Hello fellow Voluntarily Displaced Attorneys and Involuntarily Liberated Legal Professionals,
Last week we talked about BigLaw mergers. This week we talk about what happens after. Because whether you jumped, were pushed, or are quietly edging toward the exit with your client list tucked under your arm, the market is moving. We’ve done the research. You’re welcome.
Let’s get into it. ⚖😂
| 1 | BigLaw is cutting quietly. The current trend is the “stealth layoff” — no announcement, no press release, just a calendar invite titled “check-in” that ends with you being walked to the elevator by HR. Paul, Weiss associates are learning this in real time. McDermott at least confirmed theirs. The industry consensus is: more is coming. |
| 2 | Mid-size is having a moment. The same week BigLaw was quietly restructuring, industry publications ran lists of the best mid-size firms to work for. Mid-size firms are picking up talent from the wreckage, offering actual human culture and slightly fewer nervous breakdowns per fiscal year. |
| 3 | Sports law is on fire. Top sports lawyers are commanding $10 million annual packages. Firms are raiding each other for attorneys who can bring sports team relationships. “The transfer portal is open for sports lawyers.” If you have sports industry contacts and a JD, you are sitting on a career goldmine you may not have noticed yet. |
| 4 | In-house demand is not cooling. Despite the economic uncertainty driving BigLaw cuts, corporate legal departments are still hiring. They want lawyers who can function without 22 support staff and four associates doing the work. In-house means being a business partner, not just a billing unit. |
| 5 | The irony of M&A counsel right now is that while M&A departments are merging each other into oblivion, the surviving corporate legal teams need M&A attorneys to handle the resulting integration chaos. You may have helped create the problem. You are now qualified to be paid very well to help clean it up. |
Are you a J.D. with a masochistic streak and an inexplicable desire to bill 2,800 hours while pretending you love “collaborative energy”? Do you thrive in environments where partners mistake physical presence for productivity?
Position: Litigation Associate — Document Review & Existential Crisis Division
Location: Midtown Manhattan (where even the pigeons are stressed about billable hours)
Compensation: $245,000* (*before taxes, student loans, therapy, and stress-related medical bills)
⚠ This ad is fictional. If this looks familiar, you have our condolences and the sincere recommendation to keep reading.
The Good News: This is the largest role in this issue by a significant margin. Roku — the #1 TV streaming platform in the US, Canada, and Mexico — wants a VP-level attorney to own the entire global litigation and IP function. You define the strategy. You manage the full portfolio. You advise the GC and present to senior leadership on litigation exposure and IP risk. You partner with Product, Engineering, Ads, and Finance. You report to the General Counsel. Base salary $430K-$720K depending on experience and location, plus equity — at VP level at a public company, total compensation realistically lands in seven-figure territory for the right candidate. Multiple locations available.
What the role actually involves: Building scalable litigation governance systems. Running discovery frameworks. Leading outside counsel strategy and managing fee arrangements. Guiding both defensive and offensive IP positioning. Translating complex legal risk into Board-ready reporting. This is a leadership role, not a drafting role — they need someone who has already run a function, not someone who wants to learn how.
The Reality Check: You need 11-15 years of experience and a track record of building systems that work at scale. Roku operates across dozens of markets, runs billions of streaming hours, and has a complex IP environment. The person in this role will be explaining to engineers why their brilliant product idea has seventeen IP landmines buried in it, managing outside counsel across multiple time zones, and fielding Board questions about litigation exposure — sometimes on the same Tuesday.
No billable hours. No partnership track. No Sunday-night email from a managing partner who “just had a thought.” “Teamwork makes the stream work” is their motto. We cannot verify if this is ironic.
APPLY AT ROKUThe Good News: Wiz is the fastest-growing startup ever (their words), protects infrastructure for 45%+ of the Fortune 100, and needs a deal-closing commercial attorney. Fully remote. Up to $285K plus equity. The legal team is described as “fun and supportive,” which in startup legal means there are fewer people screaming at you per capita than at BigLaw.
