Leave federal gov't for law firm?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just as a devils advocate, I left gov for big law counsel role and find I have way more flexibility. But it really does depend on your practice area - if you have an important niche you can get away with working less. I feel like regulatory is a good niche for example. Litigation not so much.

+1. associate in a regulatory group here. So so much flexibility. If a kid is home sick, I’ll just work from home the whole week. One week I wfh certain days when I need to do bus stop with kids, other days I put in a long day while DH manages at home stuff. But I can change week to week and day to day. I can work in the morning from 5:30 to 7:30 before the kids get up. Or a couple hours at night after they’re in bed which allows me to chaperone a field trip or take them to appointments. I never work weekends aside from a few emails and maybe proofreading a document. I make more than double what I’d make in gov. DH is gov so we still get the favorable health care. I do agree with others on not starting out part time. I’m full time and it’s not an issue if there’s a slow stretch and I basically work part time and end up not coming close to the hours threshold. You have to be ok not getting that big bonus, but there’s no issue for me there at $400,000 base.

Regulatory is an entirely different beast than what OP is suggesting - litigation. With litigation, if there's a TRO or a crazy emergency briefing schedule requiring an opposition brief in 4 days which means the partner demands an almost final draft from you in 2 days or a discovery schedule gets set requiring 20 depositions to be conducted in one month all over the country - guess what you're doing it, assuming you want to retain your job in the next review cycle. Litigation tends to be a team sport - whereas regulatory has individual people who are hired for certain expertise from certain agencies. So when you are tasked with 10 depositions and counsel in Iowa City and Jacksonville don't agree to remote, you're on a plane to one of those places and your fellow associate/counsel is going to the other place. Same with brief writing; sure you can push off some on mid level/senior associates but there are plenty of times when the non equity partner or counsel (which is what I assume OP would be or senior associate) is asked by the partner to handle it themselves bc presumably you can do it faster/better or frankly you end up having to write 1 brief bc the senior associate is writing 2 others all in the same timeframe.

So then whether the kid needs to get on the bus or go on a field trip or it's your best friend's wedding, all those things come second to meeting some deadline that is nearly - but not entirely - impossible. Regulatory is different - YOU are the expert; if YOU tell them it'll take you 2 days, well they have no choice but to wait on you. In litigation, they'll just plug some other senior associate into doing the thing, which is fine for you immediately, but it comes back to bite you later - usually in the form of a review that states you aren't dedicated and there begins your exit from the firm.

[Anonymous]

For what it’s worth there would be a lot of counseling (employment) too—I could try to gradually increase the counseling/litigation ratio.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For what it’s worth there would be a lot of counseling (employment) too—I could try to gradually increase the counseling/litigation ratio.

You’re an employment lawyer? Go in house instead.

[Anonymous]

Nope. Would take a lot more than 75k to get me to make this move. And remember…last hired, first fired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For what it’s worth there would be a lot of counseling (employment) too—I could try to gradually increase the counseling/litigation ratio.

not gonna happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For what it’s worth there would be a lot of counseling (employment) too—I could try to gradually increase the counseling/litigation ratio.

You’re an employment lawyer? Go in house instead.

Seriously, seeing all the in-house postings for employment/labor makes me envious. That said, from talking with friends, biglaw employment practices seem a tad better than general lit, but still demanding.