In-house corporate counsel in the U.S. to private practice at a Bay Street firm in Toronto?

[CDNwUSJDBackInON]

Assume no prior private practice experience and interested in corporate practice groups. Is this do-able? Licensed in NY and Ontario. Thanks!

[Conge]

17 hours ago, CDNwUSJDBackInON said:

Assume no prior private practice experience and interested in corporate practice groups. Is this do-able? Licensed in NY and Ontario. Thanks!

If you're already licensed in ON, then it's certainly possible. What are your areas of experience? 

[Jaggers]

For corporate groups especially, your experience would be fairly transferable. There are not enough specifics to comment very usefully, but your application would definitely not be thrown in the garbage or anything like that.

[AHLALA]

How long have you been practicing ? For a relatively junior call, it's probably doable (although the current economic conjuncture is not ideal). If you are more senior (5+ bar years), it will probably be harder. In my experience, in-house counsels develop basic corporate/commercial skills, which are transferrable to a role as a junior associate. However, in-house counsels typically don't draft and negotiate long and complex commercial agreements which are the bread and butter of more senior associates. 

I'm a mid-level associate in big law (though not on Bay Street). Of the ~30 business law associates that have been hired since I started, one started in-house and came to our firm after a year or two, otherwise most articled at the firm and the rest were laterals. 

[Rashabon]

Mm it depends. I agree at a junior level it's not hard. I actually don't think it's too hard at a mid-level/senior-level if you're connected enough. If you are very senior, I think it can be very doable. My firm just hired someone as a partner in from an in-house position that they had occupied for over a decade. However they were an equity partner before that in-house role so it's a different context.