Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day? Forum

[beepboopbeep]

Any DC regulatory lawyers out there?

[Bigbub75]

Any DC regulatory lawyers out there?

[FamilyLawEsq]

Regardless of the the size of the law firm, there are certain truths about private practice:

It is not an 8AM to 5 PM job, never was and never will be.
You will work evenings, at home or the office, and sometimes on weekends.
You will never be "caught up" with your work.
Sitting down to dinner with your spouse and kids at a set time is rare.
You will miss some of your kids' activities/sporting events.
You will have many sleepless nights thinking about the work.
You can never truly relax on vacation.
Knowing how to golf is an advantage especially if you are female.
Shitty cases and blame flow south.
Accolades and money flow north.
Clients' expectations exceed your ability to get the work done.
You will have a love/hate relationship with your staff.

[Tom K]

I live in the Midwest in a city with a population of 200,000 and an SMSA of 600,000. I probably work about 45-50 hours a week. My guess is that's average, possibly a little lower than average. At times, I probably work 60 hours a week. It all depends on the workflow and while I can manage the workflow some, not entirely.

I am currently a solo and my income (after the first few years) has ranged from about $100,000 to $165,000. This year, I expect to earn $120,000 to $130,000. Some of the reasons for variable income include case selection criteria, labor costs, and political considerations. My income also depends in part on how actively I chase fees; I have had to be a little more active in the last year or two. I have consistently had plenty of work to keep me busy.

I am very familiar with a firm that has about 6 attorneys. The attorneys there generally earn $100,000/year after 5 years. They have profitsharing every year. I don't think there is any plan for any of the attorneys to become shareholders in the corporation. My guess is that the attorneys there work 45-50 hours a week.

[North]

I live in the Midwest in a city with a population of 200,000 and an SMSA of 600,000. I probably work about 45-50 hours a week. My guess is that's average, possibly a little lower than average. At times, I probably work 60 hours a week. It all depends on the workflow and while I can manage the workflow some, not entirely.

I am currently a solo and my income (after the first few years) has ranged from about $100,000 to $165,000. This year, I expect to earn $120,000 to $130,000. Some of the reasons for variable income include case selection criteria, labor costs, and political considerations. My income also depends in part on how actively I chase fees; I have had to be a little more active in the last year or two. I have consistently had plenty of work to keep me busy.

I am very familiar with a firm that has about 6 attorneys. The attorneys there generally earn $100,000/year after 5 years. They have profitsharing every year. I don't think there is any plan for any of the attorneys to become shareholders in the corporation. My guess is that the attorneys there work 45-50 hours a week.

What specific activities do you do in a typical day or week? How do you bring in new business? I've read that being a solo means you have to be an excellent businessman, in addition to being a good lawyer, in order to keep things running. How does your time split between the two? Did you go solo out of law school? If so, how hard was it? What area of law do you specialize in?

[Anonymous User]

Any DC regulatory lawyers out there?

I work in a JD (strongly preferred) position in the regulatory compliance office of an agency in DC. If anyone is interested, I can describe my typical day.

[yossarian]

I work in a JD (strongly preferred) position in the regulatory compliance office of an agency in DC. If anyone is interested, I can describe my typical day.

I would be very interested in this. Interested to hear about any gov/admin related positions.

[Pleasye]

I work in a JD (strongly preferred) position in the regulatory compliance office of an agency in DC. If anyone is interested, I can describe my typical day.

I would be very interested in this. Interested to hear about any gov/admin related positions.

Second this. And also the questions directed at the solo above.

Thank you to everyone who has participated so far this thread is awesome.

[yossarian]

Thank you to everyone who has participated so far this thread is awesome.

[Anonymous User]

I'd love to hear from any government attorneys, fed or state. Thanks to everyone who has already posted, this thread is awesome.

I don't work for the government, but government employees are my clients. I work in the niche field of Public Sector L&E, defending Employees (EE) in disciplinary and discharge matters. I deal exclusively with Los Angeles County Departments (Sheriffs, Probation, District Attorney, Public Defender, Parks and Rec, Public Works, Library, etc.) and employment issues.

Public Sector practice is a little different than traditional L&E. As a "permanent Public Employee" one has a DP interest in their jobs. When there is a taking (unpaid suspension of more than 5-days and/or discharge) the EE must be given notice and an opportunity to be heard. The flow is usually: (1) complaint, (2) investigation, (3) notice of intent to suspend, (4) Skelly, (5) Notice of suspension, (6) Civil Service Hearing (trial), (7) Appeal in Superior Court. A public EE is entitled to a representative at any stage in the above-noted spectrum.

