To be honest, barring A&G and some Big 4s most corporates do not work long hours including internationals with L500 rankings. Very possible to have work life balance. Can be comfortable.

Litigation on the other hand is sh*t wherever you go. It's varying degrees of sh*t, whether the 24/7 I am sick but late for court sh*t or the 16/5

To the poster of post #5581

Worth it as in career/salary wise.

Assuming that i'm not aiming to be a partner, is it better to leave practice earlier to go inhouse (e.g. 2-3 year PQE) and get a better work-life balance but face a higher risk of plateauing in your career as an inhouse counsel?

Or will it be better in terms of career/salary progression if i bite the bullet and stay till i'm a senior associate with 6 years of PQE before moving inhouse? I am under the assumption that taking the latter option will be better in terms career/salary progression as an inhouse counsel.

Thank you for your advice!

And to the poster above me. god damn yeah im in litigation. im just wondering wth man. even the partners are staying late and responding immediately to their emails over the weekends.

To senior lawyers out there

As a junior I’ve just broken up with a girl I dated since law school.
Since both of us are in law and litigation, how would you feel if you had to go up against her as opposing counsel in court one day?

Or if you see her many years later?

This comes from your junior in practice, from what little I know.

Okay if you're in litigation you might want to move to corporate. In-house is easier from there. You are likely to be less jaded and have a lot more free time. Just avoid the Big 4. Senior counsel? Forget it. One of the pre-requisites is contributing to the development of the law (meaning, appeal, argue novel issue that has not been ever argued by reference to foreign cases, apply. Also good if you are MP or active in Law Society, and liked by your peers. You must also be competent, and have a good relationship with the Bench).

Anyone that fulfils these pre-requisites will be considered. Winning cases against other SCs will also beef you up. You don't have to be DS or MH to be an SC. Heck, you can even be scolded occasionally by judges who hate you. But you must be respected. This takes years of practice unless you are a genius.

At the end of it, even if you don't make SC, you'll still be respected in legal circles. Find a niche and get good. For DS - cross examination. MH - arbitration.

If you want in-house, go corp. You will be decent but not a millionaire. If money is your only object, leave law and set up a hedge fund from all the bonuses you saved. Thank me later.

Defeat her. It will be important for your ego.

Remember to use the words "misled", "misconceived", "baffling" and "unclear". By all means, refer to her as your Learned Friend

This will ensure that she stays in the Learned Friendzone and she will realise that she made a mistake in leaving you in the course of litigation, therefore giving you an easy OTS mid trial.

Whatever you do, DO NOT LOOK HER IN THE EYE or you might get cast in stone.

to the poster of #5586, thanks for the advice.

The problem is that will firms hire a litigation lawyer to do corp work?

Yes. Answer is definitely yes. But you may have to cut PQE/restart. This is viable if you are in a SME as the Big 4 Corp NQ usually pays more than a 2-3PQE SME.

Obviously a liti background helps in corp. You can spot more issues than your corp friends

how will it feel to fk her again many years after moving on ? give law report citation so we know what it feels like too