Tom Wallerstein
Thanks to everyone who has sent me emails; really, I’m flattered. I promise I will get back to everyone. A lot of people have asked me questions. For example:
“I am currently a third-year law student . . . . I am hoping to eventually open my own firm (sooner rather than later perhaps) as I am willing to suffer the first few years of practice and not making money in hopes that I can recoup that years down the road . . . . I do not feel that my best years should be wasted working for somebody else (my opinion of a firm is that they are useful right out of school to ‘learn the trade’ but outside of that the firm benefits more from an associate than the associate benefits from the firm . . . .”
I’ll answer this one publicly:
If you are in law school and you have the choice between working for an established firm — big or small — or working for yourself/starting your own firm, it’s a no-brainer that you should go with the established firm first. You can always leave the firm to pursue your own practice at any time, but the converse isn’t true: Once you go out on your own you might forever lose opportunities you have as a student.
In any event, I disagree that a firm necessarily benefits from an associate more than an associate benefits from the firm. I’ll stick with the only thing I really know: my own personal experience. I wrote in my first-ever blog post that “none of my limited success would have been possible without my Biglaw experience.” I think there are three reasons this is true for me….
