Tips for bringing clients in biglaw? Im an EC/VC biglaw midlevel and am getting a lot of referrals from friends and old colleages - ive been asking partners to help me sign engagement letters and conflict checks but, as our group is slammed anyway, I feel bad asking a slammed partner if I can bring on another client (as my own clients are starting to consumme a lot of my bandwidth). Im curious if anyone has succesfully navigated this situation in biglaw (more below)

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Isn't bringing in clients the whole point?

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It's impressive and rare for a midlevel to be able to bring in clients. You could jump to another biglaw firm that values you more for your BD/doesn't give the credit to the partners.

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I’m not a partner so I won’t try to give any misguided advice, but it sounds to me like you’re well on your way to partnership.

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End of day I think this is something you should discuss with a trusted mentor at firm.

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I feel like im not pulling my weight with my group because ive been so focused on my business (maybe 300-500k receivables past 12 mo). Curious if this could end up costing me my job, or if I should just bite the bullet and keep growing. Very curious how other people in similar groups have navigated this.

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Last year was 2k, and this year on pace to 2.2k. I would say about 1/3 or 1/4 is my client work. They are slightly on a discounted rate. I'm curious about how to handle the politics of this (and also what to do when I have competing deals going on (mine vs partner)).

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Would really like to get any advice from current partners to see what they think and how to approach them...

Based on what you said above I don’t see a problem, generally, but if you are blowing off bigwig rainmaker work to work on your own stuff and s/he hasn’t given you blessing to do so, maybe an issue. But the beauty is, if you have your own business, ultimately you don’t need them unless there is a very specific platform you’re selling.

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Sound like issues your assistant could help you navigate.

I’ll offer a contrarian perspective - I actually think there is risk from building up your own book too much as a mid-level. Partners generally want you to be servicing their clients, not yours, and they might see you as a flight risk (esp. for a practice like ECVC) and someone who cares more about your own clients rather than theirs. While showing promise for business development is great for when you become partner, it may actually be a negative signal in this context.

If you care about making a good impression and preserving relationships, I’d make sure you’re not sacrificing any work re: your partners and over communicate a desire to stay at the firm and learn. If your practice group is getting crushed, partners may not like it if you bring on more clients, unless you can also generate laterals to help.

Or if you’re not too concerned about burning a few bridges, you can keep on building your book and eventually lateral somewhere or start your own firm to monetize that book more effectively. This sort of happened to me unexpectedly (I didn’t navigate this as smoothly) but it ended up working out nicely in the end.

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