What Can a Starting Lawyer Do to Make the Transition to a Larger Firm
[00:00:00] I'm a top 10 law student starting at a smaller firm. I did not "summer" at a big law firm but I would like to join one down the line. How soon would it be a good time to start looking for a big law firm job and how can I best position myself for a position? I'm a litigator in the firm I will be joining does a lot of work for individuals, small and medium sized regional companies. Would I still be able to transition to a larger firm?
Yes. You will be able to. One thing I do recommend a lot of times, if you're in a top 10 law school, it shouldn't be that hard to transition to a larger law firm after you get a couple of years of experience even one year would probably be enough.
What tends to happen is attorneys will often start at smaller law firms and then move to larger law firms later. If you went to a top 10 law school, it really shouldn't be much of a problem. The reason is that, what happens is, people that they hire in first year of school leave or they may get extra case, other firms on their cases and so forth. When that happens, you can certainly step in and work there. It's not really much of a problem, even if you're at the bottom of your classroom at a top 10 law school, you should be able to get into a larger [00:01:00] law firm. Many times it may be looking at different markets. Maybe, one solution is working in branch offices. Another thing that I recommend to a lot of people is a clerkship. Clerkships can make you much more marketable. And, they're often fairly independent. If you look at a lot of markets, they're not too difficult to get.
