How to change Big Law culture?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not in the biz, but found myself inexplicably drawn to this post.

Can't imagine the mental and physical health consequences of this kind of existence.

What do you mean? It is person by person. Most have no issues.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Op, if you enjoy any of the following, please make sure you are willing to sacrifice all of them:

— expensive cars
— $2 million plus house
— vacation house
— regular dinners with a $300+ tab
— expensive event tickets on a regular basis
— constant wardrobe updates with designer clothes
— multiple vacations per year at 5 star hotels

Plenty of people are OK without these things. But the golden handcuffs are real. Having a spouse making $750k at a law firm versus $190k per year in govt is the difference between being able to afford these things and not being able to afford them.

Op - I don’t know why I am defending myself but we don’t do any of the things you listed above.

We bought our house for $700,000 10 years ago. We drive a mini van and a sedan. No vacation house or expensive vacations multiple times a year. I don’t even do stitch fix (mostly because I don’t care about clothes).

Our money has all gone towards paying off school loans, daycare for our kids, saving for retirement and college for our kids.

Our biggest splurges are every other year trips to somewhere nice and a fancy dinner out every other month if we can find time and a babysitter.

Okay so why is DH still in biglaw? You don't have golden handcuffs from a super fancy lifestyle.

Everyone is saying that the best option is to leave. Culture change is slow. He should ask fellow colleagues how they set boundaries. But I am in-house and a lot of us are making the point that with extremely high billing rates, we have certain expectations of biglaw attorneys who make much more than we do. And our own deadlines, internal and external, are coming from our leadership or external forces. The real "fix" is to do biglaw for a certain period, make the $$$, and then move on - apart from the small # of people who forge some balance or who really enjoy the work of the $.

Not op but I wonder how people move on. What jobs do they get? I know many attorneys but no big law ones. None make over 300k. And they work very hard, long hours, have billable hours too...So where do former big law people go and get jobs that still pay well and are low pressure?

In-house at banks and tech companies

Neither of those options hire many mid-tier litigation partners. It's much harder for a run of the mill big law litigator to land those sorts of exit options.

Many litigation partners go in house for clients they have represented. That’s the best place to start if someone is committed to going in house.

This and also litigation at the Big Law level is a really broad category -- it's not like being a trial attorney. If you are making partner at a Big Law firm in the litigation department you generally have pretty deep subject matter and industry expertise both of which will be huge assets for moving out of the Big Law firm to either a smaller firm or a non-firm role. Like generally you have some industry specialization even if broad (telecom or tech or oil & gas or whatever) and then you'll have years of experience on certain issues (insurance or IP or specific fed regulatory etc.).

If you are a Big Law litigator and don't want to be in Big Law anymore you should be looking for ways to cultivate your resume to position yourself as a subject matter expert to move in house. So many ways to do this. But you generally cannot become a partner as a generalist and if you are then you need to get very intentional about how you proceed.

[Anonymous]

Biglaw is going to collapse in a decade or so anyway. Junior associates don’t want to work. Clients are tired of the high and bringing more work in house. Most firms don’t have a plan for AI. And leadership is still chasing PPP with their heads in the sand.

[Anonymous]

Op, not sure if you are still reading but I’m ina similar situation but I’m ok with it.

I’m the DW, make about $200k, three elementary age kids, do 99% of house and kid stuff, and DH equity partner at V10 firm.

You don’t have a big law problem, you have a DH problem. My DH started in biglaw, made and saved a bunch in his first 5 years, went to government (when we met) and was there for about 10 years. We finished paying off student loans (me) and started having kids and DH started being unhappy with his government job and decided to try big law again (he also tried in house positions but it’s not a lot more money than government and more job uncertainty).

DH has now been in big law for almost the entirety of us having kids and while he makes a boatload of money (he’s good at business development and makes mid-seven figures) and works a lot, he loves his work. He bills more than the average partner at his firm by 300 hrs. He is much happier than when he was in government and had more time for his hobbies and the kids.

When I met DH I thought he would stay in government forever, and I’m in the nonprofit space so I’m not super motivated career-wise about money. DH obviously makes enough now that he could cut back (we save a lot even with a very nice lifestyle) his hours and work less, and then get paid less, but *he doesn’t want to.*

I also don’t want to quit my job, so I get it.