The Civil Service Commission is the "trial like" forum where a hearing officer will make a recommendation to the ultimate decision makers, the Civil Service Commission (panel of 5 commissioners), and if the EE is unsuccessful then they can file an appeal in superior court.

The rights mentioned above are administrative in nature, which means that the EE retains their personal or individual rights and can concurrently file a L&E claim with a traditional L&E attorney at the same time.

The work is fun and there is never a shortage of clients. A typical day involves calls from EE's (who falls somewhere on the spectrum above) looking for representation. Typically my day-to-day routine involves a lot of phone consultations, letter drafting, and preparation for hearings. This job is perfect for 3L who wants to get trial experience. Since the forum is not in a judicial tribunal you do not need a license to represent an EE in Civil Service. Most people who work in this field do have a license (like me), but I've seen a lot of EEs bring in friends who are in law school, to represent them.

It's interesting work. It's such a niche field a lot of people have never even heard of it. Thought I'd share...

[Anonymous User]

This was me:

I work in a JD (strongly preferred) position in the regulatory compliance office of an agency in DC. If anyone is interested, I can describe my typical day.

I say 'strongly' preferred because, while over 95% of the people in my general position here have JD's, some specially qualified people do not.

It's not a typical attorney position - although what we do is certainly legal in nature, anything we do that is especially novel or significant has to be cleared by the Office of General Counsel first. The OGC seems to be filled with superstars (e.g. Ivy undergrad + Top Master's Program + T14 law). While I like to think I'm qualified, I'm no superstar However, everyone in my office is fairly qualified (e.g. above median at T20 to top grades from a TTT, and from a solid undergrad).

Every one in my position in my office has a somewhat specialized role, although every one has to at least know a bit of everything the division does.

Typically, I'll have a standing 'to-do' list that I'll have to get through. On this to-do list would be varying types of assignments with differing due dates.

For example, I might have to respond to an private attorney's inquiry about how he or she can comply with the applicable regulations in his or her particular circumstances. This might have a due date of ASAP.

Similarly, someone may have complained about a regulated entity to us. It would be my job to decide if the complaint warranted further action on our part. This would also have a due date of ASAP.

Another assignment might be to draft a Guidance document, which would be a publicly available document recommending strategies to comply with certain regulations that may not be very intuitive, and it would also note areas in which we were going to exercise enforcement discretion. This might have a deadline of "rough draft due in 3 weeks".

Finally, another assignment might be a research project, where my supervisor wanted me to draft a memo explaining new developments in the regulated industry, and how we might considering reacting.

Because I'm on the lower end of the totem pole, everything I draft or recommend must be reviewed and approved at at least 2 levels. I guess this is similar to private practice where a mid-level and a partner might both review a junior's work product before submitting it to the court.

To make sure I'm on target with all of my deadlines, and to give myself some variety, I'll switch between projects throughout the day.

So, for example:

8:45am: Get into work, have my coffee at my desk and review news stories (compiled by a third party service) that relate to our agency and/or the regulated industry.

9:00am: Review a private attorney's inquiry. Because it brings up a delicate question of law, I draft a question for OGC, and forward it to my supervisor for his concurrence.

10:30am: Work on my ongoing project of drafting Guidance.

12:00pm: Get lunch at the facility cafeteria, eat it at my desk and goof around on the internet.

12:30pm: Work on my ongoing research project about developments in the regulated industry.

1:30pm: Supervisor wants to meet with me and another person to discuss the ongoing Guidance project. Head off to supervisor office with my materials.

1:50pm: Start working on the Guidance project again.

3:00pm: Get back my complaint action recommendation from my supervisor, supervisor concurred. Draft a warning letter, send to supervisor for review.

4:00pm: Review a newly submitted complaint, send my recommended action off to my supervisor.

5:00pm: Another agency division just came out with a Guidance. Supervisor wants me to review the Guidance and write a memo comparing that division's practices with ours for consistency.

5:15: Day is technically over, however, decide to spend another 30 minutes for credit hours working on the aforementioned memo, because the deadline is ASAP.

5:45: Head home.

It's not bad. Going through OGC can get annoying, but there is enough variety from day to day and month to month to keep things at least somewhat interesting.

