Maybe you’re sick of keeping track of your billables, or maybe you’re the GC of a startup that’s just gone public. While the possibilities in-house are endless, there’s also no more Cravath Scale or AmLaw rankings. You’re in the Wild West, but Whistler is here to guide you.
While we don't have additional in-house roles available right now, signing up for our newsletter is the best way to hear about new roles.
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Co-Founder at Digital Health Start-Up
NAT FLANDREAU
VP of Legal at Hubble Contacts
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Legal Counsel at Smart Home Unicorn
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Legal Counsel at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Whether you want a culture upgrade, a practice area shift, more interesting clients, or a better chance at making partner, we can light the way.
We have access to hundreds of open associate roles at any given time.
ARON NIMANI
Technology Transactions and Licensing Senior Associate at WilmerHale
JORDAN THOMPSON
Tech Transactions Associate at Davis Wright Tremaine
JOE DOLL
Corporate & Crypto Associate at Fenwick & West
MARC BALIATICO
Private Funds Associate at Proskauer Rose
WILL REILY
Financial Restructuring Associate at King & Spalding
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Mergers & Acquisitions Associate at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PRALIKA JAIN
Healthcare Associate at Moses & Singer
JONATHAN ALLAN
Deputy General Counsel at Stoke Therapeutics, former PE M&A and Emerging Companies at Fenwick & West
JASMINE JOSEPH
Early Stage and Venture Capital Associate at Latham & Watkins
MERISSA PICO
Technology Transactions Associate at Covington
PHILLIP HILL
Soft IP Litigation Associate at Covington
MONTANA WARE
Emerging Companies and Venture Capital Associate at Orrick
TOMER STEIN
Currently In-House, Former Capital Markets Associate at Latham & Watkins
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IP Licensing & Technology Transactions Associate at xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Emerging Companies Associate at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ROBERT WEISS
Asset Management and Investment Funds Counsel at K&L Gates
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Private Equity & Venture Capital Associate at xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
We believe that tech and startup partners’ books are pound-for-pound worth more to a firm because of their growth potential. You're building the legal practices of the future, and that should be rewarded.
Is it just you? Have you built a whole team? Either way, we can help match you with a firm that delivers on its promises.
The roles listed above only represent a small percentage of the roles we're working on, and many firms are open to proactively hiring the right partner.
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Partner at White & Case
BEZALEL STERN
FTC, Advertising, and Consumer Protection Partner at Manatt
S. GREGORY BOYD
Partner & Co-Chair of Interactive Entertainment Group at Frankfurt Kurnit
You've got Qs, we've got As
You wouldn’t try to argue a case in court if you weren’t a litigator. Sometimes it’s just best to leave things to the professionals. We do this everyday. We know these firms. We got lunch with the hiring manager last week. We are your asset.
And occasionally we will advise that you submit yourself to certain roles.3
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be” - Shakespeare 4
We always say that at Whistler Partners we're matchmakers, not headhunters. But what does that actually mean?
Most types of recruiting are job-driven. Get a job, fill it with whoever. Legal recruiting, on the other hand, is uniquely candidate-driven. A law firm may not be advertising an opening for a capital markets associate, but they'd happily interview one with great credentials.
Whistler recognized that legal recruiting is uniquely candidate-driven, and we changed our MO. We train our recruiters to put candidates first by never being pushy, by always offering neutral advice, and by fostering relationships that follow candidates throughout their careers. While many shops silo recruiters into working only with attorneys in one region and seniority level, we allow our recruiters to work with a candidate throughout their career, from when they're a junior associate in New York through when they're an equity partner in Los Angeles.
Last, we're unique in that we focus on placing tech and startup attorneys. We recognize that understanding verticals is just as important as understanding practice areas, so we have recruiters who focus on fintech, healthtech,
Negotiation takes practice and we’ve done our reps.
We love maximalism! But it’s not great when it comes to legal recruiters.
Think of yourself like a star athlete, and of us like your agent. LeBron James would never have two agents with conflicting interests advising him.5 They wouldn't be able to offer impartial advice.
Similarly, if you have two separate recruiters, they’re incentivized to advocate most for the job where they represent you, even if that’s not the best move for your career.
Additionally, using multiple recruiters makes it harder to pace a search and to negotiate extensions on offers. A good recruiter will leverage a firm's speed to help move the process along with other firms.
Because of those two issues, we always prefer that you work with just one recruiter on a law firm search, even if it’s not us. Choose the one you trust most and stick with them.
Call your favorite Whistler recruiter. If you’re an associate, 99% of law firm jobs aren’t exclusive to any single recruiter. Claiming that an associate level law firm job is “exclusive” is often a trick used when fishing for resumes. If the job does happen to be that 0.1% of law firm associate jobs that is exclusive, we will double-check with the firm and gracefully bow out if true.
Our fees are paid by whoever hires you.
We probably place 1/10 people we consult with, but we strive to provide 10/10 with valuable advice. If you do want to bribe us with gifts like alcohol or free dinners, we’ll gladly accept. (Recruiting doesn’t have the strict code of ethics law does.)
That said, the highest compliment you can give us is a referral.
We refer to “the 10,000 hour rule” (credit: cool Gibson Dunn partner, piggybacking on Malcolm Gladwell). Associates tend to be ready to go in-house when they have about 10,000 hours under their belt (around the fifth year if you’re billing 2,000 hours a year). Going in-house too early could potentially stall out your career. In BigLaw, there are clear benchmarks and an annual raise is essentially guaranteed. But the business world is far more opaque. If you start as a low level counsel, you can easily be pigeon holed into doing the same kind of contract over and over again, at the same salary, for years.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, so we advise you talk with a recruiter you trust (even if you found the job on your own) to help evaluate if an in-house offer is worth taking.