But I am married to someone who is a good father, a kind person, and a loving husband, AND is also someone who doesn’t want to work less and is ok with those trade offs in terms of family life and balance. Those are choices he is making, he isn’t some patsy who was tricked into become a big law partner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Biglaw is going to collapse in a decade or so anyway. Junior associates don’t want to work. Clients are tired of the high and bringing more work in house. Most firms don’t have a plan for AI. And leadership is still chasing PPP with their heads in the sand.

Sure hope so!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Biglaw is going to collapse in a decade or so anyway. Junior associates don’t want to work. Clients are tired of the high and bringing more work in house. Most firms don’t have a plan for AI. And leadership is still chasing PPP with their heads in the sand.

This was the prediction when I started practicing … in 2003. No one could believe back then that paying first year associates $125k was sustainable or that any partner could be worth $1000/hr.

[Anonymous]

Agree this is a DH problem. He sounds like he is a poor manager and team-builder.

[Anonymous]

I work as an in-house lawyer at a Fortune 100 company, and used to work in BigLaw. (I am 52 years old.) My DH works in BigLaw now after working many years as an attorney in the federal government.

1. It sounds like your DH chose a specialty that is very demanding. Within BigLaw there are types of specialties that do not have such crazy deadlines. I personally never considered Litigation or Mergers/Acquisitions because a mentor steered me away from those due to quality of life issues, early in my career.

2. Because there are a lot of high-quality law firms from which to choose, and so many lawyers, I can understand why BigLaw lawyers want to be super-responsive with turning the work around. Otherwise, the client will easily go elsewhere. I have noticed that, every time my employer is in the news for any reason, we get so many solicitations from law firms to offer to represent us. Or various firms will offer to do a free CLE. It's perhaps inevitable in a field that is saturated with smart people who want to charge high rates -- there is going to be a lot of competition, and a need to provide very high-quality and fast turnaround.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Biglaw is going to collapse in a decade or so anyway. Junior associates don’t want to work. Clients are tired of the high and bringing more work in house. Most firms don’t have a plan for AI. And leadership is still chasing PPP with their heads in the sand.

Speaking of AI - I fear that most big firms do have a plan for AI - and my relatively nice small firm job is in trouble because we don't have the same budget for AI, and I can't work as efficiently as a big firm lawyer with better AI.

[Anonymous]

Build your own book of business and join a firm that lets you keep most of your profits after a fair allocation of overhead. They exist, but if you can't find one that works for you, then start one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Biglaw is going to collapse in a decade or so anyway. Junior associates don’t want to work. Clients are tired of the high and bringing more work in house. Most firms don’t have a plan for AI. And leadership is still chasing PPP with their heads in the sand.

ahahahahahahahahahahhaa bless your heart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Biglaw is going to collapse in a decade or so anyway. Junior associates don’t want to work. Clients are tired of the high and bringing more work in house. Most firms don’t have a plan for AI. And leadership is still chasing PPP with their heads in the sand.

ahahahahahahahahahahhaa bless your heart.

It will reduce the number of junior associates hired…but make experienced attorneys more productive and richer.

I have never heard people despise their own employees like partners seem to despise their associates (except for a small chosen few).

It’s frankly strange.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Biglaw is going to collapse in a decade or so anyway. Junior associates don’t want to work. Clients are tired of the high and bringing more work in house. Most firms don’t have a plan for AI. And leadership is still chasing PPP with their heads in the sand.

This was the prediction when I started practicing … in 2003. No one could believe back then that paying first year associates $125k was sustainable or that any partner could be worth $1000/hr.

Biglaw is fine. There will be enough associates that will work -- clients are not bringing most Biglaw work in-house. The whole goal of the elite Biglaw firms is to just end up with a group of firms that only do high end work. That will never go in-house. AI will take away a lot but not that. Clients will pay when it is a bet the company issue. Less associates for sure but Biglaw is not in trouble -- at least at the top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Biglaw is going to collapse in a decade or so anyway. Junior associates don’t want to work. Clients are tired of the high and bringing more work in house. Most firms don’t have a plan for AI. And leadership is still chasing PPP with their heads in the sand.

ahahahahahahahahahahhaa bless your heart.

It will reduce the number of junior associates hired…but make experienced attorneys more productive and richer.

I have never heard people despise their own employees like partners seem to despise their associates (except for a small chosen few).

It’s frankly strange.

I've never met a partner who despises their associates. They certainly expect high quality work and responsiveness. Those aren't unreasonable expectations when the starting pay is north of $200k. A junior associate's main value is their responsiveness and attention to detail. Associates who only want to out in the bare minimum won't last long, especially if there's an economic slowdown.

[Anonymous]

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.