It’s the time of the year where there’s a new batch of trainees/lawyers! (March and September)
In my time in legal practice, I realise there are broadly three coherent paths one can pick. I tell this to the many law students and juniors I’ve mentored over the years: legal practice makes more sense when you are clear on what you choose.
1) Partner track. Money is great. As equity partner, 7 figures is not uncommon. You don’t get a lot of time, though.
Go deep in your chosen practice area, and master the technicals. Make sure you really understand the legal reasoning behind the work you are doing. Read the footnotes in the templates your firm has. Contribute actively, do presentations, and raise your hand for projects. Find an internal patron, and if you don’t have one, move quickly and find an internal patron in the new firm. It helps to be loyal, but within limits (more on law firm considerations here) Optimise for billables and whatever the firm tells you to optimise for - fortunately or unfortunately, that’s how it works.
2) Go in-house. Generally, you get more time. For money - it depends on practice area. Some in-house counsel can get paid comparable rates to lawyers in private practice.
You do have to dig deep, especially if you are looking to be a specialist lawyer (e.g. employment, IP, aviation). But even as a specialist lawyer, you’d probably need to learn and have a sense of other domains. My experience is that companies expect in-house counsel to have a view or experience over various areas of law, which is completely within reason. At minimum, you’ll be expected to know more than the business on legal risk. While in practice, focus on building a broad skillset, and also building relationships with lawyers from other domains. That leverages and compounds over time. It’s also much easier to call someone and ask them, rather than search or learn it yourself (this could change with AI).
3) Leave legal practice. The road less travelled (for lawyers). The considerations are completely different here, they could be time or money, but possibly many other things.
Know what you want to learn from your time in legal practice, then leave once you have it. Have hard red lines or stop losses. Don’t get pulled into the golden handcuffs, the money gets better and better, but that’s how the compensation structure is designed. Build relationships with people in law, but more importantly outside it. Use your firm’s budget to learn things you’re interested in (BD budget, continuing education). Don’t neglect your legal skills - they are very rare and surprisingly transferable, even if people box you in as an ex-lawyer.
There are other paths, like academia and the judiciary (I would look at the “Partner track” bucket); or government and politics (depending on the role, “Leave legal practice” bucket or “In-house” for government lawyers).
All the best!
DNMZ