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[quote=Anonymous]Hmm, I worked in Big Law for 5 years, then at a Fortune 500 company for 5 years, and am now at a nonprofit. Maybe spending time in a corporate environment that was not Big Law in between helped me transition, but I personally find non profit (and the corporate role I was in before, which was not a legal role) so much better than Big Law that I've never felt particularly challenged.

The biggest difference for me was the way people respond to small mistakes. In Big Law, something like a typo in a memo was seen as a huge screw up. Even if it was caught before it went out to the client, if a partner saw it, there would be a lecture about attention to detail. In Big Law you are making so much money (not just you personally but the firm, with incredibly high rates) that there is just very little tolerance for a person to be human.

Whereas in my post-Big Law jobs, people still hold themselves and others to a high standard (it's not like there is broad acceptance of typos or other errors -- a lot of effort goes into eliminating them actually) but there is a sense of proportion. An error like that would be treated as a learning experience and a chance to maybe tweak a process so it doesn't happen again. But no one is getting dressed down for it. It's just much lower tension.

But I found that shift incredibly welcome and it didn't take me long to acclimate. Big Law was not the right environment for me. Maybe your colleague was more bought into the system?[/quote]

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