Big law attorneys who complain about the lifestyle

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Golden handcuffs are very, very real. And I don’t say that flippantly. Once you have a nice home, nanny, private school, first class flights to Hawaii for family vacation, it can be very hard to go back even if you always told yourself you wouldn’t get locked into the lifestyle.

You also don’t know what other people’s full cost base it. Perhaps they are supporting other family members, are the primary breadwinner etc. that makes a move in house harder.

This. As DH and I age, we also find the generous family healthcare coverage to be difficult to give up since we use a lot of specialists and have had expensive procedures and surgeries.

Difficult, yes. Impossible, no.

Choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Golden handcuffs are very, very real. And I don’t say that flippantly. Once you have a nice home, nanny, private school, first class flights to Hawaii for family vacation, it can be very hard to go back even if you always told yourself you wouldn’t get locked into the lifestyle.

You also don’t know what other people’s full cost base it. Perhaps they are supporting other family members, are the primary breadwinner etc. that makes a move in house harder.

This. As DH and I age, we also find the generous family healthcare coverage to be difficult to give up since we use a lot of specialists and have had expensive procedures and surgeries.

Difficult, yes. Impossible, no.

Choices.

Do you live in DC or MoCo? There are actually really good Obamacare options in those areas, unlike in most areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was recently chatting with a very senior Big Law partner and he told me that he thinks if you want to practice law at a high level (so basically any AmLaw 200 firm, I think was his frame of reference) you need to expect as a partner that you will be putting in about 2500 billable hours a year. And then he said that on top of that you need to be putting in the hours on business development, plus contributing to firm or practice management as is appropriate for your level. So that would come out to an average of 60 hours a week, minimum. Plus if you want vacations or holidays, that's going to push the average up for the other weeks. Client work and BD demand ebbs and flows a bit, so you might have some weeks at 40 but you will definitely have some at 80. And this is for a partner, so you need to assume the work you're doing is not some piddling little low level memo or something -- we're talking high level, difficult work, including client management and managing demands/egos/etc., plus the management aspect of the job in terms of guiding the team that sits under you.

If that is not of interest to you, do not pursue a partnership at a Big Law firm. Don't pursue a job that operates as I just described and then spend your time whining to other people about how you don't have enough free time or whatever. Either that sounds appealing to you (presumably because you actually like work, it charges you up, you'd rather be practicing law and pursuing clients than other things), or it doesn't.

I don't understand why law attracts so many people who don't seem to want to do the job they signed up for. Are doctors like this? I am aware of downsides to practicing medicine (dealing with insurance, the time pressures that the corporatization of medicine put on practitioners, paperwork and document, etc.) but I have personally never heard any of the doctors I know complain about how miserable their jobs are the way so many lawyers do. They seem to have understood what they were getting into, I guess.

Definitely not all BigLaw partners are billing 2,500 hours. Some are rainmakers who do very little of the actual billable legal work. If you have that business development skill set, you'll be able to control your destiny more in BigLaw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s harder to leave than you think.

I spent 10 years in biglaw as a litigator. I never got offered a single job in-house or in Fed gov despite applying widely. I moved firms a couple times just trying to find more peace but it was just as bad, even when I did ultimately accept a pay cut.

One reason I couldn’t get an in-house offer is I couldn’t move to where clients are because of DH’s job which pretty much only exists in DC.

This. It’s not that easy to get a job like yours.

I’d be willing to bet your nonprofits fundraising department relies heavily on donations from big law firms….so these big law lawyers are subsidizing your salary….

Wut? Are you in big law and that post a cope?

I am not sure what you mean by "post a cope." But nope. I am not in big law. I used to be an entry level poorly paid attorney at a nonprofit. The higher ups in rare jobs like OP make good money. The worker bees do not. I made 45k per year post clerkship. It was ridiculous. I stuffed the envelopes for fundraisers so I can tell you that law firms were our main source of funding.

[Anonymous]

To be fair, if someone asks me how my job is going, I’m not going to lie about how exhausted I am at the moment and say nothing. Though, unlike other biglaw complainers, I love my practice area and my job, so maybe that makes a difference to those who I complain to about my hours.

[Anonymous]

During the pandemic, when my kids were at home on zoom school and I was at home working full-time and it was miserable, a good friend of mine kept telling me I should just quit my job. It's true that financially, my husband's salary is more than a lot of people live on, including my friend. But also, my career is actually important to me. (My husband and I earn the same amount. He was a co-participant in Zoom school and misery.)

I am much less close to my friend now in part because of this. Because, yes, I am privileged to be in the situation that I'm in, but also, even though I was in many ways lucky to have the choices I have, you should have some empathy for the people in your life. Not the random parent at the bus stop, but if someone's actually your friend.

