Hi all - long time listener, first time caller.
The long and short is I left a v10 big law firm as a 3rd year corporate associate to go in-house via an undergrad connection (who is also still a good friend). $200ish base, 10% bonus. Tech industry, fully remote, excellent boss and team. It’s just kind of boring.
Critically, work life balance is amazing. I work around 35 hours a week (if that). I can go to the gym midday, and though sometimes work comes during the evening, I’ve worked one night past 7pm since I started a year and a half ago. No weekend work to speak of.
However, I’m bored, and I feel like I’m not developing hard lawyering skills, e.g., drafting, and because I primarily work as a commercial counsel, I basically am a paper-pusher all day against procurement departments. Crazy as it is, I miss the crazy deal flow, complicated legal issues, and staying up to date wrt changes in law. In house is rewarding and I am certainly developing soft skills, but in a completely different way.
I have an offer in hand to return to a v30 that has a great reputation, to work with a partner I know from my old firm, with no class-year dock. Would I be crazy to accept?
Thought is I can grind a little longer, make some more connections in my target industry, and eventually either make partner or go back in-house at a more senior level. All options sound great to me, and I’ve done quite a bit of diligence (to the extent possible) and it seems like a dream opportunity if I took it. However, I’d be giving up a dream low-level corporate counsel gig to get it.
The only things holding me back from taking it are (i) a wonderful manager and friends at my job, and (ii) returning to the billable hour grind and the attendant WLB hit. I left the v10 because I was over 2400 hour years while there and hated it, but didn’t mind when I was at \~150 hour months, which is the new firm’s target (ish).
Note that I have not paid off my student loans (\~$120k), but I have around $150k in retirement savings (IRA etc.). No kids.
I appreciate any perspectives (pro or con); I flip flop every day about what the right move is, and they need an answer on Tuesday.