How to change Big Law culture?

[Anonymous]

Everyone seems to be describing BigLaw work lifestyles from 2019.

Literally all the DC BigLaw partners I know have hybrid schedules where they are working at home mostly 3 days per week, but at least 2 days.

I don’t think they are locking their office door and refusing to leave until 9pm. I gather they eat dinner with their families and otherwise contribute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone seems to be describing BigLaw work lifestyles from 2019.

Literally all the DC BigLaw partners I know have hybrid schedules where they are working at home mostly 3 days per week, but at least 2 days.

I don’t think they are locking their office door and refusing to leave until 9pm. I gather they eat dinner with their families and otherwise contribute.

“contribute” sure they do ….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having worked in BigLaw and outside it one thing that happens is that when you are at a firm you tend to compare yourself exculsively to peers at the firm or at peer firms.

So what a BigLaw attorney considers a "very involved" parent can be pretty different than what a government attorney or someone who isn't a lawyer at all will consider very involved.

I do think the people who make it work best tend to have a pretty robust support network (usually involving both paid and family help) so I don't think their kids suffer for having a parent with a very demanding job. Like it's not really that big of a deal if you only eat dinner with your dad twice a week if you have a mom and a grandma and a nanny who are there daily and making you feel cared for and loved. Spending the afternoon with a great nanny before eating dinner with mom and grandma and then your dad is home for bedtime is totally great from the kid's perspective.

I know from experience though that if you do not have that network it sucks for all involved. A BigLaw parent plus another parent with a demanding job plus no family help and maybe you struggle to find great hired help is a recipe for disaster and it's situations like this that lead to people bailing on BigLaw. You need help and it usually has to come from multiple sources -- spouse and grandparents and hired help. The BigLaw salary makes it easier to have a SAHP but cannot help someone want to be a SAHP and while the salary can make it easier to pay more for help there is also some luck and other logistics involved (so much easier to find a great nanny if the non-BigLaw parent wants to and is good at hiring and managing that person). And invovled family is just the luck of the draw.

If you are a BigLawa attorney making it work and feel like your family is functioning great that's wonderful but you do need to understand that there is some luck and special circumstances in terms of your partner and extended family that makes that work.

Folks, so much of this is just what you want to do. I know BigLaw partners that make every kid’s sporting event because they enjoy watching sports. They just put it on their schedules and then probably do some work later that night.

Those same partners are somehow too busy to take kids to doctor appointments or parent teacher conferences or all the other shit they don’t want to do.

If you don’t want to eat dinner with your family most nights, it’s a choice you make…sorry it’s not because you have 5 alarm fires requiring you to be in the office 3 days per week.

Stop blaming the job for not being present at the things you just don’t want to do.

Except they wouldn’t have the time to do it all, as you well know. Biglaw requires a minimum of 55 hrs/week and generally working most weekends upwards of 60-70 hrs regularly. Yes you can make time for the weekly Little League game, but you cannot parent in any meaningful way. Particularly once these dudes move out to Potomac or Westchester and have longer commutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having worked in BigLaw and outside it one thing that happens is that when you are at a firm you tend to compare yourself exculsively to peers at the firm or at peer firms.

So what a BigLaw attorney considers a "very involved" parent can be pretty different than what a government attorney or someone who isn't a lawyer at all will consider very involved.

I do think the people who make it work best tend to have a pretty robust support network (usually involving both paid and family help) so I don't think their kids suffer for having a parent with a very demanding job. Like it's not really that big of a deal if you only eat dinner with your dad twice a week if you have a mom and a grandma and a nanny who are there daily and making you feel cared for and loved. Spending the afternoon with a great nanny before eating dinner with mom and grandma and then your dad is home for bedtime is totally great from the kid's perspective.

I know from experience though that if you do not have that network it sucks for all involved. A BigLaw parent plus another parent with a demanding job plus no family help and maybe you struggle to find great hired help is a recipe for disaster and it's situations like this that lead to people bailing on BigLaw. You need help and it usually has to come from multiple sources -- spouse and grandparents and hired help. The BigLaw salary makes it easier to have a SAHP but cannot help someone want to be a SAHP and while the salary can make it easier to pay more for help there is also some luck and other logistics involved (so much easier to find a great nanny if the non-BigLaw parent wants to and is good at hiring and managing that person). And invovled family is just the luck of the draw.

If you are a BigLawa attorney making it work and feel like your family is functioning great that's wonderful but you do need to understand that there is some luck and special circumstances in terms of your partner and extended family that makes that work.

Folks, so much of this is just what you want to do. I know BigLaw partners that make every kid’s sporting event because they enjoy watching sports. They just put it on their schedules and then probably do some work later that night.

Those same partners are somehow too busy to take kids to doctor appointments or parent teacher conferences or all the other shit they don’t want to do.

If you don’t want to eat dinner with your family most nights, it’s a choice you make…sorry it’s not because you have 5 alarm fires requiring you to be in the office 3 days per week.

