Law firm, working moms, 1900-1950 hrs

[Anonymous]

My son's fiancee is studying to be a lawyer and I wander if she is thinking about these issues (nobody in her family is a lawyer). She has ADHD tendencies so I don't know that she'd be good at staying focused on a Saturday afternoon or making best use of a half hour at home before dinner.

For people who have been through that grind: does it ever let up later in your career and how many years does it take to get there?
If 10 new hires start down that path (1900+ billable hours), how many of those 10 progress to a higher level that allows more time away from work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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!

Back in 2004 I did 3,000 Billable hours. 1,950 is a joke That is 7.8 hours a day billable. But to do 3,000 hours I took zero days off that year, no lunch breaks worked around 8-8 every day on average, no vacation or sick days and did non billable admin work at night or weekends or before work. I had a 2 and 4 year old when did it. That was crazy however, but got me a big promotion. I was normally just 2,000 hours billable which was pretty easy.

All you need is a supporative spouse which I had and the ability to sleep very little. I have sleeping issues and go to bed around midnight every night and wake up aruond 545 am and fresh as a daisy. I can go on 4-5 hours sleep weeks on end. My spouse needs like 9 hours a night or cant function. Me other other hand can do fine on five hours a night so I have 20 hours extra each week of time.

I think the not sleeping is the wildcard. I could do all nighters in my 30s get home at 5am take a 90 minute power nap, get up, have coffee, shower, new clothes and be on road at 715 am no problem. My spouse it would knock her out for a few days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

Back in 2004 I did 3,000 Billable hours. 1,950 is a joke That is 7.8 hours a day billable. But to do 3,000 hours I took zero days off that year, no lunch breaks worked around 8-8 every day on average, no vacation or sick days and did non billable admin work at night or weekends or before work. I had a 2 and 4 year old when did it. That was crazy however, but got me a big promotion. I was normally just 2,000 hours billable which was pretty easy.

All you need is a supporative spouse which I had and the ability to sleep very little. I have sleeping issues and go to bed around midnight every night and wake up aruond 545 am and fresh as a daisy. I can go on 4-5 hours sleep weeks on end. My spouse needs like 9 hours a night or cant function. Me other other hand can do fine on five hours a night so I have 20 hours extra each week of time.

I think the not sleeping is the wildcard. I could do all nighters in my 30s get home at 5am take a 90 minute power nap, get up, have coffee, shower, new clothes and be on road at 715 am no problem. My spouse it would knock her out for a few days.

Were you in a regulatory practice or a corporate or litigation practice? Makes a big difference.

[Anonymous]

You will need a driver to get your kids to and from afterschool sports practices/activities. At those ages, you also likely won't have much or any "after the kids go to bed" time to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son's fiancee is studying to be a lawyer and I wander if she is thinking about these issues (nobody in her family is a lawyer). She has ADHD tendencies so I don't know that she'd be good at staying focused on a Saturday afternoon or making best use of a half hour at home before dinner.

For people who have been through that grind: does it ever let up later in your career and how many years does it take to get there?
If 10 new hires start down that path (1900+ billable hours), how many of those 10 progress to a higher level that allows more time away from work?

First of all, there are many legal jobs outside of “biglaw” and if you aren’t at a top 25 law school, biglaw is somewhat unlikely anyway for better or for worse. Most people don’t stay in biglaw and, for those that do, progressing to a higher level doesn’t really mean more time away from work - except maybe at the margins and in terms of perhaps some increased flexibility.

Most people that do go to biglaw do it for a few years to pay off loans, create some savings, gain experience, and get it on their resume - because it is sort of a signal that can be useful throughout a career.

From there, though, people pivot to smaller firms, govt, non-profits, companies, trade associations and so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son's fiancee is studying to be a lawyer and I wander if she is thinking about these issues (nobody in her family is a lawyer). She has ADHD tendencies so I don't know that she'd be good at staying focused on a Saturday afternoon or making best use of a half hour at home before dinner.

For people who have been through that grind: does it ever let up later in your career and how many years does it take to get there?
If 10 new hires start down that path (1900+ billable hours), how many of those 10 progress to a higher level that allows more time away from work?

There are plenty of legal jobs outside of big law. The legal team in finance (lender) works intense 9-5 to advise on market issues and do not need to work half an hr on weekends here and there.

[Anonymous]

There is no getting off the grind, and 1900 is a "bare minimum."

Ask yourself how your boss would react if you were always doing the bare minimum?

It's bad.

In-house and government hours are closer to normal.

[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.

X2. Billing is part science, part art. Be sure you can do it before you jump.

[Anonymous]

I jumped from an agency to of counsel position in Biglaw.

It's doable, though my hours are less than yours. Are you used to working long days? When I realized that I regularly worked 45-50 hours at my agency job, it occured to me that maybe I can handle Big Law.

I would have an honest conversation with your husband to see if he can take all of the house/life/kids admin stuff. Even if he agrees to , expect some stuff to fall through the cracks.

[Anonymous]

Also, congratulations on the offer!! It's no small feat these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This, the business generation aspect can be a huge shift. Most of my friends who jumped from agency to law firms later in their careers specifically avoided partner track positions for this reason.

[Anonymous]

I dont understand this. Our company is 95 percent billable hours per week for almost all employees and we easily do this within a year. Why is this hard for an attorney?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dont understand this. Our company is 95 percent billable hours per week for almost all employees and we easily do this within a year. Why is this hard for an attorney?

Not all billables are the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dont understand this. Our company is 95 percent billable hours per week for almost all employees and we easily do this within a year. Why is this hard for an attorney?

There’s a lot you can’t bill. I worked at a non profit where we did allocation of time for grant purposes but it was totally different than tenth of hour task billing!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You will need a driver to get your kids to and from afterschool sports practices/activities. At those ages, you also likely won't have much or any "after the kids go to bed" time to work.

Yeah but with teens the “after bed” doesn’t really matter. Teens can go for days without barely acknowledging your existence. Then randomly they will want to talk your ear off about some problem with a friend or a really exiting thing they did or whatever. So with teens you can get a lot done when you are in the same physical space with them provided you’re able to put the laptop down for a sec when they start to say something beyond “where are my cleats?” Or “can you drive my or the mall?” (Answers: probably wherever you left them and take the bus, I’m working).

So personally I think the critical questions are how much WFH time this firm allows and how long the commute is. A firm 30 minutes from home that allows wfh 2 days a week (and doesn’t count holidays or sick days or vacation days against your WFH) is totally different than a firm that requires 4 days minimum in office and is a full hour commute away. Teens don’t need active engagement very often but presence is helpful for when lightening strikes and they suddenly want to spend time with you. The fact that OP/ husband is 100% remote is really really helpful here—even more so if he can cook.

Also I’m not sure if the 1900 is really a minimum. There are lot of big law attorneys not making their minimums and it’s a slow road to being counseling out for that. Since OP is coming in at a high level lateral with skills, my guess is that her success will depend more on whether she is able to attract clients or provide essential backfill to partners who are rainmakers, as opposed to whether she’s at 1800 or 1900 for a year.