Description
What is the Only Reason Why You Should Leave a Top Rank Firm
[00:00:00] Are there any reasons for a junior to voluntarily leave a top rank firm such as Sullivan and Cromwell or Davis Polk, which outweigh the benefits of having a longer tenure at these firms? I'm operating off the assumption that longer tenure at a top firm equals greater career options later, so I've turned down on a lot of opportunities.
A signing/lateral bonus seems like only a good reason in the short term.
Increased partnership prospects make sense, but wouldn't you still want to spend at least five years at top firm for resume purposes? I laughed at the idea we'll get meaningful work-life balance at any firm paying market, so that would never sway me to leave, but I do want to hear of good reasons to jump ship, which are unrelated to stressful situations like being stuck with a bad partner.
Okay. So this is great. This is a very good question. The first thing is, if you're at a top firm like Sullivan and Cromwell or Davis Polk or one of those types of levels of firms, you should understand one of those types of firms at that level, you're learning from very good people and you're learning in an environment where laterals are not brought in for the most part[00:01:00] where there's a certain culture in ways of thinking about things that are very effective and have a lot of market value.
I talked about this last week, but it typically takes about to learn how to practice law, it takes about 10,000 plus hours to learn inside of a law firm. You learn the basics in law school, but you learn about 10,000 hours. So, really what you should be thinking about if you're at a really good firm is the training you're receiving and the fact it's not what you get, it's who you become. It's not necessarily the money, but it is what those firms will make you into. Someone with a certain skillset that is very rare and very good. I'm not going to get too far into it, but in the short term, it's not what you're going to get. And, someone that gets five years of experience at a firm like that is going to come out a much better attorney. And the nice thing about those firms is because they're not hiring laterals and trying to integrate all these different types of personalities and ways of thinking about business and so forth, [00:02:00] typically you're really concentrated on the work there. They have very good reputations to uphold. There's just a lot of things done very well there. These firms are like, going to Yale law school versus I don't know Michigan, which is a great law school, but it's just a different level. So the training is what you're receiving. I wouldn't think about the money. I would think more about the training and I would think about the person, those firms are gonna make you in the long run.
And, why would you leave? The reason you would leave is only because the firms are holding you back. What are they holding you back from? They're going to hold you back from becoming the person you want to become. So, if you don't want to be a law firm lawyer, then you should do something else. You should, if that's really not what you want.
So, in my case when I left and got involved in this profession, I did so because to me, was something that seemed much more powerful than what anything I could possibly get from sticking in the law firm. If you think about people like Bill Gates dropping out of Harvard or Steve jobs just dropping out of Reed college, people do things because they're being [00:03:00] held back.
If these firms are holding you back, then you really should probably leave. You shouldn't leave for a bonus. If you're thinking about leaving for a bonus, all that means is you're bored and people get bored and that means, take some time off or figure out some exciting stuff to do in your free time, but it doesn't mean you need to leave the firm.
You only leave a firm if the firm is holding you back. And, I don't think that in your case, if you're one of these great firms, I don't think you're going to be any happier moving someplace. So if you move to just an average Am Law 100 law firm from there, all of a sudden, you're no longer going to be a Davis Polk attorney. You're going to be one of those attorneys.
I've seen a lot of people. People that I've known that have left law firms like that, are unhappy many times, when they go to a new firm because they don't get as much responsibility.
And, they feel like they're being micromanaged and they just don't like it. So, I think, you leave a firm because the firm's holding you back. You may have something, say, you want to start a chain of pizza restaurants, or I'm just making something up and you think you can be the best in the world at [00:04:00] that. Or, you want to start a technology company and you really believe in it, or you want to move to Africa and help build roads. Whatever your goal is, your long-term goal. If something is holding you back from doing that, then that's not good.
You said, there's a reason to go to another firm. Just for the sake of going to another firm, going to another firm is not going to make much of a difference for you. You may have more partnership prospects, but if you leave a firm like Davis Polk or something, or Sullivan and Cromwell after seven or eight years, you're going to have the ability to go someplace else and be a partner. And that will go a long way or go in-house. You will also probably be helped by people in the firm to some extent and contacts that you make while there.
That's how I would think about that. I don't think there's any reason to leave any firm unless it's holding you back.
