Switching from Law to IB
I currently work as an Investment Banking Legal Associate at an Investment Bank. I am not a lawyer (decided not to go to law school) but have interned at two top firms in the industry and landed my first job out of school at Cravath. After that I made the switch to in-house counsel at my current bank. After working in litigation and corporate, I have decided that law is not the right path for me. I would like to switch to the more transactional side of the deals I work on and given the information I have, I believe IB is the way to go.
I just don't know how to sell myself as a great hire for IB given the work experience I have till now. While I have worked at great firms and am currently at a top bank, I don't understand how I can translate my skills and sell them.
Just as a heads up, going to need to work on fleshing out the why. I don’t question your choice and don’t like when people ask why I’d want to work in banking, but they’re going to be very skeptical of transactional since you’re doing that on the law side too. Going to have to be something about the transaction that you’d prefer to see from the banking side. Shouldn’t be too hard, but would make sure it’s something to do with valuation, being closer to what’s actually moving the needle and determining why the deal is happening, etc.
Thank you for the advice!
No problem and good luck! Probably goes without saying, but would just reflect on it and honestly challenge yourself to think about what makes IB more appealing. What it is about the transactional nature that you mentioned that is better on the IB side. With these types of questions, it’s really just about giving them an answer they won’t push back on.
(1) I ask this as an attorney myself (aka I broadly know the rules for this). Do you live in America? If so, how are you able to be an in-house counsel without having a law degree as I thought that was a requirement for every state’s bar admittance?
(2) First, you absolutely can make the pivot. Four of the last sixteen former CEOs of Goldman were lawyers including Rubin and Blankfein. Bruce Wasserstein was a lawyer. James Gorman was a lawyer. Brian Moynihan was a lawyer. And this is just a tiny sliver of people who made it to the top of the profession who have been lawyers. I say this mainly just to make the point of don’t feel “less than” because you come from a legal background.
(3) Having the legal background can be spun into a plus. A lot of the job, especially at the analyst/associate level you’d be joining at, is similar to what you do as an attorney. For example, managing data rooms is basically glorified doc review.
(4) One thing you need to make sure you do is interview well. You need to know the technicals. You need to be able to handle the behaviorals well. If you need to, and I would recommend this, get prep services from WSO/WSP/etc. You pretty much have to be the best interview. More or less, you only get one “get out of jail free card” in the interview process. The fact that you come from this non-traditional background uses up that card. You need to be on point. With that being said, this is entirely doable
Thank you for your feedback! I am not a lawyer but work as the team's paralegal. Given my stream of reporting (directly to GC of the bank) I am called an associate (in the banking way not the legal way).
Corporate law is quite transactional, what exactly do you expect to be different in IB?
I was previously a lawyer who made the switch over to banking so I understand where you are coming from. Admittedly, I don't really understand your current role though since you mention being part of GC but not actually a lawyer with a law degree. For me, the spin was easy. I have this knowledge that is similar / adjacent to what bankers are doing, however I felt like a paper pushing, redlining, middleman in a role that was solely REACTIVE versus bankers' roles who seemed to me to be PROACTIVE. I hated that. I felt like my job was to deliberately hold up the process because I'm searching for potential pitfalls - that is what we were trained as lawyers to do but bankers get upset and feel we're holding the deal up - which maybe we were, it's called billable hours for a reason.
The key for you will absolutely be your story, why you didn't go actually be a lawyer but wanted to be in legal, why you want to switch now, how you think your skills / knowledge will translate to banking and how it will provide value to them, then getting up to speed on technicals / behaviorals.
Like someone mentioned, there are a ton of people in banking now that came over from corporate law - you can find many on linkedin and I would reach out to them about their pivot. Some will answer, a lot wont but they may be empathetic to your situation. Someone else mentioned it, but I would also suggest studying the 400 questions and doing a prep course like WSP, that will show you're serious and are taking initiative to make this pivot happen for real. You have to know your material for interviews cold, especially coming from a non-traditional background - not much room for mistake there. Part 1 is getting yourself in the room, which will be your story and why the pivot makes sense and Part 2 will be crushing the interview. Definitely doable though. Good luck!
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