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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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If you totally fail at BigLaw, where do you go? Or, where is it common to go? Small biz corporate attorney? In house counsel for something very process driven? Leave law altogether?

Nobody totally fails at biglaw. The nature of the job is that you have to succeed quite a bit before you even get the chance to fail. Your work product will initially be so far from anything that travels outside of the firm that if you bomb right out of the gate, your work will never be seen by anyone, and no matter how bad you are the firm will probably still give you a month or so to keep your title while you look for another job, and nobody will really know you failed just that you're leaving, which a lot of people do.

People commonly go in house at various corporations or go into government work. But really over time they'll end up anywhere.

Hmmm interesting.

Would a minmax strategy be to get the BigLaw job, then intentionally poop your pants (figuratively not literally) and coast in an "Easy" 40 - 60 hour, but fairly high status and well compensated, corporate job?