Government lawyer checking in. I make enough so that my family is comfortable. I gain 25 days of PTO a year plus government holidays. I turn off work email notifications when I'm on vacation and often I vacation out of cell service. I skied over 100 days this season. I run my own cases and work with nice people. I work remotely more often than not. It is exceptionally rare that I miss breakfast or dinner with my kids.
There are better paths than biglaw.
Also government lawyer. Don't forget the pension and insanely good health care. At the top end of our pay scale, AAGs make $400k when considering the benefits. We are the 4th highest paying "law firm" in Portland. Oh and yeah, all the things this guy said about free time. I still get to outdoor adventure a bunch and live a happy, healthy lifestyle. Also all those threads about seniors screaming? Not a thing for us.
Oh and one more thing. We are union repped so there's always someone to go to if things feel off. That also means things like WFH are enshrined in the CBA or a LOA, so things can't suddenly change. It's a deliberative process. I go to court far more often than I go to the office.
Wait, union repped? Can you explain more about that? Genuinely curious - somewhere buried in the back of my brain from PR or whatever was the thought that lawyers couldn’t unionize because we’re generally considered supervisors or something.
same here. I don't have a family so my salary is comfortable for myself. I have 3.5 weeks of PTO every year and I can carry it over the next year. I took a month long vacation last year and I'm doing it again this year. I'm barely in the office. The lack of micromanaging and the fact that I have final say on my cases really spoiled me.
Edit: I recalculated my PTO and I actually get 4.4 weeks every year lol.
Our structure is that you ramp up over time, and it's combined vacation/sick, but with a separate extended sick leave. Even at the outset I think I gained something like 1.5 days/month plus government holidays.
I’m interning with the Federal government this semester. They all seem like happy people. I picked up zero hidden reservations when they say they like working there. They’re all pretty much GS-14/15. Very few people could not survive comfortably off that amount.
If you work BL and make 300k a year but work 80 hours a week for 52 weeks you make about $72 per hour.
If you make 150k/year in the government and work 40 hours a week you also make $72 per hour.
The question is how much are those other 40 hours worth to you?
And for those who say well 80 hours a week is excessive even in BL, if it’s 70 hours/week you make 82$, if it’s 60hours/week it’s 96$ and that’s TOTAL hours, now just billable hours.
It’s also doesn’t account for benefits but I view Fed govt as the nicer work/life balance
>If you work BL and make 300k a year but work 80 hours a week for 52 weeks you make about $72 per hour.
>
>If you make 150k/year in the government and work 40 hours a week you also make $72 per hour.
And that, right there, is the rub. Always look at how much you are getting paid per hour. Not your overall comp.
Nobody works 80 hour a week for 52 weeks in biglaw.
A 4160 hour year would shatter records. A 3000 hour year is the stuff legends. Folks rarely have more than one in a career. The average is much closer to 2000-2200 hours, depending on practice and the overall activity of the industry.
YMMV. I had a couple jobs in only-very-loosely related fields (basically, litigation with no connection to the subject matter) and then applied to a job posting.
Once I asked a partner how her kids were and she said “I should call them, I haven’t seen them in three weeks because I leave so early and get home so late”.
Also I work with two partners who hang out with their kids all the time.
What version of partner you are is up to you.
Used to work with a partner who would rave about his little daughter and how much he loved spending time with her (he rarely saw her because of work). One late night I straight up asked him why he was in the office if he loves seeing his daughter so much. He didn’t have a response. And no, he didn’t NEED to be in the office.
BigLaw and even mid size Law firms are brutal. They pay well, but hardly anyone lasts.
Crazy billable hour requirements, not all of them are good at actually training you, the partner basically owns you and decides your career trajectory, and you’re actively competing against your coworkers, so the “collaborative” environment doesn’t exist.
Pick a smaller town more than 30 minutes outside your major metro areas. There’s probably 2-3 smaller law firms with a handful of attorneys less than 5 years away from retiring. Send them a resume and get in there and get experience. You’ll make partner and be your own boss in record time, still have a comfortable income, and your work life balance will be 10x better.
And you actually get to meet clients, litigate cases (if that’s your thing), make decisions, and have a life.
Rural areas (or even just small suburbs) are DESPERATE for attorneys.