The week also may be occasionally broken up by division-wide or office-wide meetings, as well as the occasional conference or training session. Substantively, the work changes every few weeks or months or so, as new regulations come out, get finalized, become effective, etc., or Congress passes new laws that affect our agency / division.

Our division also has an office of regulations, where they draft new regulations and cooperate with various offices in drafting guidance documents. That also seems like pretty cool position, but I don't know much about their day-to-day.

[yossarian]

Thank you so much for the level of detail. I really appreciate the insight.

If you have the time and don't mind a follow-up, can you speak to how credit hours work at your agency?

[Anonymous User]

Thank you so much for the level of detail. I really appreciate the insight.

If you have the time and don't mind a follow-up, can you speak to how credit hours work at your agency?

Sure, no problem.

I'm not sure how credit hours work with litigating attorneys. For example, I have DOJ friends who will sometimes mention 50 hour weeks, and from their demeanor, it doesn't sound like they are getting credit hours for it.

However, in most (all?) government offices like mine, working credit essentially means you work over 40 hours that week, and any hours you work over 40 you can accrue as 'credit hours' and use it as annual leave.

However, credit hours are treated differently from the annual leave you accrue each pay period, in that you can stockpile any amount of annual leave, but any credit hours you have at the end of the month above 30 or so, you have to 'use or lose'.

Technically most fed offices allow employees to work credit hours without supervisor permission, but it's no secret that if you don't have any urgent assignments, or you are mostly goofing off on the internet during your credit hours, you are going to piss off your boss and hear about it later.

They are a pretty sweet deal really. If you can find the time and justification to work, for example, two 44 hour weeks, you've just earned a day of vacation.

[politibro44]

Any DOJ, Capitol Hill, or other gov't agency lawyers?

[BlueLotus]

If any practitioner working in civil Legal Aid could chime in, I would greatly appreciate it!

I'll bite.

Get in around 8ish, start preparing for either day with clients or day of solo work. I'm currently funded under a grant, so most of my clients are scheduled in advance, which I know is not true for every legal aid attorney. Our office also works closely with the local court, so sometimes I get drop-in limited service clients or the occasional emergency intakes. Mornings that aren't full of client meetings are usually filled up by things that *have* to be done that day, like court filings or submitting other time-sensitive docs. I have multiple cases that are in litigation now, and those are by far the most time consuming. It doesn't help that I'm new to all of this (2013 grad), but hey, gotta learn sometime, eh?

If my day is full of clients, those days are waaay more exhausting. Today was one of those. I'm still new enough to feel like every client is an issue-spotting law school exam, because if their personal stories aren't unique enough, they'll present me enough hypos to make things weird.

Regardless of whether I'm seeing clients or just researching/figuring out law stuff, the mornings fly by. Before I know it, it's lunchtime, where I more often than not take less than a half hour or eat at my desk, just to get work done.

In the afternoon, I might have a work meeting or other cases to follow up on that I didn't get to in the morning. I currently have ~60 cases. Regardless, I have to squeeze in administrative work, like closing case files or tracking my time to comply with fed (LSC) requirements. Thing about legal aid is, we don't have the resources to have much staff for each lawyer. So a good amount of my time is spent doing admin stuff, and I must say, I've become pretty proficient with copy machines. (My personal printer is another story. I literally fight jams in that thing every day.)

While most people in my office leave around 5ish, I'm usually there until at least 6ish. If it's grant reporting time, then I may pull a 12-hour day.

Oh, and there's the occasional community outreach event days, where I'll go to different sites to talk about what services our office provides.

In short, my days can be challenging, varied, and full of a lot of admin stuff. That can get annoying, esp. if I know I have a lot of law stuff to be done, but it is what it is. Things can obviously get stressful, too, and as with many PI jobs, I have to make an active effort to not get burned out. Productive and rewarding days, like-minded coworkers, and grateful clients definitely help.

dunkin, how did you obtain your legal aid position as a fresh grad? through a fellowship, or were you straight up hired as a staff attorney? or did you have to volunteer until an opening occurred?

[dsamuels]

Can anyone comment on intellectual property law? or Litigation? Thank you in advance

[09042014]

Desert Fox Intellectual Property Litigator Lover Larger-than-Life

Wake up my dogs ass in my face at 9 am.

shit shower shave

Get to train station at 9:45-10:00

Read email on teh train

Get to work at 10:15.

Pretend to work for an hour.

Do research on my own schedule.

Read documents that are important.

Think about shit.

