Description
What to Expect Moving to the LA Market
[00:00:00] I'd like to join the venture capital group of a tech-focused firm in LA, but I'm open to other corporate focus roles.
Do you have any insight into biglaw firms in LA? I'm an M&A second year, originally from California.
You shouldn't have too much trouble moving to LA if that's what you want to do, there are lots of firms in LA that do that kind of work.
The big thing that I recommend, I'm not saying it's a hundred percent necessary, but one of the things I would recommend is if you take the bar exam, that's going to make you much more marketable. So, you'll have a much better chance of getting a position in LA, if you have the bar exam. The problem is law firms always get burned by people who don't take the bar then they move out here and fail because they don't have time to study and get on deals or whatever.
So, just taking the bar exam can make a big difference once if you're at a V10 firm and you take the bar exam, you really can probably move to almost any firm. If you're trying to turn a venture capital group, that is a different practice area. Pretty much, large law firms [00:01:00] are going to be open to moving.
One thing I would say though about the LA market, despite the size of the market, meaning it's a very large geographic area of eight, nine million people, for corporate, it's never been a major market. It's San Francisco and the bay area out there has always been much larger.
Most people that relocate to LA or especially from New York firms, always are a little bit disappointed in terms of the sophistication of the work available. It depends on the firm, obviously, if you go to scatter or something, you're going to be exposed to very good work.
But, one of the problems I think of LA is that it is a mid cap market. You're often going to be you're staying in a little bit longer, maybe in New York, if you're junior will be smarter. And often, many more opportunities in the bay area for corporate people than there are in LA. LA has always been a good market, but certainly, nothing like the bay area in terms of the amount of corporate work available and then demand of people. So, [00:02:00] that's something just to that I would think about if it was me.