I have also become much less forthcoming to people in my life who are not in similar work situations as I am. Maybe that's good. But it makes friendships somewhat one-way, because I'm still listening to their complaints. (Which, also, are based on choices they made.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To be fair, if someone asks me how my job is going, I’m not going to lie about how exhausted I am at the moment and say nothing. Though, unlike other biglaw complainers, I love my practice area and my job, so maybe that makes a difference to those who I complain to about my hours.

I’m sure some people do complain excessively but in my experience people who went to top law schools but for whatever reason (personal choice, striking out at OCI, no offer, did biglaw and got pushed out, etc) didn’t end up in/stay in biglaw are incredibly sensitive about it and will construe even mild comments as insufferable whining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was recently chatting with a very senior Big Law partner and he told me that he thinks if you want to practice law at a high level (so basically any AmLaw 200 firm, I think was his frame of reference) you need to expect as a partner that you will be putting in about 2500 billable hours a year. And then he said that on top of that you need to be putting in the hours on business development, plus contributing to firm or practice management as is appropriate for your level. So that would come out to an average of 60 hours a week, minimum. Plus if you want vacations or holidays, that's going to push the average up for the other weeks. Client work and BD demand ebbs and flows a bit, so you might have some weeks at 40 but you will definitely have some at 80. And this is for a partner, so you need to assume the work you're doing is not some piddling little low level memo or something -- we're talking high level, difficult work, including client management and managing demands/egos/etc., plus the management aspect of the job in terms of guiding the team that sits under you.

If that is not of interest to you, do not pursue a partnership at a Big Law firm. Don't pursue a job that operates as I just described and then spend your time whining to other people about how you don't have enough free time or whatever. Either that sounds appealing to you (presumably because you actually like work, it charges you up, you'd rather be practicing law and pursuing clients than other things), or it doesn't.

I don't understand why law attracts so many people who don't seem to want to do the job they signed up for. Are doctors like this? I am aware of downsides to practicing medicine (dealing with insurance, the time pressures that the corporatization of medicine put on practitioners, paperwork and document, etc.) but I have personally never heard any of the doctors I know complain about how miserable their jobs are the way so many lawyers do. They seem to have understood what they were getting into, I guess.

Definitely not all BigLaw partners are billing 2,500 hours. Some are rainmakers who do very little of the actual billable legal work. If you have that business development skill set, you'll be able to control your destiny more in BigLaw.

Sure but you are talking about a very small percentage of Big Law partners. Being a rainmaker at a Big Law firm means you have the ability to bring in enormous billables for the firm, and that takes a huge amount of time even if it's mostly not billable work. And often that work requires a lot of travel, dinners, last minute pitches, PLUS being the person holding the client's hand and working that relationship when things are tough.

Partners like this might not literally be billing 2500 hours but the idea that they have relaxing lives with good work/life balance? Nah. They might have more flexibility because they aren't tied to their desks as much and their work is not driven so much by client deadlines, but they are putting in the time.

When you meet a Big Law partner who seems really happy and who seems to be enjoying their life, you know what the key pretty much always is? They like their job. Because they are all working a lot, it's just a question of whether they enjoy that work or not.

[Anonymous]

Show me a partner who consistently bills 2500 hours a year and I’ll show you someone committing billing fraud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To be fair, if someone asks me how my job is going, I’m not going to lie about how exhausted I am at the moment and say nothing. Though, unlike other biglaw complainers, I love my practice area and my job, so maybe that makes a difference to those who I complain to about my hours.

I’m sure some people do complain excessively but in my experience people who went to top law schools but for whatever reason (personal choice, striking out at OCI, no offer, did biglaw and got pushed out, etc) didn’t end up in/stay in biglaw are incredibly sensitive about it and will construe even mild comments as insufferable whining.

If this is a problem you run into a lot, the problem is you.

The truth is that there are some people you can complain to about work, especially if you are highly paid, and some you can't.

The idea that everyone you meet is going to sympathize with you when you want to complain about long hours, demanding clients, etc., is incredibly myopic. Of course they don't care! Complain to your mom or your spouse or someone in a similar role. Other people will struggle to empathize because, objectively, you are being compensated for those negatives. This is just how it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Show me a partner who consistently bills 2500 hours a year and I’ll show you someone committing billing fraud.

I definitely know partners who bill at that level. Partners at firms like Skadden, Latham, etc. Depends on your practice area and your clients and your age/time in partnership, but no question I know people who consistently bill about that amount every single year.

You don't know partners who regularly work 10 hours a day and weekends and work through vacations? I do. Where do you think all that time goes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Show me a partner who consistently bills 2500 hours a year and I’ll show you someone committing billing fraud.

Some billable hours are less labor-intensive than others. Also, if you're at a point in your career where you watch bills go out to clients, have you noticed that they're not always based on hours billed, but on a flat fee. In finance, for example, lawyers bill a flat fee for a legal opinion. I assume the lawyer running the opinions fills in their time to reach the flat fee that is billed to the client, otherwise no one is getting credit for it (other than the equity partners).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s harder to leave than you think.