Stop blaming the job for not being present at the things you just don’t want to do.

Except they wouldn’t have the time to do it all, as you well know. Biglaw requires a minimum of 55 hrs/week and generally working most weekends upwards of 60-70 hrs regularly. Yes you can make time for the weekly Little League game, but you cannot parent in any meaningful way. Particularly once these dudes move out to Potomac or Westchester and have longer commutes.

Again…it’s 2024. Everyone has a hybrid work schedule. If you don’t, then you aren’t a partner or for some reason you are a partner that everyone shits on (but I doubt that).

Also, it’s not a linear job…if you want to make time for things (maybe not all but you can make time for more than just a LL game…BTW these are HS games 3x per week from 3:30-5:30), you make time and then work 8pm-11pm at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it has changed a lot in the last 15 years. I find that my firm has become exponentially more flexible and family friendly. That's not to say there aren't deadlines all the time but people's ability to set boundaries has definitely changed.

Agree. A lot of very talented women left their firms in the decade 20-30 years ago, and managing partners woke up and started to make changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having worked in BigLaw and outside it one thing that happens is that when you are at a firm you tend to compare yourself exculsively to peers at the firm or at peer firms.

So what a BigLaw attorney considers a "very involved" parent can be pretty different than what a government attorney or someone who isn't a lawyer at all will consider very involved.

I do think the people who make it work best tend to have a pretty robust support network (usually involving both paid and family help) so I don't think their kids suffer for having a parent with a very demanding job. Like it's not really that big of a deal if you only eat dinner with your dad twice a week if you have a mom and a grandma and a nanny who are there daily and making you feel cared for and loved. Spending the afternoon with a great nanny before eating dinner with mom and grandma and then your dad is home for bedtime is totally great from the kid's perspective.

I know from experience though that if you do not have that network it sucks for all involved. A BigLaw parent plus another parent with a demanding job plus no family help and maybe you struggle to find great hired help is a recipe for disaster and it's situations like this that lead to people bailing on BigLaw. You need help and it usually has to come from multiple sources -- spouse and grandparents and hired help. The BigLaw salary makes it easier to have a SAHP but cannot help someone want to be a SAHP and while the salary can make it easier to pay more for help there is also some luck and other logistics involved (so much easier to find a great nanny if the non-BigLaw parent wants to and is good at hiring and managing that person). And invovled family is just the luck of the draw.

If you are a BigLawa attorney making it work and feel like your family is functioning great that's wonderful but you do need to understand that there is some luck and special circumstances in terms of your partner and extended family that makes that work.

Folks, so much of this is just what you want to do. I know BigLaw partners that make every kid’s sporting event because they enjoy watching sports. They just put it on their schedules and then probably do some work later that night.

Those same partners are somehow too busy to take kids to doctor appointments or parent teacher conferences or all the other shit they don’t want to do.

If you don’t want to eat dinner with your family most nights, it’s a choice you make…sorry it’s not because you have 5 alarm fires requiring you to be in the office 3 days per week.

Stop blaming the job for not being present at the things you just don’t want to do.

Except they wouldn’t have the time to do it all, as you well know. Biglaw requires a minimum of 55 hrs/week and generally working most weekends upwards of 60-70 hrs regularly. Yes you can make time for the weekly Little League game, but you cannot parent in any meaningful way. Particularly once these dudes move out to Potomac or Westchester and have longer commutes.

You seem angry and uninformed. Average hours billed in big law is under 2000/year. You're not regularly working 70 hours a week, especially if you're not nearing trial or running a deal. You're just wrong about whether or not someone can be in big law and be an involved parent. Most big law partners aren't in out in Potomac. They're in Arlington and Bethesda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are lots of variations of BigLOL. I am still a partner in biglaw, but managed to sort of scoot myself into a second tier of firm. I bring in a decent amount of work, don't bill a ton of my own hours, but still bring in enough overall to avoid the hatchet man. Live my life with my family, and manage to do rad shit in the free time I create for myself.

The main thing I realized just before the pandemic is that the emergencies are dumb. Genuinely. I don't tolerate that shit anymore. And if a client tries that stunt with me, I just don't work with them anymore.

All this takes a certain amount tolerance for compensation adjustment. So, we have the same lifestyle we did when I was an associate. When I am 80 years old, I am definitely not going to wish I worked more for more comp, and will instead remember fondly the time I spent with my family or the fact that I did a ton of stuff all the losers around me never had time to do. Spending time working a useless white collar biglaw job instead of your actual life is extremely stupid and counterproductive to the human experience.

Unless you are very niche, there are 20 other firms that are virtually indistinguishable from yours full of lawyers happy to treat every request as an emergency

I mean, that’s Biglaw culture right there. If you’re so greedy and paranoid that you make your associates get up at 3am to sit on an overseas “emergency” call because you have to prove you are available 24/7 - it’s going to be a miserable life.

