Susman Godfrey Hours? Culture? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Can someone give insight into how much Susman requires/wants associates to bill?
Workload?

I've heard they offer a lot of experience, but as someone coming off a clerkship with very little REAL legal training, do they actually *teach* you how to practice?

[Anonymous User]

My perspective is incomplete but not totally ill-informed. Take it with a small grain of salt, but maybe not a huge grain.

Billables: think of it as 2400 minimum, and likely more. Two things make that easier to hit than at other firms: SG attorneys travel more than many; more importantly, associates run cases and are rarely waiting for work to be assigned. It's probably easier to bill ten hours per day there than nearly anywhere.

Experience: no, they do not really teach in the sense of formal training. Partners might give a greater or lesser degree of feedback, and you can get folks to workshop something with you, or chat over things. There are SG cases where only an associate has entered an appearance. Lots of primary drafting, speaking, and case-management experience, but if you're not finding a way to get feedback or to reflect and learn, no guarantee that you're going to get better.

[Tide030]

Around 2500. So expect an average work week of 50-60 hours.

No, the nation’s number one boutique litigation firm does not train its new associates.

Of course they do. They also only hire incredibly hardworking and intelligent associates who don’t need much handholding as new lawyers.

Law firms aren’t schools. Don’t expect them to teach you. They’ll give you opportunities to figure it out on your own and, hopefully, provide constructive feedback so you can improve.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone give insight into how much Susman requires/wants associates to bill?
Workload?

I've heard they offer a lot of experience, but as someone coming off a clerkship with very little REAL legal training, do they actually *teach* you how to practice?

Senior SG associate. There's no requirement or desire, though the median tends to be around 2,700 hours. If you're much lower than that you'll likely get staffed to another case--not because the firm has some sort of expectation, but rather because associates are the scarcest commodity and there is always a backlog of cases needing them.

As others have noted, there is very little formal training. We're a firm where people learn by doing, and that's the kind of associate the firm tends to attract--i.e. very entrepreneurial, confident, go-getter types. Of course, that doesn't mean training is non-existent. Every associate is assigned an associate and a partner mentor (and eventually has the option for two partner mentors), and the mentors frequently give feedback not just on how to navigate the firm, but also on substantive tasks. And pretty much all of the associates and partners alike are happy to sit down and go over work product to give you pointers on how to improve.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone give insight into how much Susman requires/wants associates to bill?
Workload?

I've heard they offer a lot of experience, but as someone coming off a clerkship with very little REAL legal training, do they actually *teach* you how to practice?

Senior SG associate. There's no requirement or desire, though the median tends to be around 2,700 hours. If you're much lower than that you'll likely get staffed to another case--not because the firm has some sort of expectation, but rather because associates are the scarcest commodity and there is always a backlog of cases needing them.

As others have noted, there is very little formal training. We're a firm where people learn by doing, and that's the kind of associate the firm tends to attract--i.e. very entrepreneurial, confident, go-getter types. Of course, that doesn't mean training is non-existent. Every associate is assigned an associate and a partner mentor (and eventually has the option for two partner mentors), and the mentors frequently give feedback not just on how to navigate the firm, but also on substantive tasks. And pretty much all of the associates and partners alike are happy to sit down and go over work product to give you pointers on how to improve.

Wow. 2300 - 2700 hours in a year. That sounds like billing roughly 9 - 10 hours a day/six days a week. Assuming you can eek out two weeks off.

Thank you for the honesty.

[Anonymous User]

My good friend works at Susman and he bills in the high 2000s (like 2800 to 2900) although I remember him mentioning something about how like billables work different there for contigency. He's kind of a gunner though (I mean this in a nice way) so I would not be suprised if that was on the high end. Then again, I have to imagine most people at Susman are the gunner types. Doesn't seem to be a firm for everyone. Assuming I could even get an offer there—which I can't—I don't think I would enjoy it. Much more prefer billing 2000 hours and getting some handholding.

[Anonymous User]

Biglaw partner at another firm that frequently partners with Susman. The hours expectations I have heard are legitimately very high and I have never heard a number under 2500. That said:

1. The high hours are a function of being trial-focused and leanly staffed. If you like trying cases (and Susman selects for people who like trying cases), the hours will go very fast. You also don't have the toxic workplace dynamics that often occur at places where work is scarce.

2. The people I've dealt with there are both very good lawyers and very nice (if intense) people. It doesn't have a lot of assholes, people obsessed with hierarchy/status, or many of the toxic personalities you typically find at big firms. And you are guaranteed to work with--and learn a lot from--some really great lawyers.