No legal recruiting shop has all of the in-house jobs. In fact, because we have to be engaged by a client to have an in-house role, most legal recruiters only have a handful of in-house roles at any given time, and those roles tend to have very narrow parameters for what the company is looking for.
Because of this, we don't recommend that you conduct an in-house search exclusively using one recruiter (which is what we recommend for law firm searches). Instead we recommend that you cast a wide net: apply for jobs, work your network, talk to your favorite clients or former clients...
If you’ve checked our job board and we don’t have your dream job listed, we recommend signing up for our newsletter and following us on Linkedin to learn about our newest in-house roles.
Yes, yes, a million times yes.
We recommend all first year associates start keeping track of their deals from the get go - even just in the form of casual notes. It’ll make it much easier when you inevitably have to talk about what you’ve been up to for your entire career.
And if you want to be hired as a partner, you’re going to have to fill out an LPQ. But think of it as a form of interview prep; you need to be able to be able to succinctly describe your book and practice, and this terrible Excel sheet that law firms call an LPQ will help you organize your thoughts.
There might be, but we haven’t been invited to join.
The secret that the legal recruiting industry doesn't want you to know? We all have the same database of law firm jobs and attorney contacts. What differentiates our recruiters is our knowledge of tech and startup industries, and our winning personalities. We hope that our selective email outreach embodies that, and hopefully isn't too much of a nuisance.
If you don’t enjoy learning about the most interesting jobs in law, let us know and we’ll take you off our lists.
While we primarily focus on tech and startup attorneys, we actually represent attorneys from across the spectrum. And if they happen to have great credentials or a big book, we won’t complain.
Instead of focusing on regions or seniority levels, our recruiters tend to focus on practice areas and verticals. Need a fintech recruiter? We got you. Healthcare and life sciences? Ya we've got that too. Entertainment litigation? We've even got that.
Sean gets it. He left behind a glamorous life of doc review for an even more glamorous life of cold calling. And it was the best decision he ever made!
We’re always excited to meet people who want to hear about joining Whistler.
If you’re an associate who loves advising clients but hates writing briefs, a GC who’s sick of having to find a new gig every few years, or a retired partner looking to impart your knowledge, reach out to contact@whistlerpartners.com to learn about becoming a recruiter.6
1) No we’re not talking about opening a winery. Don’t believe the hype - just because it worked out for Jess Jackson and Robert Parker (both former lawyers, btw) in the 70s doesn’t mean it’ll work for you now. Have you looked at property prices in Sonoma County recently?!
2) Our founder, Sean, was so shy growing up that he would make his little brother ask strangers what time it was. His little brother has a day job now so he doesn’t have time to ask questions for you.
3) True recruiter story: an in-house hedge fund client with incredibly high standards was looking to hire a litigator. After significant work and vetting of potential candidates, we gave them the 5 best candidates in NYC. The hiring manager responded: “they all went to great law schools and they practice at terrific law firms, but all 5 have jumped around too much this early in their career. Each of them worked for a judge for just 1 year and then moved on. Some of them had a job at the Supreme Court and only stayed for a year!” The point of the story? Sometimes in-house employers need a little help from us to understand why your resume is so great. So if you can have us advocate for you at a job, take the help.
4) Scenario 1: Friend who was really funny and popular in law school is now a terrible attorney and not well regarded at his firm. You’re forever blacklisted by association. Scenario 2: Friend goes above and beyond to get you the interview and help prep you. You hate the partner you’ll be working for and your friend gets burned in the process. Scenario 3: Friend turns in resume recommending you. Crickets… did they secretly sabotage you? Paranoia grows. Scenario 4: Friend offers to submit your resume to recruiting because you already have offers at two other comparable firms. Crickets… and time runs out on your other offers. Scenario 5: Friend calls you disappointed after you turn down the offer they helped you get. You later learn through mutual friends that friend is still given shit by the corner office managing partner about you turning down the offer. Friend never invites you to Friendsgiving again. Scenario 6: Friend says “I get a big referral fee if you give me your resume.” Crickets… Two months later you see on LinkedIn that friend accepted an in-house job. Their firm has never heard of you. Scenario 7: Friend was never a friend. You get nothing.
5) Not only has LeBron stuck with his one agent his whole career, he kind of even opened his own agency (ok, he doesn’t have an ownership stake in Klutch, but just saying…)! Disputes between agents and promoters are always ugly and nobody wins.
6) Unrelated to anything but our marketing department made us do this for SEO. Here’s every key word that a lawyer or hiring manager might search for: career advice, law firm rankings, partner profits, biglaw jobs, ignoring recruiter calls, law firm culture, nicer law firms, boutique law firms, burnout, how to go in-house, in-house jobs, legal news, law firm news, legal gossip, legal scandals, blawg, lateral move, switch practice areas, tech law, startup law, cannabis law, associate salaries, associate bonuses, partner salaries, how to originate, partner bonuses, general counsel salaries, in-house counsel salaries, in-house bonuses?, in-house pay cut, does life get better if you go in-house?, billable hours, 2200 hours, 2400 hours, 3000 hours, work-life balance, how to get partners to stop emailing at 3am, how to get associates to respond to emails at 3am, work less and make more, easy money, free money, law school loan forgiveness, lawyers with a personal life, dating for lawyers, attractive lawyers, attorney pool party, quitting law
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