Negotiate which food truck we are getting lunch from. Luckily it's taco tuesday

12-12:45 lunch.

Google " plasma etching"

Reads wikipedia for 20 minutes

1:45

"DF do you have ten minutes to discuss Y case"

Walks up stairs

Tell partner why his idea is retarded but do it gently

"How is that compliant going?"

(never mentioned actually starting it before right now

"Ok when do you need it"

Tomorrow

Goes back to desk and starts copying a complaint filed by other lawyer in same type of case.

2:30 goes and gets coffee with girls from the floor

2:45 "Upon information and belief, Opponent sucks small asian cock for a living."

3:45 "Alarm: Technical Team Meeting for Case X in 15 minutes."

3:55: "Alarm: Technical Team Meeting for Case X in 15 minutes."

4:00 - beep boop boop beeeep bep booop booop bib bob beep

4:01 - Number confirmed

4:01 - if you are the meeting coordinator press 1 now

4:02- Please say your name after the beep .. . . (says nothing).

4:07- NYC here, DC, Here, SF here.

4:08 - Email :Where r u

4:08 - Email : Come to Lee

4:09 walks up stairs to conference room nobody mentioned we were meeting in/

4:10-15 - Parnter I don't know from NYC describes the client is stonewalling but is definitely totally fucked

4:20-45 slowly go over list of stupid assignments that really can't get started because the client doesn't get information

4:45 - DF how is your thing going. "GOOD" (already has it done but I don't want another assignment)

5-8 work on complaint

8 - email version to partner of local counsel who cites checks it for me. PRESTIGE

8 ride subway home

8:30 order indian food

9-11 finish work

11- watch game of thrones

12 finish bottle of wine

4am wake up from teh couch and crawl into bed. Find dog spread eagle on my pillow.

[Kharon542]

Great thread! Tagging for later.

[Dredd_2017]

Wake up my dogs ass in my face at 9 am.

4am wake up from teh couch and crawl into bed. Find dog spread eagle on my pillow.

Serious Q: How do you take care of a dog (Walking / playing / brushing if necessary) with the hours biglaw requires? I really want to get a dog but I also realize it's a huge time commitment that I probably won't be able to meet in 1L, let alone if I actually nab a preftigious job.

This thread is amazing, thanks to everyone who has posted so far!

Edit: Saw this thread isn't for 0L's, if a mod nukes this I'll take it as a sign to ask my pressing dog related questions in a different forum.

[Danger Zone]

You have plenty of time 1L for a dog, probably way more than you'll ever have post-law school.

[bk1]

Lots of biglawyers that I know use doggy daycare. DZ is also right that you can easily take care of a dog during 1L (and any part of law school).

[09042014]

Lots of biglawyers that I know use doggy daycare. DZ is also right that you can easily take care of a dog during 1L (and any part of law school).

my dogs just get severe separation anxiety

[The Dark Shepard]

any DAs who want to chime in?

[dunkin]

dunkin, how did you obtain your legal aid position as a fresh grad? through a fellowship, or were you straight up hired as a staff attorney? or did you have to volunteer until an opening occurred?

Pretty much straight-up hired, but a lot of my colleagues were hired on through a fellowship and from volunteering at this org. I volunteered for a different legal aid organization before law school and after taking the bar. That, along with other PI work experience and just getting lucky, helped me get this position, as the legal aid community's pretty small. Other things that helped: being willing to move, strong references (talked to the interviewer afterward about my selection), and still applying when the Vale's dark walls were closing in on me. (If you're a current Valer, I really feel your pain. Hang in there.)

[BlueLotus]

dunkin, how did you obtain your legal aid position as a fresh grad? through a fellowship, or were you straight up hired as a staff attorney? or did you have to volunteer until an opening occurred?

Pretty much straight-up hired, but a lot of my colleagues were hired on through a fellowship and from volunteering at this org. I volunteered for a different legal aid organization before law school and after taking the bar. That, along with other PI work experience and just getting lucky, helped me get this position, as the legal aid community's pretty small. Other things that helped: being willing to move, strong references (talked to the interviewer afterward about my selection), and still applying when the Vale's dark walls were closing in on me. (If you're a current Valer, I really feel your pain. Hang in there.)

I will be a Valer very shortly (Rising 3L here).

So I take it that for Legal Aid, traditional measures of "achievement" (LR, rank, grades) don't matter? I have a lot of volunteer experience with various Legal Aid orgs, but I'm pretty meh academically.