3. The comp is great, though probably less so on a dollars-per-hour basis. For what it's worth, my impression is that the people who work at Susman are not driven by comp but instead view it as the inevitable result of being at a firm where people work hard and achieve fantastic results. (If you've read The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, that captures the dynamic I think you see at Susman.)

[camman17]

any specific insight into comp? It's market salary and above market hefty bonuses right?

[AaronCarter]

any specific insight into comp? It's market salary and above market hefty bonuses right?

Yes. At market for salaries. No clue on the bonuses. Also interested in the answer to the bonuses question. Specific examples welcome.

[Anonymous User]

any specific insight into comp? It's market salary and above market hefty bonuses right?

Yes. At market for salaries. No clue on the bonuses. Also interested in the answer to the bonuses question. Specific examples welcome.

Same SG associate. Salaries used to be slightly above market (i.e. $5k), but they're now market. Bonuses are always above market though vary from year to year as to how much. Sometimes our bonuses blow the market out of the water, and others it beats the market by about $50k.

Much of our old bonus data can be found online.

[Anonymous User]

my impression is that the people who work at Susman are not driven by comp

Fascinating. So they're insane, then?

[Anonymous User]

my impression is that the people who work at Susman are not driven by comp

Fascinating. So they're insane, then?

Same SG associate. I think there's some truth to OP's comment, but there's far more to it than that. Its fair to say that folks aren't attracted to the firm because of the compensation they'll make as an associate. We don't even really use associate compensation all that much as a recruiting tactic, as associate hours are arguably high enough that you're making less per hour than going to your typical V10 white shoe firm. Instead, folks are attracted to the firm for the compensation they can make as a partner. And, unlike most other firms, promotion to partnership is realistic. Every single associate that the firm hires is hired with the expectation that they'll make partner one day. That, together with the substantive opportunities associates receive at such a young age, is what attracts people to the firm and gets them to stay.

So is associate compensation the reason people come to the firm? Almost universally no. That said, I think its a very big stretch to say that the people who work at SG aren't driven by compensation.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

I’m at an NYC big law firm and have been across from Susman quite a bit—I’m more impressed with their lawyers than any firm I’ve been involved with. I have no first hand knowledge of the culture but it seems to be very smart, driven type A people and definitely appears to be the case that junior associates are given substantive responsibility earlier than big law.

[Anonymous User]

my impression is that the people who work at Susman are not driven by comp

Fascinating. So they're insane, then?

No they are the only ones who are sane. Why chase comp when the real comp was out of college instead of out of law school. People at Susman often had lucrative careers prior to law school that would already have a higher expected value than law

[Anonymous User]

my impression is that the people who work at Susman are not driven by comp

Fascinating. So they're insane, then?

No they are the only ones who are sane. Why chase comp when the real comp was out of college instead of out of law school. People at Susman often had lucrative careers prior to law school that would already have a higher expected value than law

Not to derail a little, but I always hear this blatantly incorrect narrative. Basically it goes: if lawyers really wanted to maximize their comp they would have done I-banking or tech out of college. This is blatantly untrue. Someone with a high gpa in a liberal arts degree is not guaranteed a job at Goldman. For many of these people, going to a T14 and then working at Susman was the "chasing comp" move. Look we should all be proud of ourselves—particularly Susman lawyers, but the idea that many Susman lawyers turned their back on incredibly high paying jobs straight out of college is... well wrong. Don't believe me? Look them up on LinkedIn. These are all just normal people who did very well in law school.

[Anonymous User]

I’m at an NYC big law firm and have been across from Susman quite a bit—I’m more impressed with their lawyers than any firm I’ve been involved with. I have no first hand knowledge of the culture but it seems to be very smart, driven type A people and definitely appears to be the case that junior associates are given substantive responsibility earlier than big law.

They definitely seem to be among the very best. I’m a bit surprised they aren’t paid more considering their pedigree and the apparently brutal hours they work. It’s not clear there any firms in existence that truly offer better per-hour pay than a typical big law gig where you can bill approx. 2000 for market pay. The boutiques (and wachtell) generally seem to require such extreme hours as to more than offset the increased comp. Why is no one actually paying more per hour to attract the best talent? E.g. a 2000 hour requirement, but with above market pay? It doesn’t seem to exist.

Of course some of these places offer more early substantive experience and improved partnership prospects which are of some value. But still surprised that literally nobody is paying a per-hour premium for talent.

