Lateral from Law
Hey everyone,
Wanted to get some opinions from people in the industry on lateraling from law into PE. My goal is to move to PE. I'm currently at a Big Law V50 firm but have been offered a job at a mid mark PE boutique firm. The firm is a small shop that works exclusively on PE transactions. My question is if you guy were hiring, what would play better in your eyes? Experience at a V50 firm or the boutique shop with exclusive mid market PE experience?
How is it a lateral if you're moving to a completely different industry with a completely different company? I'm actually curious
Fair point. Perhaps my language is imprecise. It's a term we often use to describe transitioning to a similar position, albeit in a different industry (i.e. an associate at a law firm to an associate at a PE shop). I don't think it deters from my main point, so if you have any advice, that would be helpful.
If your goal is to work at a bigger PE shop down the road then I would go with the boutique opportunity right now. Because then you would truly be "lateraling", which is almost always easier than transitioning to a completely different industry. If you already have an opportunity to break into PE and you want to work in PE, in my eyes it's kind of a no-brainer. It's like a kid who wants to eventually wants to work at a BB but only has regional boutique offers out of undergrad. Should they take the boutique offer and eventually leverage that as experience for a BB role or go work a non-IB field like accounting? In most cases the correct answer is overwhelmingly the boutique offer. And in your case, it's even easier because you're not coming from a different finance field, you're coming from a different field altogether.
Neither. How are your going to pick up the finance skills?
I work at a large cap fund and all of our in-house, deal-focused counsel are from the big law firms with relevant industry/M&A experience.
From what I've seen, mid-market PE firms are far less likely to have the balance sheet to support in-house counsel. Even at the largest PE shops, there aren't a ton of these seats (we have maybe 4-5 legal guys tops across all offices).
I think OP is referring to an investment-side PE role.
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