Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock? Forum

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kmanskey

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Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by kmanskey » Thu Mar 21, 2019 12:06 pm

I've been working in a midlaw environment for the past 2.5 years. There are around 85 attorneys in my office and we are the only location. I've accepted a position at a "biglaw" firm and will be starting in the next month. I'm wondering if my day-to-day and/or work environment is going to be drastically different. Below are some of the relevant considerations. I would appreciate any honest feedback/advice! Thanks!

-2000 billable requirement; Bonus is tied to meeting billables.
-Get in around 8:30 and (usually) leave around 6:00-7:00.
-There are around 5 days/month that I stay much later, until around 10:00.
-I regularly log in from home to clean up emails or to finish up things needed by someone else the following day.
-I usually put in a few hours of work on the weekend. By a few I really mean 2-3 hours on a Sunday morning.
-I've had a pretty great degree of autonomy in my work. I would say only about 5% of my work consists of "puzzle piece" assignments where I am contributing a small portion to a much larger project. Everything else is assigned to me and I handle open to close.
-I have a good sized office and an assistant who handles a ton of things for me.
-We have a close-knit environment, with regular social events and the personal relationships are great. There are some not-so-great personalities in the office, but it's easy to avoid those people.
-There really isn't much reprimand if you don't meet your hours. You still get a bonus but it's just not as high.
-The pay is good, but it's just not great as related to the billing requirements. I sometimes feel I am grasping for work in order to bill.

Any insight is appreciated!

wwwcol

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Re: Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by wwwcol » Thu Mar 21, 2019 12:13 pm

Sounds like a sweet midlaw gig. Is it too late for you to back out of the biglawl job?

2013

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Re: Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by 2013 » Thu Mar 21, 2019 12:22 pm

Autonomy? Bonus even though you didn’t hit hours? 3 hours per weekend? Why would you give that up?!

That sounds like a great gig you left.

A lot of biglaw firms have “billable” requirements for bonus, but some treat that as the absolute floor for good standing. Not that it has mattered much the past couple years with the way the economy has been.

My colleague went six months without a single day off, including weekends. I think he billed 10-20 hours, on average, on weekends during that period. And apparently this isn’t too far from the norm.

You will most likely get $0 bonus if you don’t hit hours. The firms with no billable requirements will probably have you billing at least 1800+ anyway, so it’s not really a big difference.

Depending on the market, your day will start later.

Lastly, you will most likely be sharing an assistant with one partner and one or two other associates. This isn’t really your assistant, so don’t really ask for help.

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Guchster

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Re: Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by Guchster » Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:09 pm

kmanskey wrote:I've been working in a midlaw environment for the past 2.5 years. There are around 85 attorneys in my office and we are the only location. I've accepted a position at a "biglaw" firm and will be starting in the next month. I'm wondering if my day-to-day and/or work environment is going to be drastically different. Below are some of the relevant considerations. I would appreciate any honest feedback/advice! Thanks!

-2000 billable requirement; Bonus is tied to meeting billables.
-Get in around 8:30 and (usually) leave around 6:00-7:00.
-There are around 5 days/month that I stay much later, until around 10:00.
-I regularly log in from home to clean up emails or to finish up things needed by someone else the following day.
-I usually put in a few hours of work on the weekend. By a few I really mean 2-3 hours on a Sunday morning.
-I've had a pretty great degree of autonomy in my work. I would say only about 5% of my work consists of "puzzle piece" assignments where I am contributing a small portion to a much larger project. Everything else is assigned to me and I handle open to close.
-I have a good sized office and an assistant who handles a ton of things for me.
-We have a close-knit environment, with regular social events and the personal relationships are great. There are some not-so-great personalities in the office, but it's easy to avoid those people.
-There really isn't much reprimand if you don't meet your hours. You still get a bonus but it's just not as high.
-The pay is good, but it's just not great as related to the billing requirements. I sometimes feel I am grasping for work in order to bill.

Any insight is appreciated!
I would keep a good relationship with your midlaw firm. Sounds like a great gig and maybe one day you can return after biglaw chews away at you and you save up some money.

