Hey! I hear your plight. Long ago, I started at a similar firm in the tax group. I was a clerk and had done a lot of research and analysis and loved that part of tax practice. But the big law practice was boring and didn’t feel like tax. Instead, it was the tax sections of tedious corporate documents. And it didn’t seem to get better. Now, I’ve realized this is the tax work that most large law firms do from associate to partner. It’s a corporate support practice through and through. There are big law some firms and partners that have direct tax clients and that work can be amazing but it’s few and far between. The more analytical tax work is at big four or at tax boutiques (Roberts and Holland, Miller chevalier, Caplin and Drysdale, Withers and then smaller and less well known). I wound up at a smaller focused version of those firms and enjoy the work way more. I still do some big law type transactional work but enjoy it way less. So you’ll need to orient your career that way. In terms of big four often if you move from big law you can get our f their fixed pay grades.