Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

Early retired Biglaw partner here. I'm sorry, but this is total BS. 2400 billable hours a year is a LOT of hours. It's 46.2 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Factoring in nonbillable hours, commuting time (most firms have been RTO for a while now), and you're easily at 60 hours a week 52 weeks a year.

I had access to the billable hours at my well known DC law firm as a partner. If you were averaging 2400 hours a year as a lawyer at my firm -- whether associate or partner -- you were a very high biller. I also have to say, at the risk of sounding sexist, that I never knew of a woman lawyer with young children at home who billed at that level, ever. Fathers with young children at home? Yes, sure. Not fair, I know, but reality. The women I knew who worked at that pace either weren't married or didn't have kids. They certainly didn't have young kids.

2400 hours a year also wasn't expected of the lawyers in my firm, far from it, so long as the quality of the work was good. It's also just about at the point where you have to wonder how, shall we say, legitimate the billed hours are you're recording that number on a consistent basis as this poster claims to be. In my nearly 3 decades with Biglaw (associate, counsel, and partner) I can recall billing 2400 hours just one year in my entire career, and that year was a killer -- months away from home at a trial.

Bottom line: whether knowingly or not, this poster is not being truthful, if not to OP then to either her firm or herself.

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m considering moving to a law firm from an agency for a partner-track senior associate position. The portfolio looks fantastic/ideal to me but obviously 1900 billable hours (1950 for bonus) is going to mean changes and sacrifice. I have heard horror stories of course but am just weighing options here…
There are lots of moms who are associates and partners who make it work. For those moms at comparable law firms, what does your daily/weekly schedule look like? What do you have to miss? What are your hacks? How much vacation do you take? I’m thinking I can do this for a few years and then go in-house. My 2 kids are in high school and middle school and my husband works remotely.
Thank you!

Back in 2004 I did 3,000 Billable hours. 1,950 is a joke That is 7.8 hours a day billable. But to do 3,000 hours I took zero days off that year, no lunch breaks worked around 8-8 every day on average, no vacation or sick days and did non billable admin work at night or weekends or before work. I had a 2 and 4 year old when did it. That was crazy however, but got me a big promotion. I was normally just 2,000 hours billable which was pretty easy.

All you need is a supporative spouse which I had and the ability to sleep very little. I have sleeping issues and go to bed around midnight every night and wake up aruond 545 am and fresh as a daisy. I can go on 4-5 hours sleep weeks on end. My spouse needs like 9 hours a night or cant function. Me other other hand can do fine on five hours a night so I have 20 hours extra each week of time.

I think the not sleeping is the wildcard. I could do all nighters in my 30s get home at 5am take a 90 minute power nap, get up, have coffee, shower, new clothes and be on road at 715 am no problem. My spouse it would knock her out for a few days.

It sounds like you're the male partner, and I bet you didn't have kids. Or at least you weren't a mom raising kids when you did that.

Anonymous wrote:I dont understand this. Our company is 95 percent billable hours per week for almost all employees and we easily do this within a year. Why is this hard for an attorney?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

troll

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m considering moving to a law firm from an agency for a partner-track senior associate position. The portfolio looks fantastic/ideal to me but obviously 1900 billable hours (1950 for bonus) is going to mean changes and sacrifice. I have heard horror stories of course but am just weighing options here…
There are lots of moms who are associates and partners who make it work. For those moms at comparable law firms, what does your daily/weekly schedule look like? What do you have to miss? What are your hacks? How much vacation do you take? I’m thinking I can do this for a few years and then go in-house. My 2 kids are in high school and middle school and my husband works remotely.
Thank you!

Back in 2004 I did 3,000 Billable hours. 1,950 is a joke That is 7.8 hours a day billable. But to do 3,000 hours I took zero days off that year, no lunch breaks worked around 8-8 every day on average, no vacation or sick days and did non billable admin work at night or weekends or before work. I had a 2 and 4 year old when did it. That was crazy however, but got me a big promotion. I was normally just 2,000 hours billable which was pretty easy.

