Leaving private practice for government job
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Anonymous
Why? Bc a few people are honest that the governments slow pace and work life balance aren't for them? |
Anonymous
This is OP. This is my fear. I do like the challenge and entrepreneurial nature of the firm. I hate business development but I'm good at it, bringing in business etc. But that extra 10 hours a week is 10 hours I don't get to spend with my kids. I just wonder what's really more important. Money and excitement? Or seeing 40 hours a month more of my kids growing up? Saying it out loud (ok typing it) makes me think I know what I think my answer is. I just hope I'm not wrong. |
Anonymous
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SEC attorney here who teleworks twice a week. Even though I'm home at 5:30 to pick up my son from daycare, I feel like I still don't spend enough time with him. While I honestly enjoyed working in NY big law, I don't think that lifestyle would be manageable with a young child. I want to spend MORE time with him, and even with my flexible, laid back job, I don't feel like it's enough. I know that personally, I will care more about my relationship with my children than the hot deal I worked on years ago.
I think the PP who said it takes time to get out of the firm mindset is right. Looking back, why did we have to spend SO MANY HOURS at the printers? At the end of the day, no one cared about that extra comma or changing one word to another. Big law and any competitive field fuels this attitude that more work, tougher, better, smarter, etc. It doesn't have to be that way. For all the SEC attorneys here, if you don't find yourself challenged, you should seek out more challenging work. Make yourself heard, and I'm sure your supervisor would love to give you more interesting work. It's all about what you make of it. Don't sit on your butt and complain about unmotivated colleagues and bad work. You can change that. I know b/c I'm at the SEC too! |
Anonymous
I get what you're saying -- every deal is the same and litigation isn't THAT monumental, but I don't know. I don't agree with the attitude of "why spend so many hrs at the printer," no one cares about the comma on pg 256 anyway -- bc that is what breeds the mediocrity at places like the SEC; I'm surrounded by people who just want it to be "good enough" so they can leave at 3 pm or "telework" -- i.e. do their laundry and grocery shop. And if that's how you are fine -- but SEC employees should be a little more genuine when recruiting, networking, and interviewing -- that it is a place where "good enough" is the marker. But when SEC attys talk to the outside world, it's ALL about how awesome their work is. And as for wanting 10 extra hrs a week at home -- that's an individual choice. To me -- I'd rather be at the printer than playing trucks, answering repetitive questions, and telling my son to pull his hands out of his pants for the 200th time. I'm sure it's different for everyone, but I don't see how 10 hrs a week bonds us more than the other hours we spend together. Frankly I'd rather be out there making money bc that will help him more -- when I can pay for his college in full or hand him a nice down payment on a house or whatever. |
Anonymous
OP- how old are your kids? Mine are getting older and are involved in sports and extracurricular activities. I really don't feel like the extra 10 hours/week of working has had an impact on the quality of time I spend with them at all. It would have made more of a difference when they were younger. The fact that my kids were little while I worked at the govt and had flexibility was the only reason I could tolerate it. The idea of spending my whole career being bored to tears, working with some incredibly odd people who never would have lasted in the private sector, doing the same kind of work every single day- that would have killed me. |
Anonymous
As you can see in the two responses above, working for govt is a big change in mentality from firm life. I clerked for a firm in law school, but I've spent the rest of my career in govt. FWIW, the private firm attorneys we hire that seem to be the most successful are the attorneys with an open mind and a respect for the work. The least successful are the attorneys who cannot let go of the law firm mentality. This is illustrated in the bolded part above. In my office, we do not find value in writing, and rewriting, briefs until they are law review quality. We are a results driven organization. We triage work and put time towards the highest risk, most complicated, and most important work. Spending time on a motion once you have a product together that is likely to win is a waste of time. Arguing over hyphens and commas will not change the results of the case. It's wasted time in government work. One of the attorneys in my office who came from a well-regarded firm has been one of the least successful. She went to a prestigious law school and regularly works this into conversations. She spends copious amounts of time on briefs, but doesn't understand our practice area after working in the office for almost two years. She talks down to people while simultaneously giving poor advice - mostly bc she can't issue spot. She doesn't appear to be happy either. She thinks she's so smart and rewrites work product from more senior attorneys. She doesn't understand she is editing information that is needed for our practice area. She just thinks she's smarter than everyone. Sadly, she would not be promotable at this point. My advice to OP is to not look down on your new office if you take the job. You'll never fit in. Many of the attorneys will have attended lower-ranked schools. You will need to be ok with these people. They will question why you need to work late and why you can't finish your work during the day. Before litigation is understood, but not regularly. |
