u/Forsaken-Ad923

Has anyone gone in-house after becoming a partner at a law firm? If so, what was that experience like and what level did you come in as if no prior in-house experience

NEP at an AM100 with around 8 years into practice, with good billable work and a practice I don’t hate. The concern is trajectory as my historical specialty is declining, the clients I’ve originated are interesting but relatively low-volume, and I don’t have a meaningful entry point into any of my firm's major institutional relationships. My sense is that this profile likely leads to long-term NEP stagnation rather than equity partnership.

I received an offer for an in-house role at a FAANG, but the total annual compensation is roughly 35-40% below my expected firm compensation (even with reduced hours). The equity grant was nominal (roughly 70% of one year’s base spread over four years). Even with modest appreciation, there would still have been a meaningful cumulative gap versus remaining a stagnant NEP at reduced billable hours. However, the workload did not appear materially lighter than private practice. My inclination was to continue searching for other in-house options, but I'm also concerned that staying an NEP for too long effectively locks you out of in-house roles because more senior in-house roles always seem to require prior in-house experience.

For those who have been in a similar position and considered in-house positions, would you take the reset for the in-house credential, or stay put and wait for a role that better reflects your seniority and compensation?

NEP at an "elite" boutique. Practice is mix of transactional and litigation, with the litigation work being in a specialty executive branch practice that has diminished in significance with the new administration (keeping broad to maintain anonymity). Pipeline in this practice has been reduced extensively, and it was likely my only business case for elevation. I've still been busy and continue to have work as the firm has appropriately downsized, but also looking for exits.

My current practice has made me a "specialist," but my long-term goal is to move in-house into a broader business-facing "generalist" role. I’m increasingly interested in being closer to strategy, operations, and business decision-making rather than staying in a purely specialist role. However, the in-house roles I see with similar comp. (not exactly the same) are highly specialized towards transactional work in a way that I haven't developed in my practice given my specialty focus. I have the opportunity to do more transactional work, but the types of companies I'm interested in (F500) want institutional transactional work, and my clientele for transactional work (where I have my own book) are largely small, early-stage startups.

I also do not have a meaningful institutional book by BL standards. The institutional clients and the work that would help me develop the right transition experience are controlled by EPs in other specialty practices. They have no reason to assign work to me since they know I've have been focused on my specialty niche. As a result, I have plenty of work within my practice group, but not necessarily the kind of work that would help me build a more generalist, in-house-ready profile. The structure of my firm (and the nature of the work) also makes it challenging for people at my seniority to "reinvent" their practices in a way that provides a path to either equity partnership or in-house.

I feel like this has created a weird trap. If I focus on my niche practice, I can stay busy and useful at the firm, but I become more specialized in an area that may not support the long-term career I want. If I try to shift toward broader counseling, business-adjacent work, those opportunities are limited because the firm’s major clients and highest-value relationships are already owned by others. My smaller clients are good experience, but they do not create enough revenue or institutional leverage to change my trajectory.

The in-house market also feels tricky. The roles that are worth leaving the firm in terms of platform opportunities seem concentrated at large enterprises, but those roles often require very specific experience. They do not necessarily accomodate a specialist who is trying to broaden (I just interviewed for one role at my dream company, and despite being advanced to final rounds, was unable to convert to an offer due to a perceived lack of ownership of institutional transactional work in private practice). They seemed to want someone who already has the exact in-house or transactional experience at a firm. On the other hand, roles that might let me become more generalist often come with a large compensation/seniority tradeoff that does not seem rational unless I am being pushed out. In senior generalist roles, I am also competing with candidates with the same YoE, but with prior in-house experience, which it seems gives them an edge over my background (all law firm experience) unless, of course, the role focused on my specialty niche.

So I feel caught between two identities. Internally, I am not really positioned to become an EP because I do not control institutional clients and there's no pipeline in my specialty niche; externally, I may read as too specialized for the in-house roles I actually want. There's no real in-house counterpart for my specialty niche, but I guess I can always go to a different firm to "reinvent" my practice.

Has anyone navigated a similar transition from specialist NEP / senior counsel into a broader in-house role? Did you have to take a step down in compensation or prestige, or were you able to reposition your specialist background into a more generalist platform?