How to change Big Law culture?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

OP - I agree with the doctors doing something useful for the world. I say that to my DH all the time - if you miss a deadline did someone die? No? Then its fine.

However I will say that DH's work does involve a lot of big companies that if the work he is doing is not done then large factories, companies, etc will close and lots of people will lose their jobs. So I guess it is important to those people who will be without work should the contract that supports their work dries up. Not life or death certainly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You sound like an ass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

OP - I agree with the doctors doing something useful for the world. I say that to my DH all the time - if you miss a deadline did someone die? No? Then its fine.

However I will say that DH's work does involve a lot of big companies that if the work he is doing is not done then large factories, companies, etc will close and lots of people will lose their jobs. So I guess it is important to those people who will be without work should the contract that supports their work dries up. Not life or death certainly.

True, except for that I truly believe all the lawyering (plus overly complicated regulatory requirements) is what generates a good percentage of that work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

OP - I agree with the doctors doing something useful for the world. I say that to my DH all the time - if you miss a deadline did someone die? No? Then its fine.

However I will say that DH's work does involve a lot of big companies that if the work he is doing is not done then large factories, companies, etc will close and lots of people will lose their jobs. So I guess it is important to those people who will be without work should the contract that supports their work dries up. Not life or death certainly.

It sounds like you don't respect your DH or his work. You acknowledge that the work is important for those impacted, yet in the same paragraph you try to minimize it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You sound like an ass.

Ok well, at least I’m not the one claiming that sitting on my *ss at 12 Little League games a year makes me a great spouse and father.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

OP - I agree with the doctors doing something useful for the world. I say that to my DH all the time - if you miss a deadline did someone die? No? Then its fine.

However I will say that DH's work does involve a lot of big companies that if the work he is doing is not done then large factories, companies, etc will close and lots of people will lose their jobs. So I guess it is important to those people who will be without work should the contract that supports their work dries up. Not life or death certainly.

It sounds like you don't respect your DH or his work. You acknowledge that the work is important for those impacted, yet in the same paragraph you try to minimize it.

DP. There is in fact nothing to respect about Biglaw (or consulting or banking) careers. People trading their lives for money and expecting everyone else in their lives to pick up the slack (generally the women in their lives).

[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.

This is the point I was making above. BigLaw partners not just in DC have a different world since Covid. It is better and worse. Better in that you are in the office 2-3 days a week at best and home early. Worse in that it is never off and there is a period between 9:00 and midnight that was not work before but almost always is now.

[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.

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 🤡

People trying to tell it like it is and others just making comments. Biglaw partners with clients might bill 2000 plus hours -- with heavy litigation or deals. But most do not. Between Bus Dev and firm roles most partners bill around 1800 hours --- no more. And those 1800 hours are not divided by each week. A deal or hot litigation or an investigation might mean that you bill 900 hours in just three months. 900 more hours over the next nine months would be the result. When you are on you are on but you are not always on. Not sure why it is that hard to understand. Almost all are not working 70 hours a week each week.

[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.

Who is talking about an equal domestic partnership? You can't do that in biglaw. But you can get close. And many do.