What's your opinion on taking an in-house position right after law school and coming back to law firms at a later stage?

Transcript

What's your opinion on taking an in-house position right after law school and coming back to law firms at a later stage? If in-house is all you can get, that's fine. But it is very difficult to go back to a law firm if your first job has been in-house. Everyone knows how law firms train people and what they expect, and the different types of training at each law firm.

My advice would be to do whatever you can to get a job with a law firm. But if the only job you're getting is in-house, then take it and learn everything. You can definitely go back to a law firm after working in- house, but it's much more difficult if you're in a law firm. Law firms have their way of doing things and their way of training people, and so forth.

That makes it much easier for people to get jobs. I would recommend if you can, even if it's a smaller law firm trying to work in a law firm first. Law firm teaches you to think in a certain way. Law firms have paying clients, so they're not just pushing through work, and there are all sorts of advantages to work in law firms. So I always recommend if you can work in a law firm that's my advice, but if in- house positions good, you might consider that. I know it depends on the practice area too.

So if the in-house doing patents, or very specific type practice group, rather than being a generalist, could be very helpful.