That's why a 2nd year associate is getting paid almost $300k/year. Please tell me what other profession pays minimally experienced professionals so much money? Resident physicians are working longer hours for 25% of the pay and IB associates are making the same with worse hours.

Well that’s the point? Ruining your life for money. Maybe OK when you’re a 28 year old single person, but a little more existential when you are 40 with a neglected spouse & kids.

Why would you think there would be a neglected spouse and kids? That is not the reality for most. Been a Biglaw partner for 25 years. The stories you hear may be true but they are one -offs and not every day. Also as a partner you have a lot of ability to control. I agress it can suck as a non-partner.

lol I wonder why I would think that? Look, any job that requires the number of hours that Biglaw does by definition does not leave you time to be a normal partner/parent. The only way you couldn’t see this is if your conception of “normal” is that your wife does it all and you drop in for dinner a few times a week to see the kids.

I think people not in biglaw are misunderstanding the hours. When you are on they are crazy but you are not always on. I can’t tell you home for dinner percentages. Pre-Covid I came home before 8. But my kids were at things anyway and we did not eat together. Post Covid I am home for dinner most nights. But I likely have work after dinner. Have I made every sporting event of the kids? No but probably 80%. Not sure what you mean wife does it all. She does a lot and so do I. This all works out. It’s not the case that you do not see the kids or attend key things. You just work it out.

This is similar to my experience. Lots of people posting have obviously never worked in big law.

I have. I also have brothers in big law/IB who probably also believe they are “great involved dads” because they see their kids a bit on the weekend and on vacation twice a year, and took a week off for paternity leave. Meanwhile they have SAHW that do everything. You’re delusional.

And you're just a jerk.

Arguably the jerk is the person prioritizing money and prestige over their family.

Must be nice living off a trust fund. Some of us have to earn our living.

There are many ways to earn a living other than Biglaw.

You're right. Surgeons and bankers are well known for their family friendly hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are lots of variations of BigLOL. I am still a partner in biglaw, but managed to sort of scoot myself into a second tier of firm. I bring in a decent amount of work, don't bill a ton of my own hours, but still bring in enough overall to avoid the hatchet man. Live my life with my family, and manage to do rad shit in the free time I create for myself.

The main thing I realized just before the pandemic is that the emergencies are dumb. Genuinely. I don't tolerate that shit anymore. And if a client tries that stunt with me, I just don't work with them anymore.

All this takes a certain amount tolerance for compensation adjustment. So, we have the same lifestyle we did when I was an associate. When I am 80 years old, I am definitely not going to wish I worked more for more comp, and will instead remember fondly the time I spent with my family or the fact that I did a ton of stuff all the losers around me never had time to do. Spending time working a useless white collar biglaw job instead of your actual life is extremely stupid and counterproductive to the human experience.

Unless you are very niche, there are 20 other firms that are virtually indistinguishable from yours full of lawyers happy to treat every request as an emergency

I mean, that’s Biglaw culture right there. If you’re so greedy and paranoid that you make your associates get up at 3am to sit on an overseas “emergency” call because you have to prove you are available 24/7 - it’s going to be a miserable life.

That's why a 2nd year associate is getting paid almost $300k/year. Please tell me what other profession pays minimally experienced professionals so much money? Resident physicians are working longer hours for 25% of the pay and IB associates are making the same with worse hours.

Well that’s the point? Ruining your life for money. Maybe OK when you’re a 28 year old single person, but a little more existential when you are 40 with a neglected spouse & kids.

Why would you think there would be a neglected spouse and kids? That is not the reality for most. Been a Biglaw partner for 25 years. The stories you hear may be true but they are one -offs and not every day. Also as a partner you have a lot of ability to control. I agress it can suck as a non-partner.

lol I wonder why I would think that? Look, any job that requires the number of hours that Biglaw does by definition does not leave you time to be a normal partner/parent. The only way you couldn’t see this is if your conception of “normal” is that your wife does it all and you drop in for dinner a few times a week to see the kids.

I think people not in biglaw are misunderstanding the hours. When you are on they are crazy but you are not always on. I can’t tell you home for dinner percentages. Pre-Covid I came home before 8. But my kids were at things anyway and we did not eat together. Post Covid I am home for dinner most nights. But I likely have work after dinner. Have I made every sporting event of the kids? No but probably 80%. Not sure what you mean wife does it all. She does a lot and so do I. This all works out. It’s not the case that you do not see the kids or attend key things. You just work it out.

This is similar to my experience. Lots of people posting have obviously never worked in big law.

I have. I also have brothers in big law/IB who probably also believe they are “great involved dads” because they see their kids a bit on the weekend and on vacation twice a year, and took a week off for paternity leave. Meanwhile they have SAHW that do everything. You’re delusional.

And you're just a jerk.

Arguably the jerk is the person prioritizing money and prestige over their family.

Must be nice living off a trust fund. Some of us have to earn our living.

There are many ways to earn a living other than Biglaw.

