The other night I was feeling rather emotional, and I didn’t know why. So I went home and put on my comfiest sweat pants and snuggled up on the couch with a box of wine. Me and the box of wine watched The Bachelor and then had a good cry. Well, at least I did. I think the box was just leaking.
The next morning I woke up at 2pm and wondered what had made me so weepy. Then I realized the cause: I had been accidentally taking my grandmother’s hormone replacement pills instead of my regular daily multi vitamin. Although I was relieved that I’d figured out the mistake, it got me to thinking about other mistakes I had made in my life.
Namely, was it a mistake for me to have picked litigation as my practice area when I graduated from law school? Maybe. But more importantly, once I was two years into my career and realized that I hated litigation, could I have done anything about it? Truthfully, I don’t know. Even with the benefit of hindsight, I am not optimistic that the switch can be made between practice areas once you’re firmly established in a particular group. I think that is particularly true if the switch is to a totally unrelated area of law, like, for instance, leaving litigation to become a corporate transactional lawyer.
I have known—and continue to know—a lot of litigators who desire to leave their current practice area and explore ‘the other side of the fence’ and find a less stressful practice area, like estate planning or napping law. I know very few people, however, who have actually made the switch from one side of the fence to the other—into or out of litigation. Gleaning nuggets from those stories, though, I can still communicate a few common threads that I have observed.
If You Are Going to Attempt to Make the Switch, Do It as Early In Your Career as Possible
In the military, soldiers are trained that if they are ever faced with the prospect of being a prisoner of war, they should attempt an escape as early as possible. The earlier in the ‘prisoner process’ you are, the more disorganized your opposition is; the less entrenched they are. Chaos is your friend. The longer you wait, the more layers of defense will be formed between you and your freedom.
Sad to say, but the prisoner of war analogy holds some merit in the practice of law. Early in your career, the partners have not ‘gotten used’ to working with you. They have not come to rely on you or perceived you as a necessary part of their machine. They have not formed an emotional attachment to you (creepy as that may sound, it’s true). Once you hear them saying, “I will name him George and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him,” it’s all over for you. If they want to hug and squeeze you, then they will form a lot of layers between you and the other practice areas.
All of the people I knew who made the switch did so before they hit their second year of practice.
Don’t Attempt to Make the Switch When Your Practice Group is Really Busy
I know that when you’re super busy, you are most motivated to make your escape, but this is when it would be the most difficult to do so. This is, as you would imagine, when they need you the most. They will have their defenses on high alert and be ever vigilant to prevent any escapees from leaving the group. You won’t be (mercifully) shot dead if you try to escape. Rather, you will be put in solitary confinement. The Box.
Do Attempt to Make the Switch When Your Target Practice Area is Really Busy
Makes sense. When the group is really busy, they might just welcome some stranger who wandered into their camp at night. Again, chaos is your friend in this situation. Before you know it, you’re pulling the oars right alongside the rest of the team and sooner or later they just might come to think of you as one of their own. If you try to break in when everyone is slow, not only will the partners probably shoo you out, but the associates who are starved for hours will probably try to put a fork in your eye.
Now, all this presumes that you are at a big firm where there are multiple practice areas and a certain volume of work. This was the situation with both of the people I know who switched, anyway. It gets even more difficult at a small firm because it is literally harder to get away from a group. They might be just down the hall or, god forbid, right next door. It becomes exponentially harder (in my estimation) to make the switch between firms. This probably requires a good contact at your target firm who is willing to take you on board as a newbie. If you have such a contact then you don’t need to read this article. Go make that call right now.
I certainly don’t want to ever offer discouraging words, but I do want to shed some light on the harsh realities of the market. Truthfully, I hope that I am wrong about this and there are a lot of exceptions to this rule. In fact, if you have such a story I would love to hear from you.
If I don’t hear from you, I will probably go home and curl up with a box of wine. I have already named him “George.”
No comments:
Post a Comment