As a BigLaw attorney, the sky’s the limit and the world is truly at your feet. With a highly sought out skill set, resume to boot and an impressive deal sheet, you may find yourself with job offers in new cities. Relocation and moving are tremendous life changes that could yield long-term career growth opportunities. Sounds tempting? The grass always seems greener, right? Maybe, but there’s a great deal of planning and thought to put into this decision. At Langer Search, we take the time to weigh and measure opportunities for our candidates while hashing out the pros and cons associated with relocation.
Here are some of the most common things that come up in our conversations:
- Bar Exam: Are you willing to take a new Bar Exam? Does your admission reciprocate?
- Connections/Support: Do you have family or connections to the new city?
- Reason: Why are you looking to leave?
- Family: Are you married? Can your spouse easily relocate? Are your kids school-age?
- Timing: When do you receive your bonus? Figuring out a strategic start date is key and do you want to plan it around a vacation prior to starting?
- Scope of Practice: If you’re moving from New York, practice areas tend to be much broader.
A successful and seamless relocation requires proper planning, timing and precision. Langer Search can reduce your stress and mitigate any unknowns by engaging in thoughtful conversations before you take your leap. We’re here to help facilitate a meaningful dialogue, even if it’s in the earliest stages of your planning.
These are the 5 areas to consider when evaluating your job satisfaction and goals. I’m leaving this here for you to think about over the next week. If you’re unsatisfied in any one of these areas, I suggest we chat to devise a plan.
1. Compensation
2. Title
3. Responsibility / Scope of Work
4. Substantive Experience / Exposure
5. Culture
You’re the one who’s responsible for examining your overall job satisfaction. Langer Search will help you take charge of your long-term goals and career. We’re here to help you identify the issue and to implement a plan to position you for success.
YES. Working with a reputable and experienced recruiter is all about relationship building. Just as law & financial firms interview candidates, you should interview several recruiters to find the right match for you. It’s crucial that you research and talk to several recruiters as it can make or break your job search. The goal is to find a recruiter who you can trust to find the job opportunities that best align with your long-term goals, not to just “make a placement.”
Ask friends and colleagues for referrals and do diligence on each by conducting interviews and having conversations over zoom. You should be able to communicate well with your recruiter and enjoy working with him/her. I recommend working with just ONE recruiter because it’s ultimately going to get confusing and unnecessarily complicated. While the goal is to obtain several job offers, it’s not easy to find recruiters you can connect with and be able to trust. Working with just one experienced recruiter who specializes in your particular niche will help you land the best offers for you as an individual. Keep in mind that most firms work with multiple recruiters and some recruiters have better relationships with certain firms than others.
As a lawyer you’re hardwired to be risk-averse. I know this first hand because I often find myself encouraging senior associates, counsels & partners to “take the meeting.” If you’re curious about another firm, but aren’t exactly ready to make the change, there’s no downfall to talking with someone about a job at another firm. It’s beneficial to take the meeting, do some homework on the firm, explore their culture and gain insight. You can make connections, increase your network and also figure out systematically whether their firm is a better fit for you in the long-term.
I urge candidates to speak to the firms and THEN decide if a position there may help them achieve their long-term goals. Worst case scenario, as I mentioned before, you can cleanly pull out of the process. The best thing would be that you end up on an important partner‘s radar for a future move. Take these opportunities to network, find out market information and explore/evaluate your own worth. There are no negatives to doing this and confidentiality is always the top priority. Even if you’re in the partner pipeline at your current firm, you should be asking yourself if there’s a better way or more effective platform to achieve this goal.
Take the meeting and don’t overthink it!
Making partner at a top law firm is a major achievement. Some people may not know it, but there are actually a few different types of partners. You can be a service partner or a partner that runs his/her own practice. As a partner in a practice area such as tax or executive compensation law, you will most likely be servicing transactions. Building your own practice comes with different types of challenges than being a partner in a service field. Many attorneys I’ve spoken to have reported that it’s more difficult to build their own practice. Some attorneys enjoy billing hours and reviewing documents, while others like to be social and enjoy the process of bringing in new clients.
Let’s use the M&A practice as an example. If you’re ascending the ranks as a 6th or 7th year associate at an elite firm, you have a decision to make. Will you put your head down and make a run for partner at your current law firm or will you pursue a more entrepreneurial route? If you make partner at your firm, most likely the clients are going to be institutional and you will not have the ability to handpick your practice. If having your own clients is important to you, you may want to consider a different firm that is open to bringing in smaller transactions.