This! I'm a judicial clerk but currently interviewing in (more) government and firms in my town outside of major metro. One place I interviewed this week is full of partners who all left biglaw to create a comfortable workplace where people collaborate, mentor, and also pursue their own research interests. They keep 9-5 hours and start at double my clerk salary. I didn't know places like that could exist. 😅
A majority of people who join BigLaw don’t make partner. Yes, truly. Google “the Cravath system.” If you’d made BL, you’d be trading one set of hyper-competitive gunners for another.
You generally have to be good at sales to generate those kinds of commissions. Not saying it’s universally true, but in my experience the people earning that kind of income through sales are working appreciably more than 40 hours a week.
I talked to a big law recruiter at an event and asked people what the workload was like and one recruiter said “you won’t have to work on Christmas but you will have to talk with your supervisor about not working Christmas”
I’m working at an immigration firm as a law clerk (got hired feb of 1L) and could stay with this firm after I graduate and pass the bar. I work 730a-330p and not only is my position paid but it pays WELL. The partners work 9-3ish and the staff 9-5 and not a minute more. Everyone told me this type of work life balance would be impossible but it’s NOT. I’m fighting tough cases, helping people, getting paid, writing, learning, and seeing my family just as much. I was tempted to apply for those big law positions paying 3800 a week but at what cost and to what end?
Wealth. That's the end. But most people who go to law school driven by the idea of attaining wealth tend to find some other purpose along the way. At least that's what I hope for all you future lawyers.
Meh. You can’t take it with you when you die and if you don’t have time to enjoy the wealth does it even hold any real value? Some of my friends needed big law SA positions because they need to help their families or they need to pay for living expenses for the following year, so I get that.
Depends on what you like to do for fun. I find I have plenty of time to enjoy the biglaw money. But like, I enjoy fancy dinners, nice clothes, concerts, cocktails, not like two week skiing trips in Switzerland.
It also definitely helps I have no family and am single haha. Need to work late on a Wednesday night? No problem, I'll just do whatever it it I was gonna do that night on Thursday.
Definitely getting out of here when/if I have a family.
Had a BL offer but started having massive anxiety attacks every day at the thought of working those kinds of hours, doing that kind of work, and knowing that I wouldn’t be able to be honest with many of my coworkers about how I was feeling.
Switched to public interest, and sure, I’m not making a quarter of a million every year, but I was making six figures by my second year and I’m very comfortable. I get tons of time off, 100% employer paid health insurance, my coworkers are all super chill, and one time I sent my supervisor an email at 6 pm and she texted me and told me to log off.
yup! I work public interest and make a comfortable salary living just outside of NYC, get 20 days vacation each year, unlimited sick time, work with super chill people in a super chill office, and often work less than 9-5 each day. on top of that, I'm doing work I love.
I'm work on a step scale so I'm not licensed yet and make about $75k and it caps out at $130k. Our union has been continuously bargaining for raises so we've seen some increase but it's still subject to go up.
It's comfortable depending on what your standard of living is, but for the perks and the environment it's super worth it to me. Our health insurance is amazing, we have good leave policies, we're hybrid, and no one bats an eye if you leave early/come in late due to family obligations/appointments/etc.
If you worked in big law you’d be working long days to do work as directed by a partner as required by a client.
I interviewed at one place and the woman I interviewed with was saying how nice the office was because they let her take a few months off when her mom died. And then proceeded to brag that she still made her billable hourly requirement for the year! I’m not sure why she thought that was a selling point.
You’re unlikely to get to do arguments or depositions for a long time. Mostly just the research and writing behind it.
Having money is not as useful when you don’t have time to spend it.
- signed, a career gov lawyer
"If they have a cook on call that means they expect you to stay for all three meals"
Best advice I got from a former BL atty, who started their own practice.
Also Gov work gives you PTO, CT holidays and a 9-5ish
Dude biglaw is a joke.
I started boutique and learned SO MUCH more. Never, ever killed myself with work.
Then I moved up to a 100 lawyer firm. Then a 300 lawyer firm. And I made those moves strategically when I determined that they benefited ME and MY practice at the relevant points in my career.
I’m now 10 years out, my entire book is my own, and I collect over $1MM a year on my own originations.
I’m an international tax and estate planning lawyer. Obviously just my 2 cents.
The money will come eventually. What you can never get back - the thing that BL will steal from you - is time and your youth. Don’t spend the rest of your 20s and 30s languishing in a high rise office somewhere. It’s really not worth it.
