Reply to Explain to me like I’m five. What do “Big Law” lawyers do?

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, big law lawyers are supposed to be the most-polished, most-knowledgeable "experts" whose high fees are justified by their expertise. Why are there so many of them? Because every big corporate contract or every big corporate lawsuit is more complex than anyone outside of that "system" imagines.

The ELI5 version is basically this: suing someone gives you a right, supervised by a court and subject to rules and restrictions, to get documents and evidence from the person or company you are suing, and they from you. That's called discovery. It also gives you a right to interview people under oath (called depositions). And even a "simple" contract dispute between two big companies can involve a million pages of documents produced in discovery ("Produce to us every email any employee has ever sent relating to the underlying contract."). And dozens of depositions. Those documents have to be reviewed by lawyers or those under their supervision, and those depositions need to be prepped for and taken. Depositions can involve hundreds of exhibits, can last for a full day or more, and involve multiple big law lawyers on each side. Then you start working the case up for trial, writing motions for the judge. The motions essentially boil down to "there shouldn't even be a trial" and "if there is a trial, they shouldn't be able to say X, Y, and Z." Those motions are dozens to hundreds of pages long. Some "simple" contract disputes in federal courts have hundreds of different pre-trial filings. All written by lawyers. Then if you get to a trial, you have a bunch of witnesses, hundreds of exhibits, and more motions to write.

During this whole time you or other lawyers have been advising the client about the laws of whether they have to disclose the lawsuit in their securities filings with the government, whether it will impact their insurance, whether settling will create a risk of additional lawsuits, and a whole host of other implications. [/quote]

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