Law firm, working moms, 1900-1950 hrs

[Anonymous]

I’m considering moving to a law firm from an agency for a partner-track senior associate position. The portfolio looks fantastic/ideal to me but obviously 1900 billable hours (1950 for bonus) is going to mean changes and sacrifice. I have heard horror stories of course but am just weighing options here…
There are lots of moms who are associates and partners who make it work. For those moms at comparable law firms, what does your daily/weekly schedule look like? What do you have to miss? What are your hacks? How much vacation do you take? I’m thinking I can do this for a few years and then go in-house. My 2 kids are in high school and middle school and my husband works remotely.
Thank you!

[Anonymous]

That might be a lot depending on how much non billable stuff you need to do. You just need to be ruthlessly efficient. I can’t meet those hours since I had kids but my husband clears it waltz. He’s at home a lot but it always workings. He doos the kids at practice and sits in the car working. The kids are doing homework, he is working. He still goes to the gym and will watch a game on TV with the kids but I do all the cooking and most cleaning. Weekends are t much different for him than work days — again. Hes gojng to the kids games and stuff but he works while they are warming up.
I’m just not that good at making use of a half hour here, an hour there and working on metro or in the car or whatever. I think it all depends on what kind of work you do. He does drafting and editing so it’s pretty steady. If you are in a more feast or famine field, I think it’s harder to have that kind of steady balance. I also lose a ton of time transitioning between things as I tend to do 15 things in a day. He usually does just a few things in a day so doesn’t have as much leaky bucket transition time.

[Anonymous]

Really easy dinners. I know a partner who picks up dinner at lunchtime from a restaurant each day.

[Anonymous]

When I was an associate with those billable hours, my fellow associates with babies generally said that they saw their kids 2 hours a day. One hour in the morning and one at night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was an associate with those billable hours, my fellow associates with babies generally said that they saw their kids 2 hours a day. One hour in the morning and one at night.

My DH saw them briefly in the morning and almost never at night due to their bedtimes. We have teens now and DH is a partner but he is still out 1-3x a week often for BD or closing dinners. Even when he’s not “out” he works until 6:30/7. It is what it is.

[Anonymous]

Have you ever done billable hours before? Are you good at it? I did t find 1950 onerous. But personally I wouldn’t leave an agency to go to a firm and I wouldn’t count on finding an in house position in a few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That might be a lot depending on how much non billable stuff you need to do. You just need to be ruthlessly efficient. I can’t meet those hours since I had kids but my husband clears it waltz. He’s at home a lot but it always workings. He doos the kids at practice and sits in the car working. The kids are doing homework, he is working. He still goes to the gym and will watch a game on TV with the kids but I do all the cooking and most cleaning. Weekends are t much different for him than work days — again. Hes gojng to the kids games and stuff but he works while they are warming up.
I’m just not that good at making use of a half hour here, an hour there and working on metro or in the car or whatever. I think it all depends on what kind of work you do. He does drafting and editing so it’s pretty steady. If you are in a more feast or famine field, I think it’s harder to have that kind of steady balance. I also lose a ton of time transitioning between things as I tend to do 15 things in a day. He usually does just a few things in a day so doesn’t have as much leaky bucket transition time.

Really envious of this ability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was an associate with those billable hours, my fellow associates with babies generally said that they saw their kids 2 hours a day. One hour in the morning and one at night.

I was often able to come home on the earlier side (5 or 5:30 PM) when I had young kids, but then signed back on to work from 8 PM-1 AM. I was up with the baby at 5 or 6 AM, so wasn't getting any sleep, but did see my kids. I'd be at my desk working by 7:30 or 8 AM. I was billing 2200 or 2300 hours per year.

I also often knocked out tons of hours by working from afternoon naptime to midnight on Sundays. The office was quiet and I could get tons ton. I'd spend all morning with the family before going in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you ever done billable hours before? Are you good at it? I did t find 1950 onerous. But personally I wouldn’t leave an agency to go to a firm and I wouldn’t count on finding an in house position in a few years.

I don’t know…if she’s got a firm that wants to hire her (market is tricky right now) it means she has an in demand skill set. So, I think the plan sounds pretty reasonable.

OP, I’m doing something similar but kids are older. I think the extent to which you are happy will depend on telework flexibility, the personalities of the specific partners you work with, whether you have a steady stream of available work, how much your husband can take on more domestic tasks.

[Anonymous]

If you bill honestly, 1900 hours is a LOT in most practice areas. Worse than it sounds until you’ve been through it. At a lot of firms, Big Law is struggling with demand/market share challenges at the moment, so I wouldn’t undervalue the stability of an agency job at this stage of life. Work dries up and you can find yourself on the street pretty quickly, especially as a relatively new relatively senior hire. FWIW I would not make the move just for comp, go only if it’s something you *really* want to do.

[Anonymous]

Full-time housekeeper, food shopper, cook will make it easier.

[Anonymous]

If you are coming from an agency then I expect you are more likely to be doing regulatory counseling type work and my experience was like the PP’s that it’s relatively rare that you can work uninterrupted on a project for hours. Instead you have lots of little things and the billables don’t add up the same way— leaky bucket is a good description— making it hard to get to 1900.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thank you all so much for sharing your honest and helpful experiences, perspectives, and advice. I really appreciate it.

[Anonymous]

I had a friend who left our agency for similar billable and he said he gained 60 pounds because he was too exhausted to work out and stress ate at his desk. He actually ended up coming back. So it's not just about your kids or your household,make sure to factor in your health and wellbeing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you bill honestly, 1900 hours is a LOT in most practice areas. Worse than it sounds until you’ve been through it. At a lot of firms, Big Law is struggling with demand/market share challenges at the moment, so I wouldn’t undervalue the stability of an agency job at this stage of life. Work dries up and you can find yourself on the street pretty quickly, especially as a relatively new relatively senior hire. FWIW I would not make the move just for comp, go only if it’s something you *really* want to do.

I disagree - if the work is there and you are efficient, 1900 is pretty simple to achieve. Not easy, but simple.

The issue, OP, isn't with the billable hours. You are coming into a "partner-track senior associate position" - that means you will be expected to take on significant business generation activities. Even if you're in a pipeline specialty, where you don't necessarily have to generate your own business because you will have work fed to you by other partners, you'll still be expected to help with business development. It's those hours that really make Biglaw difficult - every hour you spend on them is one less that you can bill.