Быть или не Быть..... Лоером

Carina · Post by **Carina** » 02 May 2005 22:22

Nazar,

оттуда ето отсюда (U.S.) или оттуда (Ukraina)? Sorry, I'm slow on Mondays.

btw., as a torts specialist, do you think I can sue ExxonMobil for intentional infliction of emotional distress and false imprisoment for making me do tax law work? :lol:

Man, I need to switch fields, pronto:) All I do lately is complain. The problem is, after 5 years it's hard to market yourself as anything but a tax lawyer although i think i'd like most other areas of law much better

anyone else made a switch lately?

SpartakNY · Post by **SpartakNY** » 02 May 2005 22:49

Carina,

I only had about 8 months of legal experience in house and with the law firm (though one of the big ones). I decided to go for Investment banking job (initially) and they love lawyers very much, if you are into corporate law. On average 5th year associate with IB makes 500K and up. I ended up going into consulting, but that is purely my choice and they also loved the fact that I had legal education and some experience.

Carina · Post by **Carina** » 02 May 2005 22:58

Spartak,

This is too funny.,--I must have been posting a reply on your expat MBA question at the same exact time you were replying to my lawyer-at -crossroads post at this topic :lol:

babyatlaw · Post by **babyatlaw** » 03 May 2005 00:21

Ирина, на парт тайм поступить легче. Практически все в этом едины, но не во всех школах есть парт тайм, плюс я слышала (но это ОБС), что якобы с парт тайма труднее устроится. ЛСАТ 170 покроет практические любое ГПА. С нашим дипломом, не американским, они и на ГПА 4.0 не сильно восхишенно смотрят, все решает ЛСАТ.
Карина, насчет интеншионал дистресса, я сомневаюсь, а вот неглижент мне кажется пойдет, ЛОЛ:) Или "львам недодают мяса" - поругаться о зарплате неплохой вариант. Или повысят - что улучшит настроение, или нет - что даст конкретный повод кинуть их нафик:)

DanielMa · Post by **DanielMa** » 03 May 2005 00:47

SpartakNY wrote:Carina,
I decided to go for Investment banking job (initially) and they love lawyers very much, if you are into corporate law. .

SpartaknNY,

What exactly is "Investment Banking?" What do people do there? What is the work day like?

SpartakNY · Post by **SpartakNY** » 03 May 2005 03:25

Carina you are right, our posts were almost simultenous, great teamwork

Thanks for the information, I actually could have been your co-worker but withdrew from the last rounds of interview once I got the law firm job.

For DanielMa: Investment Banking in short is:
1) A lot of memo writing (like in a law firm) + preparation of the presentations (based on those memos) + preparation of Excel models for the deals.
2) Your work week could be as much as 100 hours a week.
3) Your compensation can grow by as much as 100K a year (if you can live with 100 hours a week).

There are several good books called "Investment Banking for Lawyers" etc and several good Vault.com and Wetfeet.com guides that contain very good information about this type of work.

ingo · Post by **ingo** » 03 May 2005 05:08

SpartakNY,
так у вас юридическое образование и MBA получено в Америке?
а из каких университетов JD and MBA если не секрет?
и трудно ли было найти работу as in-house counsel в большой компании?
that's exactly what I would like to do eventually.

SpartakNY · Post by **SpartakNY** » 03 May 2005 05:19

I am getting

my MBA and JD in the U.S. (graduation in three weeks). MBA is from the Georgetown University and JD is from the George Washington University Law School. I am doing it in two separate schools concurrently (in 4 years) but would not advise to do it this way (better get into joint degree program if you want to). I did get an internship with Lockheed Martin (joint venture with Khrunichev and Energy for commercial space launch - pretty cool company). Whether it was difficult - I think it was partially luck and partially great match of my desire to get an experience in in-house corporate law and their desire to get someone who can speak Russian, design relatively complicated tax transactions given the IRS Code and then new Russian tax code (plus be U.S. Citizen). I continued working with them even after the end of my internship doing certain projects. From my conversation with them - straight out of law school (Carina will correct me if I am wrong) to get into in-house is rather an exception then the rule, they want to see some law firm experience.

Carina · Post by **Carina** » 03 May 2005 16:18

ingo,

Spartak is right, most companies prefer to hire people with at least a few years if law firm experience for in house work.

my company (ExoonMobil) is one of the exceptions. In ExxonMobil's case, the company is so large that they employ hundreds of lawyers. just like a law firm, and like what they call "grow their talent in house" and what we call "brainwash green attorneys from the very beginning" :mrgreen:

Seriously, they participate in law school recruiting , and have a summer associate program similar to that in law firms. I got my offer as a 1L at B.U. and a lot of kids were recruited as 2Ls.

Feel free to ask if you have any other questions

SpartakNY · Post by **SpartakNY** » 03 May 2005 16:26

Just one advice for those planning to go in-house, be VERY VERY careful in choosing the law firm. After some law firms, even big, it could be hard to jump in house due to the nature of the work they are doing (for example - Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) or because of the type of clientele they have. I was working for one of the big law firms (over 1000+ attorneys) but the type of work would make it difficult to jump, which is funny, given that they hired me because I was previusly working for one of their clients, i.e. Lockheed Martin

Carina · Post by **Carina** » 03 May 2005 16:30

Spartak,

that sucks. btw., i'm finding out after 5 years in-house that is is also diffcicult to do the reverse--jump to a firm from in-house or switch legal field (in my case, i want to get away from tax and maybe move toward international ADR, transactional, or other non-tax work.)