Anonymous
OP here. Thanks for this advice. Actually, because I work regularly with this office (I work in the same area of law now), I know the lawyers there and they are very credentialed. Top schools, top clerkships, etc. My whole purpose of going there is to not work late, so I definitely won't be looking down on people who don't. My main concern is just that right now I work in an extremely varied, high paced practice as far as substance of my work. I work before a handful of federal agencies, as well as state agencies, courts, administrative tribunals. And I do a lot of client counseling. The job here would be very narrow, since as we all know agencies only focus on a certain area of law. It's only for that reason that I think I would be bored. I don't know about the SEC, and maybe things are different in DC (I am in a region), but out here all federal jobs are highly highly competitive and I'm not worried about my future coworkers being stupid. Quirky, maybe, but not lacking in prestige. |
Anonymous
| Not OP but this has been a super helpful thread re transitioning from biglaw. Thanks! |
Anonymous
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I left Big Law about 10 years for an agency and while I would not say every single lawyer in my agency is a top performer or busy with cutting edge, challenging work, certainly the large majority of the people I work with are.
When we are writing rules or in litigation, we are almost always up against BigLaw, usually multiple firms. When it's a couple of agency lawyers and a couple of DOJ lawyers facing off against dozens of BigLaw lawyers to defend important policies, you need to be thoughtful and sharp. And while people do value work life balance, and there is no expectation of working weekends, at the same time everyone puts in the time needed for specific projects (which can include at nights and weekends) and often people can get at least some of that time back as additional leave later. I find there is a decent balance of kinds of work, between litigation, counseling and rule-writing. It is true that you can end up specializing not just in one area of the law, but in very niche sub-areas. On the other hand, my agency is pretty good about letting people who are feeling bored in an area move to a new area after a few years. I wouldn't say I love every single moment of every day, but I do feel pretty lucky to be able to do challenging work on important issues, get paid enough to live pretty well and still have time for my family. |
Anonymous
| the extra time is not worth the pay cut. You will regret it later. Have you tried to change your private sector role? |
Anonymous
This is very personal. Twice Ihave taken substantial paycuts (25% or more). Once I did it for a corresponding cut in hours and once I did it for more interesting work. For us a HHI of 200-300k is very comfortable (I would say we are rich because while we have a small house, one cheap car, and kids attend public schools we also don't worry about what we are spending on a day to day basis). Making more in exchange for spending more time at work made me less happy-- basically I tried to find things to spend money on to make me less unhappy. Probably if I was at a firm I'd convince myself private school was worth the money (and maybe it would be, compared to the other things I could spend my money on) but I have never regretted either of those paycuts/job changes. |
Anonymous
| I work in a litigating section of DOJ, and I love it. I wanted to share a story of one of my coworkers. He was here for many years, then moved to a big firm, mostly for the $$$. He's now back. I asked him about it, and he said the money didn't make up for the terrible hours and that, in fact, his work for the government was more interesting and he had more autonomy. So, it really depends on the particular office you're moving to. For me, my work is interesting and my hours are great. Yeah, more money would be nice, but we're doing fine, and I wouldn't take more money if it meant more stress and more hours. |
Anonymous
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There are definitely people at DOJ, SEC etc. who leave to go to private sector for the first time - or even to go back to it after a miserable transition - and then DO return to the gov't. It's your own call as to what your acceptable tradeoff is between hours and money and stress and also what you find interesting or not as far as work goes.
