Biglaw partnership: generational shift or misinformation?

[Anonymous]

This isn't new. There have always been associates who never planned to make partner and associates who don't put their name in the hat when the time times. There have always been associates and partners who change careers when babies arrive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The dream now among junior associates seems to be to pay off student loans and FIRE (financial independence, retire early) as soon as possible. I think many of them are enabled by their families who supported them too long, but that's just my observations as a burnt out millennial who didn't have family help. I left big law 10 years ago only to find that I work harder at a small firm than I imagine I would be working if I stuck around and made partner at a big firm because I don't have any associates to leverage. I'm on track to bill 2300 hours this year, and I'm not at all happy about it. Considering investing 100% of my bonus in my youngest child's 529 plan then possibly retire at ~40 (with a working spouse, young children at home, fully funded 529 plans and an adequately funded 401k). The law grind isn't worth it IMO.

Do it! Why would a person with the option to free themselves comfortably not do so. It is a sickness!

Risk-aversion? (Or miscalculation of risk/reward?)

The deeply held, culturally engrained belief that if you aren't moving up the track you are on you have failed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing I've noticed when interviewing for my biglaw firm is how many students ask questions about work/life balance and having a family, etc. These were questions I (only 12 years further on) would never have asked - they would have guaranteed no offer. Now, we have tons of info to give them on all the work/life balance initiatives we have. But the fact is that at a junior level, in many practice areas, there isn't much balance and work is going to have to come first - that is kind of what we pay the big $$$ for.

Good for them. The whole situation needs change in a huge way.

[Anonymous]

This is not new but it is expanding and accelerating (and I think that's great). For a long time in history, being a lawyer was a respectable job for educated people but it wasn't a ton of money or a ton of work. Then the firms got bigger and the corporate lawyers got very rich, and a JD came to be seen as a ticket to big money although the workload increased too. Now we're on the far side of the bell curve where the money is only okay, compared to other jobs, and it's still a massive amount of work.

I was an associate in the 2003-2008 era of exploding salaries; I moved to Fed govt months before the big 2008 financial crash, but after firms started de-equitizing partners. The year I was hired, the people making partner did not have books of business; they had just been there the requisite number of years and did good work. It started to tighten up a year or two later, which made the senior associates nervous. Meanwhile, salaries were escalating and associates were pushing back on the increasing hours. Around 2006 there was a lot of hand-wringing about students from top schools turning down law firm offers in favor of NGO work or totally non-legal careers. There was tension between associates who wanted to keep escalating salaries and those who wanted to keep them "low" and not increase billable requirements. Then the high salaries pushed the firm to look harder at what the partners really brought in, and things got very messy at my firm. Other firms were canceling their summer programs, then merging or even closing. It was a weird time.

I actually really enjoyed my work there (never boring) and if there had been a way to work a 40- or 50-hour week as a permanent employee, I would have stayed. But I was not interested in working 60+ hours indefinitely for a chance to own a slice of that dysfunctional place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is not new but it is expanding and accelerating (and I think that's great). For a long time in history, being a lawyer was a respectable job for educated people but it wasn't a ton of money or a ton of work. Then the firms got bigger and the corporate lawyers got very rich, and a JD came to be seen as a ticket to big money although the workload increased too. Now we're on the far side of the bell curve where the money is only okay, compared to other jobs, and it's still a massive amount of work.

I was an associate in the 2003-2008 era of exploding salaries; I moved to Fed govt months before the big 2008 financial crash, but after firms started de-equitizing partners. The year I was hired, the people making partner did not have books of business; they had just been there the requisite number of years and did good work. It started to tighten up a year or two later, which made the senior associates nervous. Meanwhile, salaries were escalating and associates were pushing back on the increasing hours. Around 2006 there was a lot of hand-wringing about students from top schools turning down law firm offers in favor of NGO work or totally non-legal careers. There was tension between associates who wanted to keep escalating salaries and those who wanted to keep them "low" and not increase billable requirements. Then the high salaries pushed the firm to look harder at what the partners really brought in, and things got very messy at my firm. Other firms were canceling their summer programs, then merging or even closing. It was a weird time.

I actually really enjoyed my work there (never boring) and if there had been a way to work a 40- or 50-hour week as a permanent employee, I would have stayed. But I was not interested in working 60+ hours indefinitely for a chance to own a slice of that dysfunctional place.

+1 I could have written this, except that I was an associate from 2008-2012. The dysfunction among the partnership and permanent state of anxiety among the associates was fascinating to watch and terrible to be immersed in. I had been at a different firm from 2002-2004 in a different capacity, right after the .com crash, and that was bad. But, post-2007, things became so much worse.

[Anonymous]

What's the reward for making partner today? Non-equity junior partners don't get paid much more than senior associates (except at some firms at the very top of the Vault rankings). Hours expectations are comparable, plus you will have firm and business development commitments. And you still have no job security if your hours plummet due to a rainmaker departure, losing a major client, an economic downturn, etc.

[Anonymous]

I'm really amused by the people on this thread screaming about "entitlement." That's not what this is at all. Entitlement would be demanding a partnership salary without the hours/risks that Biglaw requires. No one is doing that.

