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?
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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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