An Associate’s Guide to Choosing a Practice Group

Choosing a Practice Group – What should you be thinking about?

This question will be relevant for different associates at different times. Some associates will need to choose their practice group during or at the end of their summer associate program, others will have the benefit of one or more rotations, or a year or two in an unassigned associate group, before deciding which practice will be the focus of their legal career. Changing practices isn’t impossible, but it is difficult, especially if you plan on being successful in a law firm over the long-term. To get it right the first time let’s be thoughtful from the start.

What substantive skills and responsibilities will you have over the course of your career?

What tasks/assignments will you do as a junior associate in your first two years in that practice group, what do midlevels who run the deals/matters do, and what to do the senior associates do? Think how this will impact your life over the next few years. The learning curve of each practice area varies, as well as the development trajectory. It’s easy to be encouraged (or discouraged) by the role junior associates play on their matters, but it is important to look past the initial few years to see the roles and responsibilities of the successful senior associate and partners in a particular group.

How will you development your skills over the course of your career.

Hitting the appropriate benchmarks for your class year is crucial to your development and job security, so learn what these benchmarks are for the practice area you are considering, and understand what a real strategy for success in this practice area looks like. Also, examine how your professional development will be supported by a particular group and the firm as a whole – this often varies by how respected a particular group is within a firm.

Is your potential group a marquee practice of your firm?

How much “juice” a particular group has within your firm is one of the most important factors to consider – for several reasons:

• Strong practices are busy, which leads to better training and job security. Inconsistent work flow leads to an uneven distribution of work, and disparate rates of development. First and second year associates do get pushed out and/or marginalized if they are too slow or underdeveloped. Once you are labeled as the “slow junior associate”, it’s difficult to reverse that perception, it becomes self-perpetuating, and the outcome is rarely positive.
• Strong groups are lucrative for the firm, so they create more opportunities for promotion, and in certain firms, their associates are compensated at a higher rate. The partners in a firm’s more lucrative groups will also have a stronger voice to support and protect their associates, and this has real consequences as firms and individual practices weather cyclical slow periods.
• The strength of the group you choose will also impact how you are perceived in the market. A strong platform will be attractive to clients as you build a practice. Even if clients trust you and your work product, not having the appropriate infrastructure, support and branding will make it hard to compete in an increasingly competitive legal market.

How will your choice impact your exit options?

The market perception of your group matters. A well-known platform will lead to better exit options because your training and client base will be a known quantity to other firms and potential in-house employers. Additionally, attorneys in certain legal practices generally have more options than others. For example, M&A lawyers have the widest array of options (depending on the firm and nature of their practice), while bank regulatory attorneys have an extremely narrow set of options. Where do lawyers go from the group you are considering? Would you want to work as an in-house attorney for the clients of this group, and have other attorneys made that transition?

Do you plan on relocating down the road?

Where do you want to live in the long term? Some practice areas are not as robust in certain legal markets. For example, with some exceptions, finance is generally limited to New York City, Chicago, and to a lesser extent Los Angeles; while entertainment and corporate tech/startups practices are more robust on the west coast. Relocating to another market is also substantially easier as a transactional lawyer than as a litigator.

What is a common pitfall in choosing a group?

Associates almost always consider the personalities in a group when deciding which group to join. Personalities count, and working with attorneys who invest their time and energy into your development is crucial to your success, however, focusing on personalities alone is short sighted. You may work with the attorneys in your group for a relatively short time before they or you move on to another firm or company, but it is much harder to change practice areas. Long after you part ways with the personalities that initially appealed to you, you’ll continue to trudge through a practice you may not be passionate about.

What if you make the wrong choice?

If you’re unhappy in your decision, think about whether it’s the work you don’t like, or if you’re just with the wrong firm – associates are frequently surprised by how different life can be at another platform. Once you are sure you want to change practice areas, consider an internal move within your firm first. This may be easier than changing firms as a “retool”, however, there may be political consequences that haunt you later in your career if your move upsets a partner with a lot of influence. Changing firms and practice areas is possible in certain circumstance but it requires the proper messaging, preparation and networking.

Your professional development and success are solely in your hands, so be thoughtful in your analysis and strategic in your choices.