What's happening is that junior and senior associates do not value money/prestige enough to sacrifice security and every other aspect of their lives. "Huge salary" simply isn't their default highest priority anymore - they want more out of life than money and work, so much so that they're willing to take less money. And that's a huge problem for Biglaw as it is currently set up: it relies on associates valuing salary and prestige above all else. It just doesn't work otherwise.

This isn't entitlement. This is a failure to provide a product that people are willing to buy.

[Anonymous]

This might just be an accelerating trend. I left biglaw in 2003 and the managing partner tried to talk me out of leaving for govt. they were losing people repeatedly in my smallish practice group. He took me to lunch to discuss what they needed to do. As firms go, it wasn’t a bad place but my group 1) hired as lot of women and 2) hired a lot of women who had sort of broader interests than a typical big law associate. Hours expectations were ratcheting up and we just weren’t interested. There were other good jobs out there, doing interesting work, for somewhat lower, but respectable, pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:whoa an associate turned down an oral argument? that’s … crazy. did you encourage them to reconsider? I wonder if they have a big fear of public speaking.

They told me point-blank it was because prep would be too much work with only a week's notice! I never would have said that at the same seniority.

Why would you have given them only a week's notice? Maybe they had a of deadlines to meet in that same week. Good for them for not killing themselves to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:whoa an associate turned down an oral argument? that’s … crazy. did you encourage them to reconsider? I wonder if they have a big fear of public speaking.

They told me point-blank it was because prep would be too much work with only a week's notice! I never would have said that at the same seniority.

Why would you have given them only a week's notice? Maybe they had a of deadlines to meet in that same week. Good for them for not killing themselves to do it.

This. The schedules are set well in advance. Partner sat on it and overestimated her clout at the firm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:whoa an associate turned down an oral argument? that’s … crazy. did you encourage them to reconsider? I wonder if they have a big fear of public speaking.

They told me point-blank it was because prep would be too much work with only a week's notice! I never would have said that at the same seniority.

Why would you have given them only a week's notice? Maybe they had a of deadlines to meet in that same week. Good for them for not killing themselves to do it.

Is the bolded language intended to be sarcasm, or am I missing something? An oral argument is not that big of a deal, unless we're talking about SCOTUS, in which case a week's notice is ridiculous. An oral argument touches on points from briefs that have already been written and maybe fielding a couple of questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm really amused by the people on this thread screaming about "entitlement." That's not what this is at all. Entitlement would be demanding a partnership salary without the hours/risks that Biglaw requires. No one is doing that.

What's happening is that junior and senior associates do not value money/prestige enough to sacrifice security and every other aspect of their lives. "Huge salary" simply isn't their default highest priority anymore - they want more out of life than money and work, so much so that they're willing to take less money. And that's a huge problem for Biglaw as it is currently set up: it relies on associates valuing salary and prestige above all else. It just doesn't work otherwise.

This isn't entitlement. This is a failure to provide a product that people are willing to buy.

Big law had never had a problem hiring associates, just retaining them. There are always going to be associates willing to work for big law salaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This might just be an accelerating trend. I left biglaw in 2003 and the managing partner tried to talk me out of leaving for govt. they were losing people repeatedly in my smallish practice group. He took me to lunch to discuss what they needed to do. As firms go, it wasn’t a bad place but my group 1) hired as lot of women and 2) hired a lot of women who had sort of broader interests than a typical big law associate. Hours expectations were ratcheting up and we just weren’t interested. There were other good jobs out there, doing interesting work, for somewhat lower, but respectable, pay.

I left my partnership in 2003 too. They started all kinds of "retention and return" programs after that, but it was too little too late. It was already falling apart, as the pps above nicely outlined.

[Anonymous]

A lot of this has to do with the rise of dual-income households. People want to be there for their kids. I totally get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm really amused by the people on this thread screaming about "entitlement." That's not what this is at all. Entitlement would be demanding a partnership salary without the hours/risks that Biglaw requires. No one is doing that.

What's happening is that junior and senior associates do not value money/prestige enough to sacrifice security and every other aspect of their lives. "Huge salary" simply isn't their default highest priority anymore - they want more out of life than money and work, so much so that they're willing to take less money. And that's a huge problem for Biglaw as it is currently set up: it relies on associates valuing salary and prestige above all else. It just doesn't work otherwise.

This isn't entitlement. This is a failure to provide a product that people are willing to buy.

Big Law partner here: I generally agree with this. While there certainly is a truly epic sense of entitlement in some young associates these days, mostly it is a rational response to incentives. Rational people don’t work as hard as Big Law needs just for a salary, however high. People only do it if they feel like they are building something for themselves long-term. That’s largely gone now. It’s crazy hard to make partner. Even if you do, most Big Law firms are partnerships in name only, with various tranches of non equity “partners,” and even equity partners are subject to increasing comp spreads where the serious financial rewards go to a relatively small group of insiders. There is basically zero stability, and you get run off much more aggressively if your business slows down or you practice in an area where you can’t support the crazy rate increases that have been going on for some years now. Most people looking to make a career in Big Law choose it because they want to be great lawyers, and the dog-eat-dog competition for business has most firms thinking that great lawyers are basically commodities, prizing only those with relationships that are, or are believed to be, the source of significant business. While there are certainly great situations in Big Law—I’m very happy with mine—the modal Big Law partnership is no longer the prize it once was, and those associates who are capable of being good partners are quick to see that reality. As currently configured, the model is not sustainable and needs to evolve to survive.