Reply to 1950 billable hours req - manageable with kids?

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[quote=Anonymous]I had a billing requirement of 1800 when I left biglaw.  DH had a horrible commute so I had to do pickup and drop off myself.  I ended up hiring a part-time babysitter, who would pick up DD from daycare, and watch her until I came home.  I was in a manageable group with steady hours, and so I generally worked from 8 am until around 6 or 7.  It was manageable, but I still left and took a major pay cut to get a fed lawyer job.  So, even though my daily practice was manageable and few fire drills and no all nighters, I still needed to hire someone to pick DD up b/c as a law firm lawyer, you need flexibility to stay late, and you don't want to be scrambling to arrange for pickup when you have a substantive emergency project to work on.  I also worked many nights (after DD had gone to sleep) and many weekends on huge, substantive nonbillable projects that firms ask you to do as a "feather in your cap" but are a total pain when you want to spend time with your kid.

So you need to ask yourself if you are going for short-term to make money for a few years, or is this your long-term strategy?  It's a very different culture from most government agencies, where there is more of a culture of leaving at around 5 to go home...

Also, if you've never billed time before, I think you will end up working more initially as you learn the ropes of your firm and the specific requirements in terms of how to record your time.  So you will probably be more inefficient initially.

Although I miss the prestige and the $$$ and the greater professionalism of the firm I was in (as compared to my agency), realistically, I would not go back.  But I'm glad to have been there, both professionally and financially.

Law firm life does afford you some more flexibility, in the sense that you are not required to be in the office as you are in government.  So, in a law firm, you don't have to take leave to go to a doctor's appointment.  You are judged based on your hours.  I still found it to be way more work in toto than government lawyering.[/quote]

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