I went to big law to pay off debt and I did just that. No regrets. I did lose my 20s to the misery and awful coworkers and mendacious bosses and tedious work, but there was no other way for me to get out of debt quickly.

Whenever you have even the smallest, most menial assignment from someone who plays a big role at the firm, like the managing partner or the head of your group, spend a lot more time than you bill on it and make sure you knock it out of the park. I did a quick research assignment for the managing partner once right after My boyfriend broke up with me. It didn't go well and things were never the same for me after that.

And to that end, if you eff things up for an important person at the firm who could conceivably block your chances of promotion, cut your losses and lateral over somewhere else. I stuck it out thinking I could put my head down and work my way through it, but that was folly.

May you have better luck than I did.

NP here. I actually really enjoyed my work at my mid-sized firm (400 lawyers, at the time) and consider it to have been a fantastic training ground for later jobs. However, I left voluntarily after 4 years because I wasn't making my hours and that stressed me out, even though my work was excellent and no one had given me too much trouble about my billables. Although leaving was absolutely the right decision -- I love working for the Federal government! -- in hindsight, part of me wishes I had forced myself to care less / worry less about the hours and just stick around collecting that paycheck until they actually made me leave. I had co-workers who did less work, less well, and stayed longer because law firms are pretty chicken about actually firing people; one of my peers even made partner despite his terrible billable hours.

So in that sense I left money on the table by leaving early. I don't know if my personality is the sort that would have allowed me to not care, though, and the hours I was putting in were pretty grueling and put pressure on my home life.

FWIW, the reason for my low hours was that I was doing a lot of work on partners' business development projects, so I was working my ass off but not actually billing that much of my time. I'm undecided as to whether I should have shut down the bus-dev work to focus on billables: it was "more senior" work and led to my being successful later in my subsequent jobs. But it sucked to not get credit for it. YMMV.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Understand that favoritism will triumph over good work.

Which is why you shouldn't kill yourself being a billable hours machine. Do what you need to do, do it well, but playing misery poker with your life and health and marriage (and kids, if you have them) is no guarantee of making partner. Work smart. Observe closely who makes partner, seems well-adjusted, and figure out why. Be like them. Observe also who fail at work and at life. Don't be like them. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

With the understanding that some associates get an easy ride to the finish line in a doddering partner's BMW.

Save your money. I wasted so much money on whatever I wanted because I was so busy. I probably wasted at least $200k over the years. Now that I work in public interest I kick myself all the time.

These are all amazing responses. Again I'm so grateful to the PPs who are putting in their time to give good advice here.

About the biglaw to govt back to biglaw route - doesn't that create a conflict of interest that prevents you from working on the opposite side? Can a corporate securities lawyer actually move to the SEC after 2-3 years in Biglaw and then move back to firm life if he chooses? I'm pretty sure there's a rule you can't do that, whether corporate or litigation...

(OP here)

Lots of good advice here. But contrary to some I thought the advice about seeing the big picture is good. Not in a bossy way, no. But one of the big problems I found as an associate -- at least in litigation -- was that most assignments were discrete tasks and sometimes I couldn't see how they fit into the whole. No one told me and I did not know how to ask. As I progressed it became more obvious -- ok, I am doing this research which you will incorporate into a motion for summary judgment, and we're going to need to know the law in order to figure out what kind of facts to present and what kind of expert witness we will need -- but I was always the go-to research or writing person, never the go-to strategy person, and I think this would have hurt in the long run had I stayed. (I left after 3 years.) The partner I did most of my work for used to tell me I needed to take "ownership" of the case. I felt very resentful at the time, thinking to myself "how the hell am I supposed to do that when you constantly change your mind and second guess and I have no experience in this area?" But when I left for the government and was suddenly handed my own cases, which I did entirely on my own, I realized what he was talking about. When you are responsible for every aspect of the case, you strategize from the beginning and take the long view, the big picture view. Could I have really done this is a junior or low midlevel associate at the firm? Of course not. Should I have invested in my cases as though I owned them and asked what was going through the minds of the senior lawyers in charge? Yes.

I will also second the advice about living as though it's a temp job. Sock away as much money as you can, pay off your loans as fast as possible, etc. That way you have the option to leave if you want to. And if you don't want to, you'll just make that much more money!