Depending on your practice group and location, be prepared to lose a lot of your autonomy, and if you've never worked in biglaw before, be prepared to get criticized and feedback for habits, decisions and choices that are probably fine (but don't conform to the exact way the egghead senior or partner want it).

Sounds like you're aware that your trading your nights and weekends for more money, so shouldn't be any surprises there when those go up in smoke.

TheoO

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Re: Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by TheoO » Thu Mar 21, 2019 4:31 pm

Do it for a while, save some money, keep your head low, and then go back...

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QContinuum

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Re: Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by QContinuum » Thu Mar 21, 2019 5:10 pm

IMO the posters above are being a bit too doomy-and-gloomy. OP is already billing 2000+ hours. Unless OP's lateraling to Cravath or WLRK, they aren't likely going to be forced to bill 2600 or some crazy number. The vast majority of BigLawyers don't go six months without a single day off, and billing 20 hours/weekend every single weekend is absolutely not the "norm".

The main thing OP's gonna give up, IMO, is autonomy and predictability. Currently they apparently do 95% of their work pretty independently, and largely get to set their hours. Unless they're going to BigLaw Tax, that will almost certainly change. They will be a lot more at the mercy of seniors and team members. They will almost certainly not be able to stick to a nice, predictable 8:30-6 schedule. They could easily end up working through a weekend but then Netflixing in the office on Monday. They will need to expect to stay late much more frequently (although on the flip side, they won't be expected to roll in at 8:30 usually), but at least the firm will pay for dinner.

TheoO

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Re: Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by TheoO » Thu Mar 21, 2019 5:21 pm

The above is true, though. I've been in biglaw close to a year and a half now, and I've rarely worked entire weekends. Occasional work on Sunday night or morning? Sure. And maybe every other month, I may have a weekend or two that I have to put in some substantial amount of work that requires half or maybe an entire day. I know people who do work like that, though, and with a fair amount of regularity, but that doesn't seem to be the rule unless your practice is just blowing up. It will also really depend on what firm and what practice group in that firm the OP is headed to, which wasn't really specified.

Also, OP, you can also get a sense of it yourself from the people in the practice group of the firm that hired you to see what your life will be like.

kmanskey

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Re: Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by kmanskey » Fri Mar 22, 2019 9:48 am

wwwcol wrote:Sounds like a sweet midlaw gig. Is it too late for you to back out of the biglawl job?
It has been great tbh. The only problem is it is a very specific type of practice and I am looking to branch wider. My goal is to be in house counsel at a specific type of environment and I'm hopeful taking this is going to open doors for me in future years.

kmanskey

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Re: Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by kmanskey » Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:09 pm

2013 wrote:Autonomy? Bonus even though you didn’t hit hours? 3 hours per weekend? Why would you give that up?!

That sounds like a great gig you left.

A lot of biglaw firms have “billable” requirements for bonus, but some treat that as the absolute floor for good standing. Not that it has mattered much the past couple years with the way the economy has been.

My colleague went six months without a single day off, including weekends. I think he billed 10-20 hours, on average, on weekends during that period. And apparently this isn’t too far from the norm.

You will most likely get $0 bonus if you don’t hit hours. The firms with no billable requirements will probably have you billing at least 1800+ anyway, so it’s not really a big difference.

Depending on the market, your day will start later.

Lastly, you will most likely be sharing an assistant with one partner and one or two other associates. This isn’t really your assistant, so don’t really ask for help.

Thanks, I appreciate your honesty. I explained a little below, but the reason I am leaving is because the work I was doing wasn't going to allow me much leverage for future opportunities. I wanted to branch out. Sucks to hear about the assistant part, I rely on her for so, so many things. Though we do share an assistant between 2 attorneys also. Thanks again.

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kmanskey

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Re: Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by kmanskey » Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:11 pm

QContinuum wrote:IMO the posters above are being a bit too doomy-and-gloomy. OP is already billing 2000+ hours. Unless OP's lateraling to Cravath or WLRK, they aren't likely going to be forced to bill 2600 or some crazy number. The vast majority of BigLawyers don't go six months without a single day off, and billing 20 hours/weekend every single weekend is absolutely not the "norm".