I spent 10 years in biglaw as a litigator. I never got offered a single job in-house or in Fed gov despite applying widely. I moved firms a couple times just trying to find more peace but it was just as bad, even when I did ultimately accept a pay cut.

One reason I couldn’t get an in-house offer is I couldn’t move to where clients are because of DH’s job which pretty much only exists in DC.

This. It’s not that easy to get a job like yours.

I’d be willing to bet your nonprofits fundraising department relies heavily on donations from big law firms….so these big law lawyers are subsidizing your salary….

NP and doubtful. Corporate donors, sure, but I don't think biglaw firms are bastions of charitable giving.

DP. Well then you’d think wrong.

PP here I didn't that to say that law firms are cheap, but they're small players in the scheme of things so numerically they're just not in a position to move the needle that much. The largest firm, Kirkland, has total revenues of about $6 billion and by the time you get to DLA (#3) it's $3.4 billion. By contrast, Walmart had over $500 billion of revenues and #4, CVS, had revenues of about $300 billion. Even if they donated in an equal percentage corporate donations would crush law firm donations.

Most of the impact litigation that nonprofits take on is done by big firm lawyers taking the case on pro bono. If you are going to look at what big law firms give, you have to include dollars and hours of work. Frankly, I think it's one of the better things about working at big law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Show me a partner who consistently bills 2500 hours a year and I’ll show you someone committing billing fraud.

I definitely know partners who bill at that level. Partners at firms like Skadden, Latham, etc. Depends on your practice area and your clients and your age/time in partnership, but no question I know people who consistently bill about that amount every single year.

You don't know partners who regularly work 10 hours a day and weekends and work through vacations? I do. Where do you think all that time goes?

My husband is a partner like that and still doesn’t hit 2500.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They may have a SAH spouse or a spouse without a lot of earning potential. If you make 20% of a biglaw salary and are slightly the breadwinner I would ballpark your salary at $150K and your spouse's salary at $125K which is a really good HHI. About the same as ours actually.

Also, I think some fields don't lend themselves as well to in-house or govt work so they may be legitimately choosing between biglaw or medium law where the workload is about the same between them.

Still a choice! How many people in this situation had a working spouse who then quit their job when they realized that their Big Law spouse wasn't going to be available at all as a parent. I've seen this happen a lot. I know women who quit impressive careers making very good money because they had kids and while they made adjustments to their career to make sure their kids got what they needed, their Big Law spouse didn't. Often having kids seems to coincide with the Big Law spouse suddenly working more hours and moving to a higher level of stress and responsibility at work.

That's a choice, too. So is choosing a practice area that doesn't lend itself to pivoting to in-house or moving into a position with better work/life balance. Everyone knows which practice areas and sub-specialties are more demanding and less conducive to those kinds of changes. You might not know as a 1st or 2nd year associate, but after that, you should know and should be making thoughtful decisions based on what you want in life.

This didn't just happen to you.

What are you… talking about. What firm in this day and age allows associates to pick any practice area they want?

Yes, I knew which practice areas were the best for exiting. So did all the other associates. They were full. Firms push you into practice areas that are busy and they don’t GAF you want to plan an exit.

And those areas are extremely hard to get as a lateral for the same reasons.

I know people who switched practice areas in their 4th or 5th year at a large law firm. I also know people who went in house or moved to a smaller firm before they got locked into a career as, say, an insurance litigator (because that's how their big firm made money and that's where everyone was pushed) because they had some idea of what that would mean for their career down the road and did not want to get trapped in career they hated.

You get that working for a Big Law firm is at-will employment, right? Not indentured servitude? Move to another firm. Move to another market. Do what you need to do to craft a career that works for you, and do this early in your career.

The issue is that a lot of Big Law attorneys are people who have let life happen to them. They went to the most prestigious law school they got into, they took a job with the most prestigious firm who gave them an offer, then they did what that firm told them to do. And then they wake up one day and are like "huh, I'm not happy at all, it must be my job's fault."

It's you. You're the problem.

As in any profession, if you go into it for the money, you are bound at some point to be dissatisfied. If you love the law, you'll be happy in your chosen career. The people who OP says complain to her have only themselves to blame. They have choices, but they'd have to take a pay cut, and they don't want to. Hence the whining. I have no sympathy. I've never wanted to make a lot of money, and I don't care that I don't.

I don't think that's true at all. There are a number of aspects of practicing law that are entirely different than loving the law. Marketing to clients, for example and, particularly in smaller firms, clients being able/willing to pay what it costs to represent them adequately in a matter. There are a lot of lawyers out there maybe not working biglaw hours but working pretty hard and not making much money in the smaller firm market.

This. If I could just practice law, and not worry about firm economics, I'd be a lot happier (not that I'm unhappy now). Maybe that's why Fed Attorneys express more satisfaction - they don't have to deal with those non-legal elements of the practice.