Here is an excerpt from a conversation between a recruiter and an associate candidate that has never taken place: "Can you please place me in another law firm where I can bill over 2,000 hours a year, work nearly every weekend meeting unreasonable client deadlines, pull a bunch of all-nighters at the printers, and stroke the egos of partners (which in and of itself could be a full time job)." This is just a guess, but we estimate that 80% of the law firm associates who contact us will only consider in-house opportunities.

Here is an excerpt of a conversation between a recruiter and an associate candidate that takes place every day: "under no circumstances will I consider going into another law firm." Are law firms really the second circle of hell? They aren't. For all of their drawbacks, law firms still provide the opportunity for lawyers to achieve the highest level of professional job satisfaction. The case for law firms needs to be restated.

Lawyers do not spring from law school (or successful passage of the bar exam) fully formed. The learning curve is steep and long. Most major law firms offer training and mentoring programs that help young associates acquire real life lawyering skills. It's true that many of these programs fall far short of their potential. Others offer mere lip service. But even in the most derelict of cases, if a young associate keeps his/her eyes and ears open and approaches work with a hunger for learning the ropes, law firms offer the training infrastructure, the incentive, and the breadth of practice to transform young associates into effective attorneys.

The vast majority of in-house opportunities simply cannot make the same claim. Young lawyers may learn many other things in an in-house environment, including valuable insights into the workings of a business; but the training infrastructure, the incentive, and the breadth of practice are typically not present. As a result, if an attorney makes the move in-house too early in his/her career, critical lawyering skills may not take root. There is perhaps no evidence more supportive of this conclusion than the fact that most of our corporate clients insist that candidates for their in-house positions have substantial (and high quality) law firm experience.

Partnership in a law firm ain't what it used to be. Longer hours, more demanding clients, fewer resources, relentless billing pressure. Still, those attorneys who stick it out, and manage their careers in such a way that they can lay claim to an independent and loyal client base, report the highest levels of job satisfaction in the profession. It's easy to see why. They enjoy the confidence of their clients. They make a lot of money. They wield power within the law firm organization. They've earned the right to delegate (whether they do so effectively is another matter). In short, they command respect, loyalty and lucre.

In a healthy partnership they can also rely on some cultural intangibles that may not be present in more bottom line corporate environments. These include certain freedoms: freedom to manage their schedules as they see fit, freedom to expand their practices in areas of interest to them, freedom from the fear of backstabbing colleagues. Given the number of firms that suffer partnership defections and their own internal political dramas, it may take a set of particularly thick rose-colored glasses to see law firm partnerships as repositories of trust and loyalty. Still, it happens more often than one would think. And when it is working properly, there is no comparable paradigm in the corporate world.

In-house has its advantages too. And they are well documented. For many lawyers, the transition to in-house is both sensible and rewarding. But for young and mid-level associates our advice is not to give up on the law firm experience too early. It may make sense to switch to another firm where you may feel more comfortable or where the practice is more developed in areas of interest to you. But, hang on to your law firm experience for as long as you can. You'll learn a lot, and be a better lawyer for it.