All you need is a supporative spouse which I had and the ability to sleep very little. I have sleeping issues and go to bed around midnight every night and wake up aruond 545 am and fresh as a daisy. I can go on 4-5 hours sleep weeks on end. My spouse needs like 9 hours a night or cant function. Me other other hand can do fine on five hours a night so I have 20 hours extra each week of time.

I think the not sleeping is the wildcard. I could do all nighters in my 30s get home at 5am take a 90 minute power nap, get up, have coffee, shower, new clothes and be on road at 715 am no problem. My spouse it would knock her out for a few days.

It sounds like you're the male partner, and I bet you didn't have kids. Or at least you weren't a mom raising kids when you did that.

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m considering moving to a law firm from an agency for a partner-track senior associate position. The portfolio looks fantastic/ideal to me but obviously 1900 billable hours (1950 for bonus) is going to mean changes and sacrifice. I have heard horror stories of course but am just weighing options here…
There are lots of moms who are associates and partners who make it work. For those moms at comparable law firms, what does your daily/weekly schedule look like? What do you have to miss? What are your hacks? How much vacation do you take? I’m thinking I can do this for a few years and then go in-house. My 2 kids are in high school and middle school and my husband works remotely.
Thank you!

Back in 2004 I did 3,000 Billable hours. 1,950 is a joke That is 7.8 hours a day billable. But to do 3,000 hours I took zero days off that year, no lunch breaks worked around 8-8 every day on average, no vacation or sick days and did non billable admin work at night or weekends or before work. I had a 2 and 4 year old when did it. That was crazy however, but got me a big promotion. I was normally just 2,000 hours billable which was pretty easy.

All you need is a supporative spouse which I had and the ability to sleep very little. I have sleeping issues and go to bed around midnight every night and wake up aruond 545 am and fresh as a daisy. I can go on 4-5 hours sleep weeks on end. My spouse needs like 9 hours a night or cant function. Me other other hand can do fine on five hours a night so I have 20 hours extra each week of time.

I think the not sleeping is the wildcard. I could do all nighters in my 30s get home at 5am take a 90 minute power nap, get up, have coffee, shower, new clothes and be on road at 715 am no problem. My spouse it would knock her out for a few days.

Anonymous wrote:My son's fiancee is studying to be a lawyer and I wander if she is thinking about these issues (nobody in her family is a lawyer). She has ADHD tendencies so I don't know that she'd be good at staying focused on a Saturday afternoon or making best use of a half hour at home before dinner.

For people who have been through that grind: does it ever let up later in your career and how many years does it take to get there?
If 10 new hires start down that path (1900+ billable hours), how many of those 10 progress to a higher level that allows more time away from work?

Anonymous wrote:When I was an associate with those billable hours, my fellow associates with babies generally said that they saw their kids 2 hours a day. One hour in the morning and one at night.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You will need a driver to get your kids to and from afterschool sports practices/activities. At those ages, you also likely won't have much or any "after the kids go to bed" time to work.

Yeah but with teens the “after bed” doesn’t really matter. Teens can go for days without barely acknowledging your existence. Then randomly they will want to talk your ear off about some problem with a friend or a really exiting thing they did or whatever. So with teens you can get a lot done when you are in the same physical space with them provided you’re able to put the laptop down for a sec when they start to say something beyond “where are my cleats?” Or “can you drive my or the mall?” (Answers: probably wherever you left them and take the bus, I’m working).

So personally I think the critical questions are how much WFH time this firm allows and how long the commute is. A firm 30 minutes from home that allows wfh 2 days a week (and doesn’t count holidays or sick days or vacation days against your WFH) is totally different than a firm that requires 4 days minimum in office and is a full hour commute away. Teens don’t need active engagement very often but presence is helpful for when lightening strikes and they suddenly want to spend time with you. The fact that OP/ husband is 100% remote is really really helpful here—even more so if he can cook.

Also I’m not sure if the 1900 is really a minimum. There are lot of big law attorneys not making their minimums and it’s a slow road to being counseling out for that. Since OP is coming in at a high level lateral with skills, my guess is that her success will depend more on whether she is able to attract clients or provide essential backfill to partners who are rainmakers, as opposed to whether she’s at 1800 or 1900 for a year.