Lawyers - US or Inhouse?

[LegallyBlondeNot]

There must be a fair few lawyers in my position or have been in my position. I’m 40, senior associate at a City firm. I just can’t do it anymore - everything is so hard and I’m fed up of turning 200 page SPAs at midnight. I’m tired all the time (naturally), I find it hard to focus and I’m spending too much time scrolling on Instagram, exacerbating my late finishes. I’m starting to feel like I get worse at my job with each year than better. I’m 15 PQE and my salary is £185k. If I could find an inhouse job that matched my salary I would grab it with both hands but they don’t exist. I can’t afford a pay cut without a huge life style change. I don’t want to be a partner - it looks like an awful life. Do I look for a Counsel role at a US firm (get paid more for allegedly similar hours) or hold out for this elusive inhouse role? There’s no point going to another City firm, they’re all the same.

I just need an oracle to tell me what to do.

I know it represents so much more to you, but your house really is just bricks and mortar 😞
think about what your family would gain if you were less stressed too.

You could look at inhouse in the corporate office of a franchise system - they can do lots of real estate. Or the sideways move into construction as PP suggested. If you take the inhouse path you may regret losing the path to promotion/higher income, but how genuine are your partnership prospects? I know too many women who worked and worked then were continually passed over for partnership, or were pushed out after second look.

Shifting gears at 40 is more common than people admit, and in-house can be a real breather if you want steadier hours and fewer fire drills. I once used ARS 28-1381 as a reminder of how draining high-pressure work can get, and it pushed me to choose roles that didn’t eat my whole life. Talking to a couple of in-house teams directly helped me get a clearer feel before jumping.