others and not having his own clients. Also, he billed to much to do the basic stuff and had to delegate a lot of work.
He told me he just worked really hard to network as much as possible for two years. It eventually turned around and he was able to build a book and made partner. Additionally, he was able to lateral to a judicial nomination a few years later because of the network he built.
It just takes time to network and work the channels, but never too late to start.
Junior partner is harder.
Will you be put up this year?
F
I was in the same boat 2 years ago as a Senior Associate with high billable rate and partners couldn’t justify the economics of sending the simple, repetitive grunt work that yielded steady billable work. I knew I could build my own network and contacts that could tolerate my rate based on personal relationship.
I lateraled as a junior partner and grinding 20hrs a day. I’m trending half-a-million in receipt this year already based on my own client base.
If you can sacrifice time and resources, it would pay off. At least, you’ll learn along the way. You’ll know yourself better and reveal possibilities for your future.
Good luck!