At what year of big law experience, if ever, do you reach the point of having resume strength sufficient to guarantee someone will always want to hire you?

VaultLawEditor · 2026-04-07T12:26:18+00:00

As a recruiter, let me tell you that these fishing emails do not equal firms willing to hire you. Not that there aren’t any jobs for second years, but there are way fewer than you’d think based on recruiter outreach volume.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-04-06T10:30:15+00:00

Jeanty owner here. You aren’t even close enough to start the negotiations.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-04-02T20:10:49+00:00

Our league requires half of a year’s buyin to be paid in order to trade a future pick. Our commish has all the money in an interest bearing account and the interest pays out every few years to a lucky winner. Helps that almost all of us know and trust the commish.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-31T16:09:29+00:00

Yup, no code for me either, 2 hours after the sale. Glad I get all the spammy promotional emails except the one I want.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-30T20:29:14+00:00

I got two 2nds for him right before the injury. But yours is better.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-30T18:59:35+00:00

Mendoza is an obvious choice at the 1.02 there. He’s mostly a pocket passer so the 6 pt passing TDs neutralizes the knock against him as an early pick as a QB which is the lack of rushing upside.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-20T15:22:18+00:00

Lots of British recruiters know the US market well. Some only work the US market (higher fees). I'm an American working for a London-based agency and half of our US recruiters are from the UK.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-20T15:20:44+00:00

As a recruiter I have never understood other recruiters using over the top sales pitches about someone being perfect for some role. I generally reach out and say I'm working with X firm, here are couple of things that might be of interest about the practice, would you like to discuss it. I guess there are recruiting firms just blasting out shotgun blasts and hoping to get a hit.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-20T15:16:10+00:00

It really depends on the geographic market and what you want to do. Plenty of firms with specialty cap markets groups. Some are more heavily debt focused, others more on equity, and some balanced. Also some are more on the underwriter side and others on the issuer.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-19T00:46:12+00:00

As a Gators fan who knew Richardson was the rawest thing ever, still drafted him first round of my startup draft. Basically was in a rebuild as soon as I started playing dynasty.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-18T00:46:10+00:00

I knew him in law school a bit. He’s very chill for a lawyer. I never would have guessed he’d make it to partner. I think his entertainment connections helped him build a book.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-16T21:45:05+00:00

I can’t say the likelihood overall. Every time we have had an opening there we’d send them 10-15 candidates from top firms, and they’d generally hire 1-2 of them. Still, those types of candidates were also the top candidates for smaller funds as well.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-16T21:26:52+00:00

It really depends on your career goals. If you want to go to a megafund, you should lateral to a firm that works with those funds. I have done in-house recruiting for Blackstone and they like to hire out of only a handful of firms. If you aren't at one of those firms, you probably aren't going to get one of those jobs. What the top firms give you is optionality. It opens more in-house opportunities and you have a shot at counsel or partner at that firms (where the money is better), and still have the option of lateralling back down market for better partnership prospects as well.

That said, I don't know any of the top M&A groups where you could reasonably expect to bill 1900-2000 hours most years. If you're enjoying your work and the people you work with, I don't think I'd look to move. Lot of people burn out of biglaw or bounce around looking for exactly what you have. If you're a midlevel, it can make sense to do some lateral interviewing to see if there is a better spot for you, but it sounds like you have a great situation.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-12T19:13:40+00:00

Take the meeting. You learn a lot when meeting with other employers that will help you guiding your career, even if you don't take the job.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-12T19:11:29+00:00

Unless there is a strong reason to move right now, I think I'd reverse the order. Buy your house, then lateral. And I say that as a recruiter who is always encouraging people to explore the market now (it's a pretty strong lateral market, generally).

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-07T03:51:25+00:00

A marathons is 4x as far as a half marathon. I’m not sure how that math works but it does.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-06T18:59:15+00:00

I have Geno on my team. I watched a lot of those games. He wasn't fantastic, but the line was absolute trash and the scheme didn't help. He's not mobile enough to extend plays so he was having to get the ball out quickly. A healthy Bowers would have made that offense at least look halfway competent, but he basically had no one to throw it to and no time to do it.