You're right. Surgeons and bankers are well known for their family friendly hours.

Sarcasm aside, if you want to make big $$$$, you need to sacrifice something. As several PPs indicated, if you are making big $$$$, you can afford to outsource all household chores that take up a tremendous amount of time.

Then again, you can take your big $$$$, invest it properly for 10 years, then scale back in your mid-40s. Most BIGLAW partners, surgeons, and bankers don't want to do this. They like the money and the prestige.

I was in BIGLAW and left to go in-house. I took a hit for several years, but now I make BIGLAW partner money. Still work a lot (set my own work schedule), but that's because I'm at the executive level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having worked in BigLaw and outside it one thing that happens is that when you are at a firm you tend to compare yourself exculsively to peers at the firm or at peer firms.

So what a BigLaw attorney considers a "very involved" parent can be pretty different than what a government attorney or someone who isn't a lawyer at all will consider very involved.

I do think the people who make it work best tend to have a pretty robust support network (usually involving both paid and family help) so I don't think their kids suffer for having a parent with a very demanding job. Like it's not really that big of a deal if you only eat dinner with your dad twice a week if you have a mom and a grandma and a nanny who are there daily and making you feel cared for and loved. Spending the afternoon with a great nanny before eating dinner with mom and grandma and then your dad is home for bedtime is totally great from the kid's perspective.

I know from experience though that if you do not have that network it sucks for all involved. A BigLaw parent plus another parent with a demanding job plus no family help and maybe you struggle to find great hired help is a recipe for disaster and it's situations like this that lead to people bailing on BigLaw. You need help and it usually has to come from multiple sources -- spouse and grandparents and hired help. The BigLaw salary makes it easier to have a SAHP but cannot help someone want to be a SAHP and while the salary can make it easier to pay more for help there is also some luck and other logistics involved (so much easier to find a great nanny if the non-BigLaw parent wants to and is good at hiring and managing that person). And invovled family is just the luck of the draw.

If you are a BigLawa attorney making it work and feel like your family is functioning great that's wonderful but you do need to understand that there is some luck and special circumstances in terms of your partner and extended family that makes that work.

Folks, so much of this is just what you want to do. I know BigLaw partners that make every kid’s sporting event because they enjoy watching sports. They just put it on their schedules and then probably do some work later that night.

Those same partners are somehow too busy to take kids to doctor appointments or parent teacher conferences or all the other shit they don’t want to do.

If you don’t want to eat dinner with your family most nights, it’s a choice you make…sorry it’s not because you have 5 alarm fires requiring you to be in the office 3 days per week.

Stop blaming the job for not being present at the things you just don’t want to do.

Except they wouldn’t have the time to do it all, as you well know. Biglaw requires a minimum of 55 hrs/week and generally working most weekends upwards of 60-70 hrs regularly. Yes you can make time for the weekly Little League game, but you cannot parent in any meaningful way. Particularly once these dudes move out to Potomac or Westchester and have longer commutes.

Again…it’s 2024. Everyone has a hybrid work schedule. If you don’t, then you aren’t a partner or for some reason you are a partner that everyone shits on (but I doubt that).

Also, it’s not a linear job…if you want to make time for things (maybe not all but you can make time for more than just a LL game…BTW these are HS games 3x per week from 3:30-5:30), you make time and then work 8pm-11pm at home.

Just stop. Kids and household management are not “hybrid.” “Making time for” random parenting tasks as if it’s a hobby is FAR from equal domestic partnership. But yeah I’m sure it’s nice for BigLaw dads to decree that all their weekly parenting is done from 3:30-5:30 sitting on their butts at a sports game … then pat themselves on the back about what “involved fathersl” they are.

Sure WFH a few days a week may add 2-3 hours of saved commute time that can be used for parenting and domestic stuff, but the overall number of hours required has not changed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having worked in BigLaw and outside it one thing that happens is that when you are at a firm you tend to compare yourself exculsively to peers at the firm or at peer firms.

So what a BigLaw attorney considers a "very involved" parent can be pretty different than what a government attorney or someone who isn't a lawyer at all will consider very involved.

I do think the people who make it work best tend to have a pretty robust support network (usually involving both paid and family help) so I don't think their kids suffer for having a parent with a very demanding job. Like it's not really that big of a deal if you only eat dinner with your dad twice a week if you have a mom and a grandma and a nanny who are there daily and making you feel cared for and loved. Spending the afternoon with a great nanny before eating dinner with mom and grandma and then your dad is home for bedtime is totally great from the kid's perspective.

I know from experience though that if you do not have that network it sucks for all involved. A BigLaw parent plus another parent with a demanding job plus no family help and maybe you struggle to find great hired help is a recipe for disaster and it's situations like this that lead to people bailing on BigLaw. You need help and it usually has to come from multiple sources -- spouse and grandparents and hired help. The BigLaw salary makes it easier to have a SAHP but cannot help someone want to be a SAHP and while the salary can make it easier to pay more for help there is also some luck and other logistics involved (so much easier to find a great nanny if the non-BigLaw parent wants to and is good at hiring and managing that person). And invovled family is just the luck of the draw.