I’m at Quinn and it seems like a pretty good deal to me. It’s about $70K/year above cravath scale and I always bill around 2100. Haven’t found a better deal yet. Turned down Wachtell for example because the per-hour pay is actually worse than my current arrangement. I’m surprised to learn that Susman has people billing 3K while barely beating market pay scale.

[Anonymous User]

my impression is that the people who work at Susman are not driven by comp

Fascinating. So they're insane, then?

No they are the only ones who are sane. Why chase comp when the real comp was out of college instead of out of law school. People at Susman often had lucrative careers prior to law school that would already have a higher expected value than law

Not to derail a little, but I always hear this blatantly incorrect narrative. Basically it goes: if lawyers really wanted to maximize their comp they would have done I-banking or tech out of college. This is blatantly untrue. Someone with a high gpa in a liberal arts degree is not guaranteed a job at Goldman. For many of these people, going to a T14 and then working at Susman was the "chasing comp" move. Look we should all be proud of ourselves—particularly Susman lawyers, but the idea that many Susman lawyers turned their back on incredibly high paying jobs straight out of college is... well wrong. Don't believe me? Look them up on LinkedIn. These are all just normal people who did very well in law school.

fair but there are also people, especially at top law schools, who go from consulting to law school. There are people that were driven by "chasing comp" but actually wanting to be a lawyer is just as common.

[Anonymous User]

my impression is that the people who work at Susman are not driven by comp

Fascinating. So they're insane, then?

No they are the only ones who are sane. Why chase comp when the real comp was out of college instead of out of law school. People at Susman often had lucrative careers prior to law school that would already have a higher expected value than law

Not to derail a little, but I always hear this blatantly incorrect narrative. Basically it goes: if lawyers really wanted to maximize their comp they would have done I-banking or tech out of college. This is blatantly untrue. Someone with a high gpa in a liberal arts degree is not guaranteed a job at Goldman. For many of these people, going to a T14 and then working at Susman was the "chasing comp" move. Look we should all be proud of ourselves—particularly Susman lawyers, but the idea that many Susman lawyers turned their back on incredibly high paying jobs straight out of college is... well wrong. Don't believe me? Look them up on LinkedIn. These are all just normal people who did very well in law school.

fair but there are also people, especially at top law schools, who go from consulting to law school. There are people that were driven by "chasing comp" but actually wanting to be a lawyer is just as common.

The biggest fallacy is that finance or tech have meaningfully higher risk adjusted comp, excluding maybe the financial and opportunity cost of law school itself. I worked in finance and most of my friends and family do too (mostly buyside). Sure, some people make a lot on the top end. But there is considerably more risk and lots of ordinary PE MDs etc don’t necessarily make much more in cash comp than law firm partners. Tech can create really big and quick liquidity events if equity or exits hit. But lots of people in FAANG top out somewhere around mid level associate salary, many far below. There’s a lot of variance and risk, but not obvious to me that there’s a lot of marginal comp to be had. Adjust for biglaw outside of nyc (taxes, COL) and the picture is even more uncertain. I make mid six figures guaranteed every year in DC and my comp goes up every year. That is an attractive package even compared to my late 20s buddies at single manager HF or megafund PE. And my hours are still less than theirs.

[Anonymous User]

Biglaw partner at another firm that frequently partners with Susman. The hours expectations I have heard are legitimately very high and I have never heard a number under 2500. That said:

1. The high hours are a function of being trial-focused and leanly staffed. If you like trying cases (and Susman selects for people who like trying cases), the hours will go very fast. You also don't have the toxic workplace dynamics that often occur at places where work is scarce.

2. The people I've dealt with there are both very good lawyers and very nice (if intense) people. It doesn't have a lot of assholes, people obsessed with hierarchy/status, or many of the toxic personalities you typically find at big firms. And you are guaranteed to work with--and learn a lot from--some really great lawyers.

3. The comp is great, though probably less so on a dollars-per-hour basis. For what it's worth, my impression is that the people who work at Susman are not driven by comp but instead view it as the inevitable result of being at a firm where people work hard and achieve fantastic results. (If you've read The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, that captures the dynamic I think you see at Susman.)

Totally separate, but do you have advice for navigating said toxicity? Starting at a big firm soon. A little worried about scarcity given the current state of many transactional groups.