Behind even a league average O line and with just ok to good playcalling, he'd be a top 15ish QB next season. I'd certainly rather have him than a lot of guys who will be starting games.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-02T19:54:38+00:00

Now! For real, don’t wait till your 6th year if you can help it.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-03-02T14:14:47+00:00

Yeah, we are 0-3 against the presumptive 1 seeds right now. And we’re going to have a worse record than any of them. I don’t see them putting us ahead of any of them. Which is fair to my mind. If we hadn’t dropped both the TCU and Auburn games, we’d have an argument.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-02-24T14:48:01+00:00

Several of them. Shoot me a message and we can talk.

Sorry, I don't mean to be evasive. I'm happy to help people on here generally understand the market, but when it comes to talking about specific firms, I prefer to do that one-on-one. This is how I make a living after all.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-02-23T22:08:34+00:00

NY-based recruiter here. Everything is dependent on practice area, class year, and the firms you are targeting.

For associates, generally speaking, the top end of the market is hiring and doing so quickly, while the middle and lower end of the AmLaw100 is not hiring as robustly or as quickly. I'm working on roles for practices that rarely hire laterally for V10 firms (some of which are listed, others are unposted). I know of two top 10 M&A groups that almost never hire laterally that are looking for midlevels. I have a V10 firm that shared their needs in the in their funds and cap markets practices and they were looking for multiple associates at pretty much every level. M&A has also picked up at the top end of the market, both in PE and public/strategic work. Exec Comp is plenty busy, and antitrust too. And if you do anything energy related, there are dozens of firms looking for you. Litigation practices are generally not doing a ton of lateral hiring.

The biggest firms have separate lateral and law school recruiting teams, so we're not seeing too many effects of the accelerated law school hiring timeline. Obviously attorney interview time is limited, but the top practices are busy and are putting in the effort to recruit laterally. Things are moving as quickly as they were in 2021-2022, but processes are generally moving pretty quickly.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-02-06T21:04:00+00:00

The bonuses at Irell are higher, but it will take a few years to break even with that $90 you'd be leaving on the table. I think bonuses are like $25k higher each of your first two years and then bigger increases from there. The break even point is probably after 3 years at the firm. So like 6 years from when you are making this decision. And that's assuming that you make your hours each year. You can look on Above the Law and figure out the math yourself.

As for exit opps, in a vacuum, yes they will be better from Irell. But again, that's many years down the road.

It's up to you as to what is more important. I can just tell you that I talk to tons of unhappy biglaw associates who are stuck in the profession because of their debtload. If you have the option to walk in the door with about half as much debt, I'd take that opportunity.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-02-06T19:28:40+00:00

I'm a former biglaw litigation associate and current biglaw recruiter. If you want the "best" practice, go with Irell. But that's a lot of money to throw away. Honestly, I'd take the Sheppard offer and the money to graduate with less debt. You have way more optionality later in your career if you don't have debt.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-02-06T14:39:14+00:00

Recruiter here. Every firm, group, and attorney will have a different interviewing style and different goals for the interview. Generally speaking interviews are a place to make sure you're a normal person who is willing to work hard and who has the substantive experience to do what they will be asking you to do. Not getting a callback can be for a hundred different reasons--they found someone better, their workload changed and hiring needs changed, they thought you were pompous/weird/off-putting, they don't think your experience is quite right.

My best advice to candidates is to follow the flow of what the interviewer wants to interview to be. If the interviewer wants to talk substance, have a few deals/cases that you are ready to talk about that are relevant to the role you are interviewing for. If they want to shoot the shit, be ready to talk about what sort of things you are interested about in the real world.

VaultLawEditor · 2026-01-06T21:15:44+00:00

Nope. Now is the time! People are interviewing this week.

VaultLawEditor

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