If you are a BigLawa attorney making it work and feel like your family is functioning great that's wonderful but you do need to understand that there is some luck and special circumstances in terms of your partner and extended family that makes that work.

Folks, so much of this is just what you want to do. I know BigLaw partners that make every kid’s sporting event because they enjoy watching sports. They just put it on their schedules and then probably do some work later that night.

Those same partners are somehow too busy to take kids to doctor appointments or parent teacher conferences or all the other shit they don’t want to do.

If you don’t want to eat dinner with your family most nights, it’s a choice you make…sorry it’s not because you have 5 alarm fires requiring you to be in the office 3 days per week.

Stop blaming the job for not being present at the things you just don’t want to do.

Except they wouldn’t have the time to do it all, as you well know. Biglaw requires a minimum of 55 hrs/week and generally working most weekends upwards of 60-70 hrs regularly. Yes you can make time for the weekly Little League game, but you cannot parent in any meaningful way. Particularly once these dudes move out to Potomac or Westchester and have longer commutes.

You seem angry and uninformed. Average hours billed in big law is under 2000/year. You're not regularly working 70 hours a week, especially if you're not nearing trial or running a deal. You're just wrong about whether or not someone can be in big law and be an involved parent. Most big law partners aren't in out in Potomac. They're in Arlington and Bethesda.

Yes that’s right - BigLaw is famously known for its short hours and family-friendly flexibility 🤡

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having worked in BigLaw and outside it one thing that happens is that when you are at a firm you tend to compare yourself exculsively to peers at the firm or at peer firms.

So what a BigLaw attorney considers a "very involved" parent can be pretty different than what a government attorney or someone who isn't a lawyer at all will consider very involved.

I do think the people who make it work best tend to have a pretty robust support network (usually involving both paid and family help) so I don't think their kids suffer for having a parent with a very demanding job. Like it's not really that big of a deal if you only eat dinner with your dad twice a week if you have a mom and a grandma and a nanny who are there daily and making you feel cared for and loved. Spending the afternoon with a great nanny before eating dinner with mom and grandma and then your dad is home for bedtime is totally great from the kid's perspective.

I know from experience though that if you do not have that network it sucks for all involved. A BigLaw parent plus another parent with a demanding job plus no family help and maybe you struggle to find great hired help is a recipe for disaster and it's situations like this that lead to people bailing on BigLaw. You need help and it usually has to come from multiple sources -- spouse and grandparents and hired help. The BigLaw salary makes it easier to have a SAHP but cannot help someone want to be a SAHP and while the salary can make it easier to pay more for help there is also some luck and other logistics involved (so much easier to find a great nanny if the non-BigLaw parent wants to and is good at hiring and managing that person). And invovled family is just the luck of the draw.

If you are a BigLawa attorney making it work and feel like your family is functioning great that's wonderful but you do need to understand that there is some luck and special circumstances in terms of your partner and extended family that makes that work.

Folks, so much of this is just what you want to do. I know BigLaw partners that make every kid’s sporting event because they enjoy watching sports. They just put it on their schedules and then probably do some work later that night.

Those same partners are somehow too busy to take kids to doctor appointments or parent teacher conferences or all the other shit they don’t want to do.

If you don’t want to eat dinner with your family most nights, it’s a choice you make…sorry it’s not because you have 5 alarm fires requiring you to be in the office 3 days per week.

Stop blaming the job for not being present at the things you just don’t want to do.

Except they wouldn’t have the time to do it all, as you well know. Biglaw requires a minimum of 55 hrs/week and generally working most weekends upwards of 60-70 hrs regularly. Yes you can make time for the weekly Little League game, but you cannot parent in any meaningful way. Particularly once these dudes move out to Potomac or Westchester and have longer commutes.

Again…it’s 2024. Everyone has a hybrid work schedule. If you don’t, then you aren’t a partner or for some reason you are a partner that everyone shits on (but I doubt that).

Also, it’s not a linear job…if you want to make time for things (maybe not all but you can make time for more than just a LL game…BTW these are HS games 3x per week from 3:30-5:30), you make time and then work 8pm-11pm at home.

Just stop. Kids and household management are not “hybrid.” “Making time for” random parenting tasks as if it’s a hobby is FAR from equal domestic partnership. But yeah I’m sure it’s nice for BigLaw dads to decree that all their weekly parenting is done from 3:30-5:30 sitting on their butts at a sports game … then pat themselves on the back about what “involved fathersl” they are.

Sure WFH a few days a week may add 2-3 hours of saved commute time that can be used for parenting and domestic stuff, but the overall number of hours required has not changed.

There are no circumstances under which you would be satisfied. How you did not see any of this coming is remarkable. It’s not like this is the mid to late 90s during the real uptick of big law in its current form without a metric shit ton of information available to everybody on what it’s like; not to mention the summers and all the years leading to this point.