[Anonymous User]

I’m at an NYC big law firm and have been across from Susman quite a bit—I’m more impressed with their lawyers than any firm I’ve been involved with. I have no first hand knowledge of the culture but it seems to be very smart, driven type A people and definitely appears to be the case that junior associates are given substantive responsibility earlier than big law.

They definitely seem to be among the very best. I’m a bit surprised they aren’t paid more considering their pedigree and the apparently brutal hours they work. It’s not clear there any firms in existence that truly offer better per-hour pay than a typical big law gig where you can bill approx. 2000 for market pay. The boutiques (and wachtell) generally seem to require such extreme hours as to more than offset the increased comp. Why is no one actually paying more per hour to attract the best talent? E.g. a 2000 hour requirement, but with above market pay? It doesn’t seem to exist.

Of course some of these places offer more early substantive experience and improved partnership prospects which are of some value. But still surprised that literally nobody is paying a per-hour premium for talent.

I’m at Quinn and it seems like a pretty good deal to me. It’s about $70K/year above cravath scale and I always bill around 2100. Haven’t found a better deal yet. Turned down Wachtell for example because the per-hour pay is actually worse than my current arrangement. I’m surprised to learn that Susman has people billing 3K while barely beating market pay scale.

Was there anything besides pay that influenced your Wachtell decision? Quinn is obviously a lit-focused shop, for example. Also, the premium over the Cravath scale is impressive. I'd love to know how to find that on the transactional side.

[Anonymous User]

Biglaw partner at another firm that frequently partners with Susman. The hours expectations I have heard are legitimately very high and I have never heard a number under 2500. That said:

1. The high hours are a function of being trial-focused and leanly staffed. If you like trying cases (and Susman selects for people who like trying cases), the hours will go very fast. You also don't have the toxic workplace dynamics that often occur at places where work is scarce.

2. The people I've dealt with there are both very good lawyers and very nice (if intense) people. It doesn't have a lot of assholes, people obsessed with hierarchy/status, or many of the toxic personalities you typically find at big firms. And you are guaranteed to work with--and learn a lot from--some really great lawyers.

3. The comp is great, though probably less so on a dollars-per-hour basis. For what it's worth, my impression is that the people who work at Susman are not driven by comp but instead view it as the inevitable result of being at a firm where people work hard and achieve fantastic results. (If you've read The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, that captures the dynamic I think you see at Susman.)

Totally separate, but do you have advice for navigating said toxicity? Starting at a big firm soon. A little worried about scarcity given the current state of many transactional groups.

As a junior, you should focus on three things: (1) being the best associate you can be (which means doing the best work you are capable of and being available to do that work); (2) learning as much as you can so your development doesn't plateau; and (3) building relationships with people who are reasonably good to work for and invested in your professional development.

You will inevitably work with some people who are not good to work for and/or who are not invested in your professional development. The key is to do a good enough job that you don't jeopardize your reputation but to prioritize the work of the people who are good to work for and will serve as a sustainable pipeline of work.

It will get slightly more complicated than this as you get more senior and approach partnership, but doing those three things--even when it is not fun or when the immediate payoff is not apparent--will set you up well for the long haul.

[Anonymous User]

I’m at an NYC big law firm and have been across from Susman quite a bit—I’m more impressed with their lawyers than any firm I’ve been involved with. I have no first hand knowledge of the culture but it seems to be very smart, driven type A people and definitely appears to be the case that junior associates are given substantive responsibility earlier than big law.

They definitely seem to be among the very best. I’m a bit surprised they aren’t paid more considering their pedigree and the apparently brutal hours they work. It’s not clear there any firms in existence that truly offer better per-hour pay than a typical big law gig where you can bill approx. 2000 for market pay. The boutiques (and wachtell) generally seem to require such extreme hours as to more than offset the increased comp. Why is no one actually paying more per hour to attract the best talent? E.g. a 2000 hour requirement, but with above market pay? It doesn’t seem to exist.

Of course some of these places offer more early substantive experience and improved partnership prospects which are of some value. But still surprised that literally nobody is paying a per-hour premium for talent.

I’m at Quinn and it seems like a pretty good deal to me. It’s about $70K/year above cravath scale and I always bill around 2100. Haven’t found a better deal yet. Turned down Wachtell for example because the per-hour pay is actually worse than my current arrangement. I’m surprised to learn that Susman has people billing 3K while barely beating market pay scale.

Was there anything besides pay that influenced your Wachtell decision? Quinn is obviously a lit-focused shop, for example. Also, the premium over the Cravath scale is impressive. I'd love to know how to find that on the transactional side.

