Lawyer Career Planning: 3rd-5th year (Midlevel Associate)
Executive Summary
The midlevel years for an Associate are significant in a young lawyer’s career. Midlevel Associates are in their most marketable years because they have legal experience but they are not too expensive to laterally move and retrain. Midlevel Associates have a great opportunity to set the course of the rest of their career by assessing where they are and where they want to go. These options include: staying at the current firm and making partner, moving laterally to a new firm, or going in-house. The correct choice is unique to each lawyer but the need to evaluate the options is universal.
Are you a Midlevel Associate? Are you a Junior Associate with a three-year plan post-law school graduation? Are you comfortable with your firm and career so far but unsure where to go from here? This is a career planning post for you!
The midlevel years come at a personal and professional juncture for many lawyers. Personally, your late 20’s through your 30’s have a substantial amount of financial decisions. Professionally, years 3-5 at a firm are the most marketable years for lawyers. Lawyers will do themselves a service by taking a moment to step back and evaluate where they are and where they want to go.
Personal and Professional Assessment
Once you have completed your first two years as an Associate, you have developed your skills as a lawyer. Slowly you are becoming an expert in your practice area, and your reputation is building at your current firm. The midlevel years are a time to keep adding to your skill set while also focusing on your future.
The first and most important question to ask yourself is: “How do I want the rest of my career to look?” To answer this question, you will likely also answer other questions like:
Is this the firm I see myself working at long-term?
Do I want to make partner?
Is going in-house more appealing to me?
Is there a cause or community I want to passionately work for in the public or non-profit sector?
Do I want to stay in this practice group?
Do I want a better work-life balance?
As a Midlevel Associate, you are at the most marketable time in your career. You have a developed skill set as a lawyer, but you are not so entrenched in one practice area to change your area of expertise. Compared to Senior Associates, it is cheaper and easier to retrain you for a new subject area if that is the path you want to take. It is also early enough in your career that making a lateral shift would not significantly affect your chances to make partner.
After developing a better understanding of the career you want, you can compare those answers to the career options you have. These include:
Make Partner at current firm
Firms today may offer both a non-equity and equity partnership track. Others may offer a “junior partner” position that is initially non-equity but later promotes the junior partner to an equity partnership.
For lawyers who want to make Partner at their current firm, the reality is that just because a lawyer wants to make Partner does not mean they will. Partnerships are given out based on the talent pool, needs of the firm, and ability to sell yourself.
If you are a 3rd year who wants to become Partner, go for it! If things change between now and your 5th year, you can still pivot. Life never goes according to plan. Give yourself the time you need to figure out the best option for you.
Part of figuring it out is assessing your firm to understand how possible making partner is. Some questions to ask yourself include:
How did the partners of my practice group make partner? Promotion through the firm or move in laterally?
How many people from my group have historically made partner at my firm?
How do I compare to my peers? Are they more likely than me to make partner?
Am I being given enough work? Is the work I’m doing improving my skill set and making me more valuable to my firm?
Once you understand the level of competition and whether the firm will likely need a partner when you are in a position to receive a promotion, you can begin taking steps to improve your chances of making partner. Firms do not typically layout a roadmap to making partner. Instead, it is on each Associate to treat every day as an opportunity to prove they can be partner.
It’s unreasonable for Associates to bring in business before making partner just for the chance of becoming partner. Instead of bringing in business, Associates should focus on networking. Every client, opposing counsel, and opposing counsel’s client could potentially become a future client. Producing good work and treating every interaction as an opportunity to build a relationship will demonstrate strong business development skills.
Building strong relationships within the firm is also a key to making partner. A midlevel lawyer who works with more experienced lawyers should be responsive to requests, meet deadlines, produce high-quality work, and show initiative on projects. If these lawyers make partner before you, their opinions of you and your work will matter when evaluating you for partner. If these lawyers leave the firm, then they become a contact who you can potentially convert into a future client.
Make a lateral move
It used to be that most lawyers would spend their entire careers with one firm. Today, lawyers are more willing to move laterally to other firms. For many midlevel lawyers, the firm they are currently working for was chosen after their 1L year. There wasn’t a lot of information when making the decision, and there was also pressure to accept an offer even if the firm wasn’t a perfect fit.
There are both good and bad reasons for a lateral move. A poor reason is to try something new. A new job quickly becomes the current job, and the new firm may be worse than the first firm. Understand why you want to leave, so you can actively look for opportunities that meet your expectations.
Some good reasons to laterally move firms include:
A better market in a new city
Switching to a new practice group
Better work-life balance and benefits
Clients that are more aligned with the work you want to do
Better partnership prospects
A firm with a better reputation
A change in culture
The midlevel years span three years. If a lateral move is what you decide to do, you can be patient. The best opportunity may not available in the first few months of searching. If you don’t desperately want to leave your current firm, it may be worth it to keep working while waiting for the right opportunity.
Some lawyers won’t be interested in making a lateral move. For lawyers open to the idea, it’s okay to interview for other positions and decide to stay with your current firm. A lateral change is about putting you in the best opportunity to succeed. Don’t be ashamed about pursuing your best interests.
Hiring a recruiter is a great way to increase your chances of finding a better position. Recruiters have incentives aligned with yours because they are paid by hiring firms after you accept a new job. You should never have to pay for a recruiter.