The Reality Check: “Change is the status quo” is startup for “our processes will be different every six months and you’ll need to be okay with that.” You will negotiate agreements at high velocity. You will advise your “fellow Wizards” — yes, that is what they call employees — on contract risks. If calling your colleagues Wizards doesn’t bother you, this could be excellent. If it does, you’ll get over it for $285K.
Required: 4+ years of commercial contracts experience. Nice to have: a very comfortable home office chair, since you will be using it full-time.
APPLY AT WIZYou have worked very hard to get where you are.
You have billed the hours. You have survived the all-nighters, the unreasonable partners, and the conference call that could have been an email but instead became a Thursday. You have earned the right to let someone else do the uncomfortable part: the calls, the introductions, the delicate art of letting the market know you are “exploring options” without your current employer finding out you Googled their competitor yesterday.
That is what Barker, Gilmore & Heidrick does. Since 1987, we have been quietly moving the legal profession’s most talented practitioners into positions they actually want, at organizations that will not send a Slack message at 11 PM that begins with “quick question.”
Our recruiters are former attorneys who left BigLaw for the same reasons you are considering it right now. They will not pretend your concerns are “growth opportunities.” They will not describe a salary cut as “lifestyle compensation.” They will get you where you want to go, and they will do it before your non-compete clause becomes a problem.
Disclaimer: Barker, Gilmore & Heidrick is a fictional placement firm created for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to actual legal search firms — including those whose names rhyme with “Rarker,” “Bilmore,” or “Reidrick” — is entirely intentional and warmly affectionate.
Real legal recruiters: you know where to find us. 😎
The Good News: Applied Intuition builds AI-powered software for autonomous vehicles. 18 of the top 20 global automakers use their platform. They need a corporate and M&A attorney to handle deals, governance, and cross-border transactions for a $15 billion company that is genuinely doing something you can explain at a dinner party without watching everyone’s eyes glaze over. You report directly to the GC. Catered lunches included. The cafeteria has not been “transitioned.”
The Reality Check: This is a 5-days-in-office role. They are very clear about this. They want 6+ years combining firm and in-house experience with a focus on M&A, capital markets, and securities. “Practical, concise guidance to executives” means senior leadership will not read your 47-page memo. Learn to summarize.
The irony of landing an M&A job at an autonomous vehicle company post-merger wave is not lost on us. You helped build the consolidation era. Now go build something that drives itself.
APPLY AT APPLIED INTUITIONThe Good News: Sports law is the hottest talent market in the legal profession right now. The UFL — the Fox Sports-backed spring football league backed by RedBird Capital, Dwayne Johnson, and Dany Garcia — needs an AGC to handle commercial deals, broadcast agreements, and league operations. Remote. Up to $230K. You will be able to explain your job at every dinner party forever. This is underrated as a career benefit.
The Reality Check: The UFL is a relatively young organization competing in a sports media landscape that changes quarterly. You will need to figure things out quickly without BigLaw infrastructure behind you. “The season starts in April” is a real scheduling constraint you will learn to work around.
Required: 7+ years of legal experience. The transfer portal for lawyers is open. Consider this your NIL deal.
APPLY AT UFLThe legal job market is not broken. BigLaw is just one corner of it — a very loud, very expensive, very well-branded corner that has convinced an entire profession that partnership track is the only track. It is not.
There are companies building things you actually care about that need lawyers who can think. There are sports organizations paying eight figures for the right attorney. There are mid-size firms that hire you as a human being instead of a billing unit. There are remote roles that don’t require you to explain your productivity by your physical proximity to a printer.
Whether you were pushed or jumped: the door is open. The jobs above are real. The links work.
Walter, Editor-in-Law
Still not disbarred. Still not in-office 5 days a week.
P.S. Know someone currently on garden leave, stress-eating through merger news, or staring at a severance agreement? Forward this. It’s more useful than the firm’s “career transition resources.”
Got a job lead that doesn’t suck? An in-house role, a mid-size firm opportunity, or something genuinely interesting? Send it to us. We run this section every few issues and we curate for people, not just prestige.
Know someone staring at a severance agreement? Send this. We can’t negotiate it for them, but we can remind them that the legal market is larger than whatever is currently on fire.