And I will second the advice about doing a stint in government. Put in 2-4 years at the firm -- enough to inculcate a real work ethic and perfectionism -- and then do another 4 years at your agency of choice (whatever makes sense for your practice) to really learn the nuts and bolts and to learn what it's like to practice without firm resources. Then, if you go back to the firm, you will be a much better lawyer. I was a very good junior associate when I left, but had doubts about my ability to be a good midlevel. If I went back today, after 4 years with the government, I believe I would be an outstanding senior associate.

Finally -- I will disagree with the advice to have kids while at the firm, at least if you are a woman. For a man that would probably be fine. I saw a lot of women get dinged for this, despite wonderful paper policies. And I could not have made it work with the hours I was working. I am a woman and waited to have kids until I was with the government. I forfeited the wonderful maternity leave benefits the firm would have provided. In return, I get actual time with my husband and child. I rarely saw my husband when I was at the firm, and I wasn't even billing nearly as many hours as the top associates. You literally could not pay me to have a child under those conditions.

Recognize that for a long time, your "client" is not the client, but other people in the firm. As a junior partner, I recognize that my primary client is still in fact the partner with the direct client relationships. Everything I do is towards the goal of making his life and relationships with our clients smoother. Just by way of example: if he asked me to look into something, I know that he wants to understand it before talking to the client. Provide that information to him in the best way possible to accomplish that (in our case, a short bulleted email with headings and underlinings. He doesn't want a novella). Don't always be doing things in the biggest, longest, best way. Do them in the common sense way. What is the most helpful work product?

Also, just be a generally nice person to be around. Applying this strategy, I've been able to carve a pretty great work life balance in an interesting area of the law -- but I'm only a mediocre lawyer. Being a normal, helpful human being is a lot more helpful than being a nerd or super worker.

Strategize early on for the life you want in the long term. Pick the partners and practice area with decent work flow, decent hours and good personalities. Establish early on that your value added is doing good work, being a nice person, being responsive (including jumping on the occassional weekend last minute item) and not a face-time long hours person. It never makes sense to pour in tons of hours as an associate, because there are only two possible outcomes: One, you establish yourself as the person who puts in long hours, and so you still have to do this as a partner; or two, you leave biglaw after a few years, only to get paid the exact same as the associates who billed 1800 hours for 5 years. No one puts in 2500 hours as an associate, to find their hours drop off as a partner.

This thread is churning out amazing advice. Thank you guys - I have already bookmarked the books that were recommended to me and I'll buy them when I get my next paycheck.

Anonymous wrote:Also, as a junior associate, if there is a deadline approaching, and you have work to do, never leave before the more senior people on your project. Check with them to see if there is more you can do to help before leaving if you have finished your work. Nothing is more infuriating than when the junior person takes off leaving the senior folks to do his/her work.

This is absolutely true. I saw more than one associate who's career was damaged by leaving too early when partners and more senior associates were leaving.

I'm not a lawyer, but there's some great advice on this thread that applies to any profession.

My biglaw firm focused on litigation, so I do not know if this is transferrable to corporate. But, if I had it to do over again I would have left after 2 years and gone to the government, then considered returning later. Starting around my 6th year, I noticed that most of the people making partner had been hired as laterals, as opposed to having 'worked their way up' from a junior associate. I left because I was not confident that the firm would give me the experience I would need to make partner (they made promises but it seemed like too much of a gamble).

Almost everyone I know who started at a firm after law school has left biglaw, but a large percentage of people who started in the public sector and then went to biglaw as 'of counsel' and later became partners have stayed.

I don't want to go back, because I enjoy the lifestyle of my current job. But I wonder if I'd have been happy to go back to a firm if I had left earlier in my career.

Also, as a junior associate, if there is a deadline approaching, and you have work to do, never leave before the more senior people on your project. Check with them to see if there is more you can do to help before leaving if you have finished your work. Nothing is more infuriating than when the junior person takes off leaving the senior folks to do his/her work.

Doing good work consistently is only the starting point. You need a powerful partner in your corner, figure out who that is in your practice group and cultivate a relationship. Start networking/doing client development work early, maybe after your first year once you have some idea what you are doing work wise.