Switching In from a Law Firm

Hi all,

I'm currently in law school, and just accepted a summer associate position with Cravath in New York. The SA --> employment rate was 100% this last year, so I'm assuming I'll be there after graduation barring a colossal screw up on my part. The firm operates on a rotation system, but if I left I'd do it after 4-5 years after which I'd have rotated through Securities, Banking/Finance, and M&A.

I'm interested exploring the banking possibility, but not on the legal side.

A couple have done it from the firm in the last few months - a few of the attorneys I talked to mentioned one moving to JP Morgan, and another to Credit Suisse - but I have no financial background. My undergraduate major was in Sociology/History. My undergrad GPA was a a 3.6, at a strong public school, though I now go to an Ivy for law school.

How should I approach the two years I have until law school ends, and what should I be trying to do once I start at the firm?

Is this my time to familiarize myself with certain valuation/analysis work, and try to build some of those skills? My grades don't matter anymore now that I have the job, so that's a plus. If I don't end up leaving the legal industry, am I wrong in thinking that this effort will at least help me understand the clients I'd be working with and what sort of business goals I'd be helping someone strive toward?

For those of you working in various financial positions, what do you wish a lawyer would understand, or what can I do to make myself a more effective one?

 

I did the switch from law to banking.

Key question is when in your career do you want to make the switch from law to banking. That will be critical to what you should be doing and when.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 

I say I may leave Cravath because 99% of people do. The law firm model isn't built on people staying within, and the partner track there's particularly brutal and potentially arbitrary. If I'm likely to leave, I want to think about where I may go.

If I leave at all, I want to do it 4-5 years in, which is when I feel I'd be the most marketable (and have had solid client contact). Hope that helps.

 
Best Response

I left lawyering at 7 years in.

A few views:

    Don't worry about cultivating IB knowledge for an IB exit until ~2 - 3 years out from your planned exit. Focus on being a really, really good transactional lawyer. IBs will value you for your execution/project management skills, a little less so for your client facing skills. Big Law is a great place to build and refine those skills.
    Aim to work for teams at Cravath that focus on transaction execution rather than chin scratching and writing advice or dispute resolution. I'm not familiar with how law firms slice up client work in the US. I came out of a practice group that did M&A and ECM, which prepared me very well for PE and advisory in an IB. Another area which would be good in a law firm is project finance, particularly if you're looking to get into the infrastructure end of IB. There may be other areas, these are just the practice groups I'm familiar with and think are most IB-relevant.
    A 4-5 year trajectory into IB means you'll be coming in around associate level. I suggest thinking about doing 3-4 years in law, then go do an MBA and then go into IB. I work in an NY IB, but did most of my career elsewhere. As I understand it, analysts usually do 2-3 years on contract then bug out. Associates are recruited from MBA students. That's probably the easiest avenue for you to get into IB. Others on WSO have far more knowledge on how recruitment is done below the SVP level I came into the US market and I defer to any advice they have.
    As I advised above, focus on just becoming the best transactional lawyer you can for the first 2-3 years. Then, look at picking up education that makes you relevant to IB. In my case, I did that through CFA (Level I and II while I was a lawyer, Level III in my first year in IB). However, the MBA route is likely better for this and provides a more natural entry into IB, at least in the NY market as I understand it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 

A few areas in Big Law that are useful to nail down as they are marketable in a transition to IB:

Running a legal due diligence exercise and writing the DD report. You'll need to start as a minion, while a more senior team member runs the process. Aim to get to the level where you are running the team doing the legal DD and writing the report. The IB-relevant skills you get out of this include project management, people management, concise report writing, knowledge of what matters in a DD process, strong ability to read raw DD documents or a DD report and work out what matters.

Contracting drafting and negotiation, particularly negotiation. Particularly good negotiation where you're able to convince the other side to agree with you. In my experience, IBs value that skill, but few investment bankers have good contract negotiation skills and they rely heavily on their lawyers. Not infrequently, the lawyers don't see the whole picture and something slips through the cracks. In my view, one of the key reasons my IB invited me to move into their PE/merchant banking team was because I could negotiate strong agreements persuasively, sensitive to key legal and commerical considerations. A lot of this requires having strong understanding of both legal matters and contractual frameworks (the latter being complex "if... then..." scenario analysis) so that you can win points by persuasion and logic rather than table thumping (although sometimes you do need to thump tables).

Overall deal execution, whether in ECM, DCM or M&A. This covers a wide range of skills. A critical skill is project management and the ability to take a large, daunting behemoth of a deal and slice it up into achievable workstreams, then keep on top of those workstreams, produce or chase deliverables, herd cats, get all the ducks lined up etc. Many good ideas and good deals fall apart because people can't get their shit together and organise a complex deal.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 

PM me. Little late so don't have time for a write up but would be glad to discuss. I am friends with the guy who just lateralled to JPM and helped him make the jump. I have ties to Cravath so would be happy to discuss with you as well.

Congrats on crushing 1L -- take some time to reflect and enjoy it.

"They are all former investment bankers that were laid off in the economic collapse that Nancy Pelosi caused. They have no marketable skills, but by God they work hard."
 

This is great, really, it all means a lot. Countrydog, I'd love to PM you but I need a couple more banana points first.

Ssits, will do. The deal teams are pretty leanly staffed at the firm,with two associates per partner on most deals. This means I'd have the chance to run the due diligence early, I just wouldn't be supervising more than one person below me on most deals. The plus is that I could see both ECM/DCM and M&A on a solid level and the firm infrastructure gives partners have a few more incentives to make sure I'm up to speed and progressing at a good pace.

Last thing I want to do is be a mediocre lawyer so do my best to build that skill set.

 

I'm planning on making a similar switch, though at an earlier point in my career than when OP is attempting to make it.

I'm a 1L at a T10 JD/MBA program with a background in FX financial risk, and from what I've gathered the consensus seems to be that it's much easier to make the jump straight out of graduate school (hence the MBA advice) rather than switching from banking. I'll still do OCI but I'm not sure it's my ideal starting point. I'm looking at either distressed debt and/or real estate banking. I've been following the distressed debt blog for quite some time, and have gone through Moyer's book as well. Unfortunately I've heard it's a saturated market at the moment (per hedge fund manager I spoke to), but I can't imagine we won't be seeing strings of bankruptcy again at some point in the future. Plus the material is pretty interesting to me at this point.

There are a lot of disgruntled associates out there, but per CountryUnderdog's advice it looks like the switch can be made at a later time. Especially from a top shop like Cravath, I'm sure you'll do well.

I'd love any advice on whether I'm approaching the situation correctly or not, and unfortunately I can't PM anyone as of yet either due to bananas.

 

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