Having children with your husband was evidently the error you made. Turns out you made that bed, so now you get to lie in it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having worked in BigLaw and outside it one thing that happens is that when you are at a firm you tend to compare yourself exculsively to peers at the firm or at peer firms.

So what a BigLaw attorney considers a "very involved" parent can be pretty different than what a government attorney or someone who isn't a lawyer at all will consider very involved.

I do think the people who make it work best tend to have a pretty robust support network (usually involving both paid and family help) so I don't think their kids suffer for having a parent with a very demanding job. Like it's not really that big of a deal if you only eat dinner with your dad twice a week if you have a mom and a grandma and a nanny who are there daily and making you feel cared for and loved. Spending the afternoon with a great nanny before eating dinner with mom and grandma and then your dad is home for bedtime is totally great from the kid's perspective.

I know from experience though that if you do not have that network it sucks for all involved. A BigLaw parent plus another parent with a demanding job plus no family help and maybe you struggle to find great hired help is a recipe for disaster and it's situations like this that lead to people bailing on BigLaw. You need help and it usually has to come from multiple sources -- spouse and grandparents and hired help. The BigLaw salary makes it easier to have a SAHP but cannot help someone want to be a SAHP and while the salary can make it easier to pay more for help there is also some luck and other logistics involved (so much easier to find a great nanny if the non-BigLaw parent wants to and is good at hiring and managing that person). And invovled family is just the luck of the draw.

If you are a BigLawa attorney making it work and feel like your family is functioning great that's wonderful but you do need to understand that there is some luck and special circumstances in terms of your partner and extended family that makes that work.

Folks, so much of this is just what you want to do. I know BigLaw partners that make every kid’s sporting event because they enjoy watching sports. They just put it on their schedules and then probably do some work later that night.

Those same partners are somehow too busy to take kids to doctor appointments or parent teacher conferences or all the other shit they don’t want to do.

If you don’t want to eat dinner with your family most nights, it’s a choice you make…sorry it’s not because you have 5 alarm fires requiring you to be in the office 3 days per week.

Stop blaming the job for not being present at the things you just don’t want to do.

Except they wouldn’t have the time to do it all, as you well know. Biglaw requires a minimum of 55 hrs/week and generally working most weekends upwards of 60-70 hrs regularly. Yes you can make time for the weekly Little League game, but you cannot parent in any meaningful way. Particularly once these dudes move out to Potomac or Westchester and have longer commutes.

Again…it’s 2024. Everyone has a hybrid work schedule. If you don’t, then you aren’t a partner or for some reason you are a partner that everyone shits on (but I doubt that).

Also, it’s not a linear job…if you want to make time for things (maybe not all but you can make time for more than just a LL game…BTW these are HS games 3x per week from 3:30-5:30), you make time and then work 8pm-11pm at home.

Just stop. Kids and household management are not “hybrid.” “Making time for” random parenting tasks as if it’s a hobby is FAR from equal domestic partnership. But yeah I’m sure it’s nice for BigLaw dads to decree that all their weekly parenting is done from 3:30-5:30 sitting on their butts at a sports game … then pat themselves on the back about what “involved fathersl” they are.

Sure WFH a few days a week may add 2-3 hours of saved commute time that can be used for parenting and domestic stuff, but the overall number of hours required has not changed.

There are no circumstances under which you would be satisfied. How you did not see any of this coming is remarkable. It’s not like this is the mid to late 90s during the real uptick of big law in its current form without a metric shit ton of information available to everybody on what it’s like; not to mention the summers and all the years leading to this point.

Having children with your husband was evidently the error you made. Turns out you made that bed, so now you get to lie in it.

No, the OP doesn't have to lie in it. But unless OP's husband gives up big $$$ to do 50% of the parenting, her only alternative is divorce. That will put her in an even worse position than she's in right now. The PPs recommending hiring help and outsourcing are spot on, but that's not the real issue here. I detect an undercurrent of resentment, and perhaps envy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having worked in BigLaw and outside it one thing that happens is that when you are at a firm you tend to compare yourself exculsively to peers at the firm or at peer firms.

So what a BigLaw attorney considers a "very involved" parent can be pretty different than what a government attorney or someone who isn't a lawyer at all will consider very involved.

I do think the people who make it work best tend to have a pretty robust support network (usually involving both paid and family help) so I don't think their kids suffer for having a parent with a very demanding job. Like it's not really that big of a deal if you only eat dinner with your dad twice a week if you have a mom and a grandma and a nanny who are there daily and making you feel cared for and loved. Spending the afternoon with a great nanny before eating dinner with mom and grandma and then your dad is home for bedtime is totally great from the kid's perspective.

