Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Conflicts Analyst
We didn’t forget to do a post today about a career alternative for attorneys — a job open to JDs who can’t get or don’t want to work as a law firm associate or contract attorney. Our latest featured gig: conflicts analyst.
What’s a conflicts analyst? A tipster explains:
I worked in the Conflicts department at a large firm before and during law school. They hire people with JDs to review and resolve conflicts resulting from both general daily intake (partner in NYC wants to sue X and has no idea that partner in SF represents X) and from mergers (firm sued Y in 1999, but prospective new acquisition represents Y in all its patent work - is this a conflict? do we need waivers?).
What are the pluses and minuses of conflicts analyst work?
The hours are usually decent, depending on the firm and whether or not there are a lot of mergers going on. It depends on the firm, you may be treated with respect by the practicing attorneys, or you may be treated like annoying red tape between them and a big bonus.
If this potential path interests you, read more after the jump.
What’s the pay like? According to our source, it ranges from $50K-$100K — not great, but not bad.
And what about exit opportunities?
[L]ike doing document review for a significant period of time, it’d be pretty tough to get a job practicing law after working as a conflicts analyst. It’s not considered “practicing,” so, for example, you couldn’t get credit at another firm for being an x-level associate, or that sort of thing….We worked mostly with firm management, so conceivably it could lead into another type of management job. I’m not sure, because all the people that I’ve worked with are still doing that work either at that firm or at another firm.
Reasonable hours, reasonable pay, and the chance to move into a more business-oriented position could make this job appealing to people who have law degrees but don’t want to practice.
Is it the most glamorous job? Maybe not. But these threads aren’t all about telling you that it’s awesome to be a Hollywood super-agent or high-flying investment banker, since you already know that. (Don’t worry, though — we will cover opportunities in entertainment and finance in future posts.)
If you have a suggested alternative career path, please email us (subject line: “Career Alternatives”), and include some basic info about the field that you’re nominating (e.g., how to get into it, pluses and minuses, salary data, etc.). Thanks.
Earlier: Career Alternatives posts about working for an accounting firm, as a law librarian, as a law firm recruiting coordinator / director, and for a public relations firm.
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Sounds like a good way to get pigeon-holed, but at least it's a better hole than doc review.
Hey now, doc review isn't so bad if you are looking to enter another profession or start a business. In fact, I know one staff attorney who owns a coffee shop in the city, another who makes money writing plays, and several who attend school in the evenings. Don't kid yourself, unlike an associate position, the staff attorney gig can give you the flexible hours and financial cushion to pursue your dream job.
Like some of the jobs mentioned in the previous threads, this would make the most sense for people who have kids and are married to spouses with high-paying but demanding jobs (like law firm partners).
You have a job that brings in some extra $$$ but has regular hours. So you can pick up the kids every day and attend the ballet recitals and soccer practices (while your spouse is stuck in the office).
This sounds pretty boring. But so are most jobs.
Probably wouldn't sound so boring if you could get a gig on the side teaching legal ethics CLE or law school courses about doing conflicts checks. Regular day job hours allowing for flex time to do that, plus the extra money and a semi-academic CV.
This sounds vaguely like being a paralegal.
So...I guess this is one of the many doors that a law degree opens up.
One of the easiest jobs you can get in a big law firm. A partner will have a new client or a new matter and will provide you with the client's name. You then go to a website like Onesource, Lexis, Hoovers, or the like and see if there are any subsidiaries, corporate partnerships and other entities remotely related to the client. You then run a search with all these names with the firm database and see if there are any "hits" for whatever time period the firm's malpractice carrier requires the firm to research. Then if all works out, you open the matter number for the client and notifiy accounting and the partner that the matter has been approved and can start billing.
There is a lot of bitching you will put up with as partners will provide an incomplete entity name and refuse to contact the client to see which entity he actually represents. So you will get Chevron instead of the actual subsidiary (twice removed) that the attorney is trying to start business with. I used to work at a big firm in DC before law school and this was the daily routine. I also had to manage the conflicts department when the firm merged with another big V20 firm which really does suck.
I'm a staff attorney and DC and the only way i'd have the time to open up a coffee shop "on the side" is if I cloned myself a la Keaton in Multiplicity!!! She touched my pepe, Steve!
Sounds a lot like being a regular associate but for less pay
Enough of this nonsense. When is the Asia Chronicles coming back?
"flexible hours and financial cushion to pursue your dream job..."???
Being a lawyer should be your dream job, otherwise you shouldn't have studied hard for the LSAT, applied to a dozen law schools, attended for three years, hustled to get a job, and then broke your ass to pass the bar exam.
As someone who has enjoyed how "awesome" investment banking is, let me say that the skillset from lawyer to banker is only sometimes relevant. And lots of lawyers think they know the legal side of finance, so therefore, they'd be great at number crunching and pitchbooks too.
First, you need to be comfortable with numbers and finance and that's a big leap for any corporate lawyer that's been wordsmithing for a few years--we're talking getting really cozy with excel. You will be competing for bonuses with folks that have been complete spreadsheet monkeys for years, and who can spot the BS in a balance sheet easily, which is more of a gift than folks who have taken Intro to Accounting in law school really appreciate. Second, banking IS more cutthroat than law--everyone is there for the money and investment firms hire and fire quite a bit more freely than biglaw, so job security is totally different. You think the layoffs you hear about on ATL are bad? Well, how about the fact that only 86 front-office bankers were kept on from Bear Stearns to JPM. Ouch! Third, there is a MUCH larger sales aspect to a banker's job. By the time you are a mid-level associate in banking (same level as someone who's been out of b-school for 2-3 years), you are expected to have some of your own clients and to be promoted to Director, it's a prereq.