The main thing OP's gonna give up, IMO, is autonomy and predictability. Currently they apparently do 95% of their work pretty independently, and largely get to set their hours. Unless they're going to BigLaw Tax, that will almost certainly change. They will be a lot more at the mercy of seniors and team members. They will almost certainly not be able to stick to a nice, predictable 8:30-6 schedule. They could easily end up working through a weekend but then Netflixing in the office on Monday. They will need to expect to stay late much more frequently (although on the flip side, they won't be expected to roll in at 8:30 usually), but at least the firm will pay for dinner.
Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it. I'm hoping being able to make it in a little later will help with needing to stay later frequently.

kmanskey

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Re: Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by kmanskey » Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:13 pm

TheoO wrote:The above is true, though. I've been in biglaw close to a year and a half now, and I've rarely worked entire weekends. Occasional work on Sunday night or morning? Sure. And maybe every other month, I may have a weekend or two that I have to put in some substantial amount of work that requires half or maybe an entire day. I know people who do work like that, though, and with a fair amount of regularity, but that doesn't seem to be the rule unless your practice is just blowing up. It will also really depend on what firm and what practice group in that firm the OP is headed to, which wasn't really specified.

Also, OP, you can also get a sense of it yourself from the people in the practice group of the firm that hired you to see what your life will be like.
Thanks for your insight.

objctnyrhnr

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Re: Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by objctnyrhnr » Fri Mar 22, 2019 4:19 pm

The thing that shocked me most about biglaw when I got in is that (at least IME) it’s not even half as brutal as the anecdotal biglaw haters make it out to be. I think this is probably because you don’t get a full sampling via anecdotal evidence—you year tons about how bad it is from the people who hate it, but the others aren’t really incenstivized to say much at all.

Biglaw is fine. You’ll be fine. Your experience is sufficiently similar that it’s unlikely a ton will change other than the pay. I suppose the one major thing is that you’re never really unplugged. If you go hiking 2 hours away for the day, for example, bring your computer in the car. There’s a 1/10 chance that you’ll get an email on your phone with a partner needing something right away and you’ll have to go to Starbucks on your way home for an hour or two to deal with it. That type of thing.

But for people who like the work like myself, not ever being completely unplugged (even on vacation) really isn’t that bothersome. For people who don’t like the work and who aren’t genuinely intellectually interested in the issues, I could see this being tougher.

Anyway to summarize, good luck. You’ll be fine. Enjoy the pay bump. It’s unlikely IMO that you regret your decision.

kmanskey

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Re: Going from Midlaw to Biglaw : Am I in for a shock?

Post by kmanskey » Fri Mar 22, 2019 4:23 pm

objctnyrhnr wrote:The thing that shocked me most about biglaw when I got in is that (at least IME) it’s not even half as brutal as the anecdotal biglaw haters make it out to be. I think this is probably because you don’t get a full sampling via anecdotal evidence—you year tons about how bad it is from the people who hate it, but the others aren’t really incenstivized to say much at all.

Biglaw is fine. You’ll be fine. Your experience is sufficiently similar that it’s unlikely a ton will change other than the pay. I suppose the one major thing is that you’re never really unplugged. If you go hiking 2 hours away for the day, for example, bring your computer in the car. There’s a 1/10 chance that you’ll get an email on your phone with a partner needing something right away and you’ll have to go to Starbucks on your way home for an hour or two to deal with it. That type of thing.

But for people who like the work like myself, not ever being completely unplugged (even on vacation) really isn’t that bothersome. For people who don’t like the work and who aren’t genuinely intellectually interested in the issues, I could see this being tougher.

Anyway to summarize, good luck. You’ll be fine. Enjoy the pay bump. It’s unlikely IMO that you regret your decision.

Thanks for the reply! This is why I posted in the first place, because I'd read so much about it on this website and wondered if it'd be a huge change for me. Like you said, I actually don't mind being plugged in all the time. I keep my phone on me now and will respond to things quickly even if it's a weekend or if I'm out. Carrying my laptop and planning on emergency situations will be a change however. I like working and I prefer responding to things right away rather than putting things off so hopefully that will help. Thanks for the advice & response!

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