As for OP -- no one is saying that gov't attys are stupid or lacking prestige at least not in the offices mentioned on this thread. It has gotten really really hard to get hired at places like SEC and DOJ in DC (and likely everywhere) in the last 5-10 yrs - so the resumes that come in that get selected are usually top pedigree in terms of schools, top firms/experience etc., lots of people who've made partner but want out for whatever reason whether work/life or stability etc. It's the fact that ONCE these people get in some (many?) flip a switch when they see that they're in an environment where getting by is enough. To me - it isn't motivating to be around people like that even if went to Harvard law followed by Sullivan & Cromwell. Those attitudes are demotivating enough that I want to GTFO of here, but YMMV. |
Anonymous
I understand where you're coming from, OP, but you have to make a choice. Government work may not be as interesting as what you're doing now. On the other hand your hours will be a hell of a lot better and you'll have a personal life, time with your kids, etc. It's up to you which you would value more at this point in time. For a lot of us (I am a new PP but I agree with many of the views expressed above), the personal life takes precedence over interesting work, at least when kids are small. I made this choice as a mid-level associate. I was very good at my firm job but hated it. Hated the environment, the lack of autonomy, lack of respect for time, billing in 6 minute increments, and most of all, I hated discovery. I loved writing briefs and did a lot of it but it wasn't enough. I moved to a small agency to do appellate litigation and I am so glad I did. I miss the salary from Biglaw and the faster pace and perfectionism. But the flip side of the faster pace and perfectionism was micromanaging and asshole colleagues. My government colleagues may not be quite as smart (though many are) or as driven (most are not), but they are lovely people and it is so much more pleasant to spend time in the office. I have complete autonomy over my cases and love it. I far prefer the pace of appellate litigation. I will also admit that it's nice to be a big fish in a small pond -- I am pretty much a superstar at my agency whereas I was just a very good associate who excelled at briefing but would never have made partner. And best of all, I am out of there at 5 every day to spend time with my young kids. If work needs to be done in the evenings or weekends, I do it, but I do it because I want to do it and not because someone's breathing down my neck. Since you like your firm job except for the hours, this will be a much harder choice for you. Maybe government isn't the answer. Can you switch to a smaller firm with more reasonable work-life balance? Can you go in-house? |
Anonymous
Thanks PP. I actually am at a firm with a fabulous work life balance. I am on a reduced schedule and have massive amounts of flexibility. I love my colleagues, the work, I'm respected. When I work at night and on the weekends it's because work has to be done, not because someone is breathing down my neck. I have autonomy, work up litigation from start to finish, have strong client relationships and really truly like a lot of my clients as people. The problem is that there is too much work and even though I'm on reduced schedule I work more than I would in a full time fed gov job. I have to do a ton of business development and there is an expectation that all of us will bring in business and work hard to keep existing clients, and so the business development work will never really end. Yes I can take off time any time I want, go on vacation any time I want, but I always have to make up the time missed to hit my billable target. And when clients need something and I'm on vacation it's hard to say no (see part above about needing to get/keep business for the firm). When things get really busy because of a trial or hearing or brief being due, the hours become unbearable to me (though they probably are what a normal attorney in biglaw sees every week). It is a really hard choice. I sort of wish I hated what I do now, it would make it much easier. Or if I knew what this agency was really like (it's not DOJ or SEC). There are a lot of complaints from the inside about micromanagement, an utter lack of autonomy, lack of respect for staff attorneys, limited ability to move up, etc. But then again the mission of the agency is amazing and I want to do what they do, and everyone says it's unbelievably family friendly and laid back. But maybe since I'm so in the law firm mentality I will actually hate that laid backness once I'm in it. So hard to know. |