I know from experience though that if you do not have that network it sucks for all involved. A BigLaw parent plus another parent with a demanding job plus no family help and maybe you struggle to find great hired help is a recipe for disaster and it's situations like this that lead to people bailing on BigLaw. You need help and it usually has to come from multiple sources -- spouse and grandparents and hired help. The BigLaw salary makes it easier to have a SAHP but cannot help someone want to be a SAHP and while the salary can make it easier to pay more for help there is also some luck and other logistics involved (so much easier to find a great nanny if the non-BigLaw parent wants to and is good at hiring and managing that person). And invovled family is just the luck of the draw.

If you are a BigLawa attorney making it work and feel like your family is functioning great that's wonderful but you do need to understand that there is some luck and special circumstances in terms of your partner and extended family that makes that work.

Folks, so much of this is just what you want to do. I know BigLaw partners that make every kid’s sporting event because they enjoy watching sports. They just put it on their schedules and then probably do some work later that night.

Those same partners are somehow too busy to take kids to doctor appointments or parent teacher conferences or all the other shit they don’t want to do.

If you don’t want to eat dinner with your family most nights, it’s a choice you make…sorry it’s not because you have 5 alarm fires requiring you to be in the office 3 days per week.

Stop blaming the job for not being present at the things you just don’t want to do.

Except they wouldn’t have the time to do it all, as you well know. Biglaw requires a minimum of 55 hrs/week and generally working most weekends upwards of 60-70 hrs regularly. Yes you can make time for the weekly Little League game, but you cannot parent in any meaningful way. Particularly once these dudes move out to Potomac or Westchester and have longer commutes.

Again…it’s 2024. Everyone has a hybrid work schedule. If you don’t, then you aren’t a partner or for some reason you are a partner that everyone shits on (but I doubt that).

Also, it’s not a linear job…if you want to make time for things (maybe not all but you can make time for more than just a LL game…BTW these are HS games 3x per week from 3:30-5:30), you make time and then work 8pm-11pm at home.

Just stop. Kids and household management are not “hybrid.” “Making time for” random parenting tasks as if it’s a hobby is FAR from equal domestic partnership. But yeah I’m sure it’s nice for BigLaw dads to decree that all their weekly parenting is done from 3:30-5:30 sitting on their butts at a sports game … then pat themselves on the back about what “involved fathersl” they are.

Sure WFH a few days a week may add 2-3 hours of saved commute time that can be used for parenting and domestic stuff, but the overall number of hours required has not changed.

You seem miserable. Are you jealous? Do you also attack physicians and bankers and consultants? All have worse schedules and less flexibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having worked in BigLaw and outside it one thing that happens is that when you are at a firm you tend to compare yourself exculsively to peers at the firm or at peer firms.

So what a BigLaw attorney considers a "very involved" parent can be pretty different than what a government attorney or someone who isn't a lawyer at all will consider very involved.

I do think the people who make it work best tend to have a pretty robust support network (usually involving both paid and family help) so I don't think their kids suffer for having a parent with a very demanding job. Like it's not really that big of a deal if you only eat dinner with your dad twice a week if you have a mom and a grandma and a nanny who are there daily and making you feel cared for and loved. Spending the afternoon with a great nanny before eating dinner with mom and grandma and then your dad is home for bedtime is totally great from the kid's perspective.

I know from experience though that if you do not have that network it sucks for all involved. A BigLaw parent plus another parent with a demanding job plus no family help and maybe you struggle to find great hired help is a recipe for disaster and it's situations like this that lead to people bailing on BigLaw. You need help and it usually has to come from multiple sources -- spouse and grandparents and hired help. The BigLaw salary makes it easier to have a SAHP but cannot help someone want to be a SAHP and while the salary can make it easier to pay more for help there is also some luck and other logistics involved (so much easier to find a great nanny if the non-BigLaw parent wants to and is good at hiring and managing that person). And invovled family is just the luck of the draw.

If you are a BigLawa attorney making it work and feel like your family is functioning great that's wonderful but you do need to understand that there is some luck and special circumstances in terms of your partner and extended family that makes that work.

Folks, so much of this is just what you want to do. I know BigLaw partners that make every kid’s sporting event because they enjoy watching sports. They just put it on their schedules and then probably do some work later that night.

Those same partners are somehow too busy to take kids to doctor appointments or parent teacher conferences or all the other shit they don’t want to do.

If you don’t want to eat dinner with your family most nights, it’s a choice you make…sorry it’s not because you have 5 alarm fires requiring you to be in the office 3 days per week.

Stop blaming the job for not being present at the things you just don’t want to do.

Except they wouldn’t have the time to do it all, as you well know. Biglaw requires a minimum of 55 hrs/week and generally working most weekends upwards of 60-70 hrs regularly. Yes you can make time for the weekly Little League game, but you cannot parent in any meaningful way. Particularly once these dudes move out to Potomac or Westchester and have longer commutes.

Again…it’s 2024. Everyone has a hybrid work schedule. If you don’t, then you aren’t a partner or for some reason you are a partner that everyone shits on (but I doubt that).

