June 8, 2003

Options

On Friday, I spoke with an associate who's leaving my firm. I picked his brain about working for the government (which he did for 6 years) vs. the firm vs. in-house, where he's going. He was full of useful pointers and anecdotes.

One story in particular caught my attention:

They always say that if you join a firm you should stay for at least a year. If you leave before the one-year mark, it looks bad and you probably haven't learned enough to know whether or not you actually like it. But, there are exceptions.

I had a friend who went to work for a BIGLAW firm out of school. He hated it. By month 9 he was actively interviewing for any other position he could find and the firm let him go. Today, he's in Burmuda as in-house counsel to an insurance firm. I'd say it worked out okay for him...

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