I Hate Corporate Law, How Do I Switch?

Q: I’m a second-year at a huge firm in NY and I hate the work I’m doing. I don’t hate the job per se, but I’m in the corporate department (corporate finance mostly) and the work is so goddamn boring I could murder someone. If I see one more underwriting agreement or convertible notes offering memorandum, I’m gonna lose it. I don’t want to leave the law, but I can’t do this corporate crap anymore. I should have made the move sooner, but I thought things would get more interesting. They haven’t. How do I even approach the firm about switching to a totally different department? Do people do that? Am I screwed if I do? This sucks.

A: Well, it’s good to see you’ve moved past the “denial” phase of hating your job and cruised right into the “anger” part. Stay there for a while because the “acceptance” phase is way more dangerous.

Look, your situation may suck, but buck up, because you know what would suck even more? If you were in litigation right now and trying to switch to corporate. Because, unless you’ve been living in a war room surrounded by boxes of underwriting diligence (which it seems may actually have been the case), you’ve probably heard that there’s a little…economic crisis happening right now. Law firms are shedding corporate associates left and right and lawyers who were billing 3000+ hours last year on corporate deals are now wondering if they’re going to get laid off, no less make their hours this year. So, actually, you’re not as bad off as you think—in fact, you may have even saved your job, depending on how hard up your firm is for corporate work.

So here’s what you do: First, if this isn’t blaringly obvious already, figure out what kind of law you do want to practice. If you hate hate hate corporate work, that pretty much leaves…litigation. Is corporate litigation something you’d be up for? White collar crime? Or do you want to avoid anything even remotely related to corporate law? At the very least, figure out what you don’t want to do. Next, just go talk to whoever is charge of monitoring your workload and tell them what you’re going through, that you understand it may involve an adjustment, but you’d like to switch your focus. If your firm’s corporate department is as slow as most, they’ll probably be more than willing to get you working on matters in a new department that can actually earn the firm some cash.

The downside: If you make a radical switch, you may lose a year of progression for purposes of partnership consideration, and work-wise, you’ll basically be a first-year again. But if it’s between that and churning out high-yield bond offerings until you have a complete mental breakdown five years from now, who cares? So you lose one year. You’ve only just started your career; shifting your focus now won’t hurt you in the long term, at least not if you turn out to be a superstar associate in your new department.

So stop stewing and go get the ball rolling. And if you’re still worried about getting screwed if you make the switch, remember: The only thing that will truly leave you screwed is staying in a department you hate for longer than you should. Twenty years from now, when you’re not fantasizing about bringing a 9 mm to work, you won’t even notice that lost time.

Good luck.

Need advice?  Email our Sweet Hot Counsel at counsel@sweethotjustice.com.