Also, it’s not a linear job…if you want to make time for things (maybe not all but you can make time for more than just a LL game…BTW these are HS games 3x per week from 3:30-5:30), you make time and then work 8pm-11pm at home.

Just stop. Kids and household management are not “hybrid.” “Making time for” random parenting tasks as if it’s a hobby is FAR from equal domestic partnership. But yeah I’m sure it’s nice for BigLaw dads to decree that all their weekly parenting is done from 3:30-5:30 sitting on their butts at a sports game … then pat themselves on the back about what “involved fathersl” they are.

Sure WFH a few days a week may add 2-3 hours of saved commute time that can be used for parenting and domestic stuff, but the overall number of hours required has not changed.

There are no circumstances under which you would be satisfied. How you did not see any of this coming is remarkable. It’s not like this is the mid to late 90s during the real uptick of big law in its current form without a metric shit ton of information available to everybody on what it’s like; not to mention the summers and all the years leading to this point.

Having children with your husband was evidently the error you made. Turns out you made that bed, so now you get to lie in it.

Lol dear, no. I skeedadled out of Biglaw after one summer because I saw how absolutely soul-crushing it was and I had zero interest in what the firm apparently wanted to present as the upside: extremely tedious meals at expensive restaurants with people I did not like. And I made sure not to marry someone with that kind of career. Now I sit back and enjoy my more than adequate salary, easy 40hrs/week WFH, and laugh as my law school classmates are *shocked* when they have to hand over 50% to their SAHW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having worked in BigLaw and outside it one thing that happens is that when you are at a firm you tend to compare yourself exculsively to peers at the firm or at peer firms.

So what a BigLaw attorney considers a "very involved" parent can be pretty different than what a government attorney or someone who isn't a lawyer at all will consider very involved.

I do think the people who make it work best tend to have a pretty robust support network (usually involving both paid and family help) so I don't think their kids suffer for having a parent with a very demanding job. Like it's not really that big of a deal if you only eat dinner with your dad twice a week if you have a mom and a grandma and a nanny who are there daily and making you feel cared for and loved. Spending the afternoon with a great nanny before eating dinner with mom and grandma and then your dad is home for bedtime is totally great from the kid's perspective.

I know from experience though that if you do not have that network it sucks for all involved. A BigLaw parent plus another parent with a demanding job plus no family help and maybe you struggle to find great hired help is a recipe for disaster and it's situations like this that lead to people bailing on BigLaw. You need help and it usually has to come from multiple sources -- spouse and grandparents and hired help. The BigLaw salary makes it easier to have a SAHP but cannot help someone want to be a SAHP and while the salary can make it easier to pay more for help there is also some luck and other logistics involved (so much easier to find a great nanny if the non-BigLaw parent wants to and is good at hiring and managing that person). And invovled family is just the luck of the draw.

If you are a BigLawa attorney making it work and feel like your family is functioning great that's wonderful but you do need to understand that there is some luck and special circumstances in terms of your partner and extended family that makes that work.

Folks, so much of this is just what you want to do. I know BigLaw partners that make every kid’s sporting event because they enjoy watching sports. They just put it on their schedules and then probably do some work later that night.

Those same partners are somehow too busy to take kids to doctor appointments or parent teacher conferences or all the other shit they don’t want to do.

If you don’t want to eat dinner with your family most nights, it’s a choice you make…sorry it’s not because you have 5 alarm fires requiring you to be in the office 3 days per week.

Stop blaming the job for not being present at the things you just don’t want to do.

Except they wouldn’t have the time to do it all, as you well know. Biglaw requires a minimum of 55 hrs/week and generally working most weekends upwards of 60-70 hrs regularly. Yes you can make time for the weekly Little League game, but you cannot parent in any meaningful way. Particularly once these dudes move out to Potomac or Westchester and have longer commutes.

Again…it’s 2024. Everyone has a hybrid work schedule. If you don’t, then you aren’t a partner or for some reason you are a partner that everyone shits on (but I doubt that).

Also, it’s not a linear job…if you want to make time for things (maybe not all but you can make time for more than just a LL game…BTW these are HS games 3x per week from 3:30-5:30), you make time and then work 8pm-11pm at home.

Just stop. Kids and household management are not “hybrid.” “Making time for” random parenting tasks as if it’s a hobby is FAR from equal domestic partnership. But yeah I’m sure it’s nice for BigLaw dads to decree that all their weekly parenting is done from 3:30-5:30 sitting on their butts at a sports game … then pat themselves on the back about what “involved fathersl” they are.

Sure WFH a few days a week may add 2-3 hours of saved commute time that can be used for parenting and domestic stuff, but the overall number of hours required has not changed.

You seem miserable. Are you jealous? Do you also attack physicians and bankers and consultants? All have worse schedules and less flexibility.

Bankers and consultants - yes, exactly the same. Doctors - they are actually doing something useful for the world, so no issue. That’s the truly toxic thing about Biglaw, consulting and banking: mostly adding zero value to the world, just greedy money.