Recruiters are well-informed about available positions and have connections with many firms. They also:
Keep your job search as confidential as possible
Help you prepare for interviews
Schedule interviews for you
Advocate for you with the potential firm
Provide feedback regarding your expectations and current job market conditions
Help negotiate the terms of your offer package
When working with recruiters, you should work with multiple recruiters. Having more than one recruiter working on your behalf incentivizes them to work harder for you. It also increases the network of firms that could potentially offer you a job.
Finally, working with a recruiter should supplement your job search instead of being the sole method of searching for a lateral position. Firms like hiring from referrals of their current lawyer staff. Plus finding jobs through your network can be more lucrative because recruiters are paid based on your offer package. Accepting a job with a recruiter can limit or negate the opportunity for a signing bonus.
Going In-House
It’s no secret that lawyers can get burned out from working at law firms. Working at a law firm is not for everyone, and within the last decade, there has been a remarkable increase in lawyers switching to in-house positions.
Working in-house is not always the best decision, but it can be rewarding when it is. One consideration for midlevel associates is that it is much more common for lawyers to lateral from a law firm to in-house rather than from in-house to a law firm. It is not a one-way street, but generally, firms hire other law firm laterals instead of in-house counsel.
The career tracks are also different. Within the law firm structure, lawyers work their way to partner through annual promotions and income increases. In-house counsel has more diverse promotion hierarchies. In-house counsel may have only two or three levels in their corporate structure. Instead of annual promotions, promotions may be more dependent on a lawyer ahead of you leaving. Some firms may also promote in-house lawyers to non-legal business positions within the company. These non-legal business promotions may or may not align with the professional goals of a lawyer.
Another way in-house counsel is different from law firms is that in-house focuses on a single client. Instead of constantly changing between projects and clients, in-house offers lawyers an opportunity to become a part of a corporate team and deeply develop relationships within their company.
There is a misconception that in-house always offers a better work/life balance. It is possible, but the real benefit of working in-house is a clear timeline of deadlines and projects. The clarity on deadlines allows lawyers to more successfully manage their time. In-house might also get rid of the expectation to be on call at all times of the week. For BigLaw lawyers, this can be a great benefit, but be aware that not all companies will operate like this.
Another consideration is that compensation is not always competitive with law firm compensation. In-house may not offer the structured salary increases that law firms do. Also, unlike law firms, lawyer compensation may not be entirely salary and cash bonuses. In-house bonuses may also include company equity. Instead of earning a bonus by achieving billable hour goals, in-house lawyers earn a bonus through projects and company performance.
The type of work is also different because in-house roles focus on specific problems of the company. In addition to case law research and producing memos, in-house will make actionable decisions to address problems. These decisions can range from negotiations to guidance on legal and strategic matters. For lawyers who thrive on a constant change in deals or litigating, in-house may not align with your career objectives.
In-house also does not offer the level of legal training that a law firm can offer. Lawyers pursuing in-house counsel should have a solid legal skill set developed over a few years.
If a lawyer feels like in-house is the right option for their career, they need to do the due diligence. Your future career track is dependent on the projects and performance of the company you join. The development and opportunities you receive will shape your subject matter expertise and legal acumen. For lawyers looking for in-house counsel positions, reaching out to people in your network and recruiters can be a great way to find job positions.
Unlike law firms, in-house budgets may not have the resources to pay recruiters. So in-house hiring managers may not be as open to working with a recruiter. This caveat should not discourage you from using a recruiter, but they should not be relied upon as much as you might with a lateral job search. Talking with Partners in your current firm can also be an option. Partners may not want to see you go, but they might also have connections within companies that have job openings. It’s in their interest to have someone they know working for a potential client.
Final Takeaways
The midlevel years in a law firm are professionally rewarding because lawyers are receiving more responsibility and possibly personally running some projects. It is also the time in your career when you have the most career opportunities to consider. Be honest and critical about your career ambitions. Take time to fully consider what you want your future to look like, and don’t be afraid to pursue that vision.
These are your most marketable years, so lean on your network and recruiters to help you achieve the career you want. Lawyers should also know their worth. Don’t stay at a firm where you aren’t valued, and your chances of making partner are slim. Also, don’t feel like you have to take a new job because you are desperate to leave your current firm. Be confident in what you want and be patient in the process. It is much harder to find success in your career when you make decisions out of desperation.
Finally, make sure you are financially secure in your midlevel years. Changing jobs may result in a loss of income for a few months. Ensure that you have an adequate emergency fund before leaving your current job. If you plan to buy a home soon or recently purchased a home, consider the financial impact a new job and salary may have. For lawyers planning to stay with their firm and pursue partner, it is a great time to start contributing to a savings account for funding a buy-in.
Your professional goals and personal goals are intertwined. Take time to think about the career you want and then pursue it. You’ll be happy you did!
Financial planning focuses on using your income to fund the life you want to live. But financial planning isn’t only about the personal side of personal finance. It’s also about the professional side of finance. For young lawyers, your career funds your life. Ideally, our professional life is as enjoyable as our personal life. To help align these two sides of our life, career planning is an important part of the Developing Financial Process. If you are considering changing jobs or if you just started a new job, there are probably some financial questions you have. Schedule a free Meet & Confer today to see how the Developing Financial Process assesses your current career and plans for your future career.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this blog should be considered financial advice or recommendations. Your questions are unique to you and your own personal financial circumstances. You should consult with a financial professional before making a financial decision. See full blog disclaimer.