Graduated from T1 NLU without placement. Ended up in a boutique where I am being paid poverty wages although the practice area is super lucrative (m&a and gen corp advisory). I have to pull all nighters daily. Upside of this job is faster learning curve in comparison to my peers in T1 law firms, very close mentorship from partners who did well at former T1s. I am also learning the art of rainmaking from them by observing them closely. This is the good. Now, talking about the bad. I don't see myself working in this job for long. The hours are unsustainable, expectations are unrealistic and while I enjoy this work, I don't know if climbing the corp ladder will make sense. I can jump to T1s after a stint here, but I am questioning if the T1 law firm life would be worth it. In past few years I have seen people leave law firms- they do LLMs and masters but end up in the same situation post masters. The only time outcomes are decent is when MBA is involved. I am hesitant to jump to the MBA bandwagon immediately because I don't have full 12 months experience, and I genuinely am not able to gauge if MBA would solve my current problems. I am also realizing that half of the time unrealistic deadlines come up because work is not streamlined. There are so many inefficiencies in the way we operate and the leadership is often times so ego driven and set in their ways that working as status quo makes things 10x difficult for the junior in the team. Not saying these things won't persist in post MBA roles but global orgs and companies generally are more streamlined even if the work hours are as bad as law firms. There is a lot of chatter about AI in transactional work and I feel I am at the right stage to decide if this is something I would like to continue doing given that if AI is truly at a level where it can decimate even 40 percent of work, most juniors would have a hard time justifying their value add to the law firm machinery.

Tldr: 26F from a T-1 Law School considering MBA. Want to hear experiences from lawyers who made the move. Please don't tell me that money is the same in both fields. I know that with right moves, and jumps I can probably turn my poverty wages to FU money. The question, here however is about few factors: stability, better hours, more optionality, just a sense of contentment. Please help a lost soul.

My honest take: stay with your current job. Demand for M&A lawyers is high. Complete 12 months and move to a Tier 1 firm, or Tier 2 if you want (slightly) better work-life balance. In the long-run, corporate law pays better than most management roles do. Also, try to look at it from a closed-doors perspective. If you take a break from law, spend 1-2 years on an MBA, the door for a deeper career in law closes forever. On the other hand, if you toughen it out for a few more months, change jobs, work for another 2-3 years, you become eligible for Executive MBA courses. This hybrid course-of-action keeps both doors - management and law - open.

If you were in litigation, my advice would be completely different. I would tell you to resign immediately, change fields, prepare for CAT, and pursue an MBA for a management role placement. Litigation at chambers as a first-generation lawyer is career and financial suicide: tough entry barriers to break into law firms, slow growth even if you make it to some low-tier boutique firm and practically no hope of making it to a tier 1 or tier 2 law firm unless you spend a decade in practice.

Thank you for the detailed reply. It's super helpful. The only issue that I am facing right now is that I am unable to gauge how much of what I am learning is valuable to T1s. I haven't touched definitive documents yet, and a lot of work just seems to be advisory work. Some of it seems to work that founders take just to keep the lights going on. What's your take on this? What is the ideal time to switch in such a case?