Not really. I do like the people I work with and love WFH so I suppose those may have been factors too but it was mostly just a per-hour pay analysis. I also found the vibes at Wachtell to be decidedly unchill.

I should be clear that the approx. $70k in above-market pay at Quinn comes in the form of “profit sharing awards” that take 3 years to vest, and only 2nd-through-6th years are eligible. But for people like me who are happy here and stick around that’s like $350K in above market pay over the years.

[Anonymous User]

my impression is that the people who work at Susman are not driven by comp

Fascinating. So they're insane, then?

No they are the only ones who are sane. Why chase comp when the real comp was out of college instead of out of law school. People at Susman often had lucrative careers prior to law school that would already have a higher expected value than law

Not to derail a little, but I always hear this blatantly incorrect narrative. Basically it goes: if lawyers really wanted to maximize their comp they would have done I-banking or tech out of college. This is blatantly untrue. Someone with a high gpa in a liberal arts degree is not guaranteed a job at Goldman. For many of these people, going to a T14 and then working at Susman was the "chasing comp" move. Look we should all be proud of ourselves—particularly Susman lawyers, but the idea that many Susman lawyers turned their back on incredibly high paying jobs straight out of college is... well wrong. Don't believe me? Look them up on LinkedIn. These are all just normal people who did very well in law school.

fair but there are also people, especially at top law schools, who go from consulting to law school. There are people that were driven by "chasing comp" but actually wanting to be a lawyer is just as common.

The biggest fallacy is that finance or tech have meaningfully higher risk adjusted comp, excluding maybe the financial and opportunity cost of law school itself. I worked in finance and most of my friends and family do too (mostly buyside). Sure, some people make a lot on the top end. But there is considerably more risk and lots of ordinary PE MDs etc don’t necessarily make much more in cash comp than law firm partners. Tech can create really big and quick liquidity events if equity or exits hit. But lots of people in FAANG top out somewhere around mid level associate salary, many far below. There’s a lot of variance and risk, but not obvious to me that there’s a lot of marginal comp to be had. Adjust for biglaw outside of nyc (taxes, COL) and the picture is even more uncertain. I make mid six figures guaranteed every year in DC and my comp goes up every year. That is an attractive package even compared to my late 20s buddies at single manager HF or megafund PE. And my hours are still less than theirs.

Staying in biglaw is also uncertain though, the attrition is good evidence of that. Top business schools are probably more the chasing comp move than law school, not to say that law school is far off

[Anonymous User]

Staying in biglaw is also uncertain though, the attrition is good evidence of that. Top business schools are probably more the chasing comp move than law school, not to say that law school is far off

Some data for median starting salary and bonuses: https://poetsandquants.com/2023/01/25/m ... d-bonuses/

At top schools median starting salaries in the range of $145k to $160k, with a signing bonus of about $30k.

The department of education has *mean* starting salaries for law schools (which probably are reasonably close to the median since there's no long right tail -- if anything the median might be above the mean here): https://www.spiveyconsulting.com/blog-p ... graduates/

Closer to $160-180k.

Hard data on long-term outcomes is obviously a lot harder (and you start to need to factor in compensating differentials). Certainly if you're comparing biglaw and consulting, biglaw comes out ahead. I know partners in both, and the money for a v10 biglaw partner is an integer multiple of an MBB partner.

Business school these days is not for winners.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone give insight into how much Susman requires/wants associates to bill?
Workload?

I've heard they offer a lot of experience, but as someone coming off a clerkship with very little REAL legal training, do they actually *teach* you how to practice?

Senior SG associate. There's no requirement or desire, though the median tends to be around 2,700 hours. If you're much lower than that you'll likely get staffed to another case--not because the firm has some sort of expectation, but rather because associates are the scarcest commodity and there is always a backlog of cases needing them.

As others have noted, there is very little formal training. We're a firm where people learn by doing, and that's the kind of associate the firm tends to attract--i.e. very entrepreneurial, confident, go-getter types. Of course, that doesn't mean training is non-existent. Every associate is assigned an associate and a partner mentor (and eventually has the option for two partner mentors), and the mentors frequently give feedback not just on how to navigate the firm, but also on substantive tasks. And pretty much all of the associates and partners alike are happy to sit down and go over work product to give you pointers on how to improve.

Thanks for answering.
This may be impossible to answer, but do most folks generally stay?
Or is it similar to biglaw in that a lot of folks get run out/burn out/hate it?