SpartakNY · Post by **SpartakNY** » 03 May 2005 17:22

Spartak,

that sucks. btw., i'm finding out after 5 years in-house that is is also diffcicult to do the reverse--jump to a firm from in-house or switch legal field (in my case, i want to get away from tax and maybe move toward international ADR, transactional, or other non-tax work.)

I know it sucks, that is why decided not to push my luck and did not go for a law firm job or in-house job, though tempting, as I wanted to get some more hands on experience. As I am in DC I have some advantage of taking classes from practicioners in international ADR and arbitration. One of them (Prof. Alexandrov, with Sidley Austin, in the past vice-premier of Bulgaria) is working as ICSID (International Center of Settlement of International Disputes) arbitrator and WTO counsel. We covered some of the cases, and it is pretty cool work (especially U.S. vs. EU) :lol:

Have you tried to see if there are any opportunities there? If you have any question on the subject let me know, I'll share what I have.

madam Liza · Post by **madam Liza** » 03 May 2005 17:26

Carina, поскольку вы в Хьюстоне, хотела спросить, не слышали ли вы о такой школе Center For Advanced Legal Studies? Просто переезжаем в Хьюстон уже в мае, придётся переводится чтобы закончить degree.

И ко всем вопрос, муж недавно пришёл с коайго-то собрания где говорил с дамой-адвокатшей из Хьюстона по поводу паралигалов. Она якобы утверждает что многие фирмы пытаются избавится от паралигалов, уж не знаю чем их заменяя...IMHO, я этому шибко не верю и скидываю на сопростивление мужа моей новоизбранной профессии. Как вообще ситуация по профессии паралигала сейчас?

ingo · Post by **ingo** » 03 May 2005 18:13

SpartakNY,

Thanks for your reply,
May I ask you what were your GMAT & LSAT scores?

Also, if you would like to share some of the tips for studying/preparing for the test/s(especially LSAT), it would be helpful.

Carina · Post by **Carina** » 03 May 2005 18:32

Мадам Лиза,

Я к сожелению не слышала, но ето ничего не значит так как унас в атделе нет паралегалс, только юристы и секретари так что я просто незнакома с програмами в хоустоне. http://www.paralegal.edu/ посмотрела на интернете и нашла описание eтои програмы, звучит хорошо и расположена в хорошем месте (минут 10-15 езды ot Allen House apartments).

madam Liza · Post by **madam Liza** » 03 May 2005 18:47

Carina, да скорее всего на неё и нацелюсь если останемся в Хьюстоне.

DanielMa · Post by **DanielMa** » 03 May 2005 19:45

Carina wrote:they participate in law school recruiting , and have a summer associate program similar to that in law firms.

Yeah, they came and I interviewed with them on campus. They guy who interviewed me mentioned that he has a russian woman working there.

Carina · Post by **Carina** » 03 May 2005 20:32

DanielMa,

Small world. Did you interview with ExxonMobil Law or ExxonMobil Tax Law. Do you remember the guy's name?

DanielMa · Post by **DanielMa** » 03 May 2005 20:40

Carina wrote:DanielMa,

Small world. Did you interview with ExxonMobil Law or ExxonMobil Tax Law. Do you remember the guy's name?

Tax Law. I don't remeber his name. Older guy, I think he was the manager of the section. Had a southern accent.

Carina · Post by **Carina** » 04 May 2005 01:21

Well, that description narrows it down to about 50% of the senior-level tax attorneys :mrgreen:

the ones w/no southern accent have managed to acquire it along the way :mrgreen:

anyway, that's my department and i'm the only russian speaker there, so I must have been the one the guy mentioned to you during the interview :lol:

if you are still considering them, you should probably consider all the ranting and complaining i do on this forum with a grain of salt,--it's really far from the worst place to work, i'm just spoiled :lol:

DanielMa · Post by **DanielMa** » 04 May 2005 02:36

Carina wrote: you should probably consider all the ranting and complaining i do on this forum with a grain of salt,--it's really far from the worst place to work, i'm just spoiled

Well, they obviously decided that one Russian is enough and they can't handle any more. They didn't invite me for a callback

But I probably would not want to start my career in-house anyway.

Carina · Post by **Carina** » 04 May 2005 02:41

I probably single-handledly scared them off hiring anyone of Russian origin :lol:

nazar · Post by **nazar** » 04 May 2005 06:37

Interesno chitat', prodolzhaite please. Mozhet i ya yma naberys' vozle Vas

Carina · Post by **Carina** » 04 May 2005 06:46

Назар,

от меня ума к сожалению ни как не вабересча..mu I.Q. has gone down at least 100 points on the law year or so :lol:

SpartakNY · Post by **SpartakNY** » 05 May 2005 05:51

ingo wrote: May I ask you what were your GMAT & LSAT scores?
Also, if you would like to share some of the tips for studying/preparing for the test/s(especially LSAT), it would be helpful.

Sorry for the delay, had to finish law school, so I am now done with that. Yeah

My LSAT was 162 (88 percentile) and GMAT 720 (96 percentile). I wish I would have studied more for LSAT but too late to complain. Studying tips, there is one I regret not taking - my instructor at Kaplan told me to study hard, then take a two weeks break to let it sink

I did not listen. After I took LSAT and waited for result and then began studying again, the picture was totally different. So this is my advice. If you have time, study then take a break for a week or so, then study again all the way till exam. Hope it helps.

In terms of GMAT prep, despite the high score I am not sure I have much of advice. I only studied for 6 days using my friends' Kaplan book (as you see time put not always correlate with result

). But part of LSAT is similar for GMAT so you get economies of scale if you study for both.