Some skills are transferable--client management, dealing with extreme office politics, ability to work long hours.
Salary-wise, the upside potential is better as a banker, but your annual salary as a banking associate is a paltry 95 or 100 grand, which is not great versus biglaw salary. It's really a question of income smoothing vs. not.
Lastly, there are some parts of banks that lawyers with specific expertise can slip into comfortably. Certain structuring roles in hybrid environment (Debt or Equity capital markets) or industry-coverage bankers (ie Oil & Gas corporate associate slides into the Natural Resouces group, etc.)
Hope that helps for all you lawyers who think "I could TOTALLY do banking and make way more money."
Finance folks that are smart have headed to alternatives over the past few years--hedge funds, FoF, PE, VC. The upside is WAY WAY higher than banking, better hours, less office politics.
How about career alternatives specific to Top Legal Talent? I would think that my credentials could land me something more glamorous than this (i.e. music, movies, sports, and/or fashion). (T5-->V10)
At one of the largest firms, none of the people doing the conflicts checks have JDs. There are one or two "Professional Responsibility" lawyers but they are involved in only limited instances.
Played softball recently at my firm, 2/3 of the team was in Conflicts, I had no clue what the hell that was. None of them were lawyers.
9:53 - I appreciate the comment, even though it's perhaps somewhat tangential to the particular topic of this thread (which means it might get overlooked by other readers). Still interesting and insightful.
10:18 - completely agreed here. I'd love to see career alternatives for those of us who have the best credentials but don't want to be stuck in BigLaw forever.
I'm definitely enjoying this feature, though.
Actually, a conflicts management gig might give you a good foundation for a career in legal ethics or legal malpractice. Provided you do a bit of research and writing, there are quite a few doors that will be open to you. Rather than "Conflicts Analyst", I'd prefer the job title be "Conflicts Officer" or "Conflicts Manager".
Lat, this is such a great topic in general, but can you explore possibilities that are not administrative in nature? I.e., I may be interesting in switching, but I don't want to move into something that doesn't involve using my brain. What are the possibilities for a move into an area that would actually be interesting to work in?
I hate getting ethical screen emails from them.
Sounds like a boring job.
One more thought. A conflicts analyst position would be extremely useful when a BIGLAW firm is the subject of a motion to disqualify. All of a sudden you become a rockstar when BIGLAW faces the prospect of losing millions of dollars in fees.
The conflicts department at Skadden consists of a wrestling ring a large associate in spandex putting people into headlocks.
did it before law school for a few years and i often felt like a trained animal could do my job....
I hear they train ethical animals at AU all the time.
"10:18 - completely agreed here. I'd love to see career alternatives for those of us who have the best credentials but don't want to be stuck in BigLaw forever."
Well, if you're so brilliant and wonderful, why don't you muster an ounce of creativity and come up with something yourself? If you can't think beyond BIGLAW on your own, you're probably not in a position to set the world on fire, anyway.
10:18 -- UVA troll poppin his collar.
I sat next to this guy in law school. Three years after graduating I get an all attorney email at my firm job. It's from him. He's one of the conflict guys and he's sending out a conflict check. I immediatelly felt lucky for my situation.
What about legal recruiting? I switched over 2 years ago after being miserable as a litigator and really love it. The money is great and the hours are predictable. The work is actually pretty interesting as well - you get to learn a lot about various industries and still get to hang out with lawyers. Good gig overall.
This series is quickly proving that anythign involving a JD degree = your screwed. Maybe the title of every article should be "Another Reason Why You Should Not Have Attended that TTT!"
HTH.
I did this for a big firm for two years before law school - it was horribly boring, a trained monkey could definitely do 90% of the work, and all the lawyers hated hearing from me. The only lawyers that worked in the conflicts dept. were those who were trying to pass the bar. I would NOT recommend it.
Um, actually, they typically hire people without JDs to do this, like paralegals who want to continue working for a law firm in a different capacity. If you've taken out significant loan debt for law school, you're just a loser for becoming a conflicts analyst.
10:47 has loose bearings! $50k-100k is an excellent salary. The author said it was "not bad". What kind of starting salaries are you guys thinking about. I have friends who jump at this bracket and I went to a top tier school. And yes, I know a classmate I was friendly with got an offer at Ropes and Gray and Hale and Dorr for $180K. Still, I ain't John Roberts and I ain't Willie Gary; if I want to go into law firm management, I fail to see why that makes me a loser!
I've been doing this since 2000. Started off as an analyst making 35k at a huge firm and left in '06 making 60k. Now I work at a much smaller as a senior analyst making 75k. Since I'm still considered staff, there's lots of OT available which means I'm doing 80K. Not bad for someone who dropped out of a community college after a year. Been thru the headaches, arguments ect., etc., with many attorneys and that's why I made the move to a smaller firm. Less work, no issues, everything is sweet. I enjoy what I do.