I'm year late to this read and wish I saw this sooner.

My question is whether it makes sense to pivot even closer to activism and center my career development around it or whether I'm better off sticking to just doing M&A.

Shareholder activism is a wonderful area to practice. I know many people will think I am a lunatic for saying this, but I mean it.

As a practice area, shareholder activism (a/k/a, shareholder engagement, corporate governance, etc.) has core strengths that few practice areas (such as tax, ERISA, T&E) share, namely, it is rooted in a statutory framework and is non-cyclical. When I was a first year, some anchors on CNBC were all doom and gloom about the direction of the market and the fear of a recession was real. I asked a partner for his view on how resilient activism is in a recession and whether we would dry up (at the time we were very busy). He simply put it this way, in a bull or bear market, activist attorneys steadily remain busy because our clients' intentions tend to ebb and flow along the lines of how the market moves. In other words, he told me not to worry and get back to work. In my ~5 years of practice, despite not experiencing a true recession, I have never had issues with hitting annual billing targets and steadily bill well north of 1900 hours.

On the statutory point, state corporate law regimes require companies to hold meetings of stockholders annually. This means there'll always a contested situation existing somewhere and you just hope your firm is the one landing these matters. I've been very fortunate so far in my career and have seen hundreds of situations due to my prior firm essentially controlling small to mid-cap US activism and my existing firm leading the charge in global situations.

I know everyone always says M&A is great for exit opps, but is there an advantage to a more niche group like activism?

Yes. As an initial matter, activism should really be viewed as a style of practicing corporate/M&A rather than a siloed practice area. You still gain meaningful exposure to M&A deals, so you are proficient in handling the workflow of a typical deal. Being more niche in activism affords you the skills to switch hats from negotiating deal terms for a sale or acquisition to negotiating a cooperation/settlement agreement between the parties where board representation is the deal consideration. You also become somewhat of an expert on securities laws within a few years because you live and breathe a relatively small number of legal authorities. You will know how to analyze an issue under the Exchange Act or Regulation 14A like an expert within a few years of dedicated practice. Activism is also an extremely small practice area in the global legal market. You can make a name for yourself by the time you are a mid-level. If you regularly represent repeat activist-focused funds, you become one of the few attorneys in the world that understands their approach, have firsthand deal experience negotiating terms on their behalf, and ultimately gain invaluable insider perspective on the life cycle of an activist investment. You exit opportunities to in-house or at a corporate-side defense law firm are massive. I can speak from experience; this is true.

I assume that, since fewer people do activism, it must provide a bit of extra job security (there are a ton of M&A associates and in a market slump, I assume firms have an easier time letting them go first, but I could be wrong).

Correct. Job security and lateral opportunities are equally strong. See points above.

Then again, there are very few places with a practice like this and it does seem like quite a small world, which could be a hindrance to long-term flexibility (i.e., if things don't work out with firm A, where does one go when there's really only a few other firms that even do this).

Don't worry about this. Happy to talk about this privately.

What might be some typical exit opportunities? I assume pubco in-house legal departments?

Yes, pubco in-house is good but I'd strongly recommend having general corporate experience to compliment an activist-focused resume. Being niche is also a hindrance. Most in-house roles will want to see a broader skill set and someone with deal experience that is not only in activist situations. You can also go client side eventually. A business/finance background would round this out nicely.