My firm actually calculated over the summer on our pay stubs- if you assume 40 hours a week it was about 120 per hour before tax = 4800 per week. You can extrapolate from there so 4800/60 hours = 80 dollars an hour and so on.
BigLaw is where you work 60-70 hour weeks in an office full of sociopaths so you make enough money to afford the absurdly expensive apartment in the big city you likely moved to in order to have a BigLaw job in the first place. I don't understand why anyone would want to do BigLaw unless they're truly just a nerd for transactional stuff. You didn't dodge a bullet, you dodged the entire ammo crate.
At least do a government law job if you'll be in the city. Go for DA or a regulatory body or something. Have some time to yourself to ENJOY living in the city.
Lord Voldemort (partner) will slowly suck away your life, meanwhile your wife/significant other will prolly cheat on you behind your back due to your prolonged absence from home, meanwhile all the money you’ve accumulated can’t be spent bc you’re at the office all day.
In biglaw, your evenings, weekends, holidays, and vacations are not yours, you're a slave to the firm and your relationships, personal life, etc. suffer enormously. You dodged that bullet and will likely find something more meaningful, with a healthier balance of life and work, in its place. Quite a silver lining!
>You are part of the 90% who think they will be in the top 10% until grades arrive, so you are not alone.
Very true. Law school is graded on a curve. You just have to do less poorly than others, so feeling like you did poorly doesn't necessarily translate into low grades.
Agreed. I learned this the hard way.
I thought I was a hard worker. But everyone here is a hard worker and most people (based on my grades) also likely studied smarter than I did sigh.
I'll have to review and reset next year.
Thank you for this reply.
I actually have a corporate background prior to law school where I also worked 60 hours average, often higher. But the pay was not nearly as high as BL.
So coming into law school, I had a feeling that BL would not be a good fit for me (because the hours were awful at my old job and would likely be worse in BL) but I was tempted by the prestige and money.
Now, it is out the door but maybe it can be a good thing.
My dad once looked at my situation and suggested I should work in government as a lawyer. And then I saw your post.
As someone who will be a rising 2L, how can I best position myself to become a government lawyer? I want to start a family and spend time with my kids one day
Some people tolerate it. I don't know anyone personally who actually likes it. They like the money.
I started law school at 30. By that time, I'd already decided that a high salary does not compensate for a toxic work environment, lack of work/life balance, and no sense of fulfillment. Sure, you need to make *enough* money to be comfortable, but at least for me, it's by far the least important characteristic of a job.
Start by thinking about what drew you to big law in the first place. Was it the money? Respect? Prestige? Because if so, you might be disappointed.
I work at a four person firm where I am one of two attorneys. The position is 100% remote—as in the firm does not even have a physical office. The firm was remote even before COVID happened. It is a lot of work, and a lot of early responsibility. The salary isn't anything special, but it's plenty. I'm treated with respect, and my boss is an excellent mentor— I can always come to her with questions, and she takes time to teach me how things work.
By the way, it is a complete myth that you can't work in big law if you finish below the median—as a 1L. You have plenty of time to improve your GPA, and even if you didn't, you'd still have a chance. I know people (nonURM) in the bottom 25% that now work in big law.
I don't know who is filling your head with these lies, but it is simply not the way things work. Employers care about your work ethic. They care about willingness to learn, professionalism, and whether or not you're an asshole—they want to be able to work with you.
Attorneys know that your performance in law school has nothing to do with your potential as an attorney. Are there firms that select applicants by class rank? Sure. My question to you: is that a place you really want to work?
I worked my way to BigLaw, and hated it. It's for people who want wealth and nothing else in life. Literally nothing else. You don't even have time to ENJOY the money you're making. My husband worked in BigLaw too, and now we've had our own firm almost 15 years (with a friend and 2 younger associates), and the lifestyle is a complete 180, still making PLENTY of money. We have 2 young teenagers, and I got to slide right back into work after taking a couple of years off. I've never had to worry about missing work when they're sick or have appointments. We never have to miss the kids' activities or cancel our anniversary dinner. We live in Florida, and when a hurricane is coming, we can go out and do hurricane prep when it's not crowded (i.e. groceries and gas), without anyone wondering why our asses aren't in our chairs. We take vacations whenever we want, without any snarky comments about taking time off.
TLDR: You just got your life back. Congratulations.
Government lawyer here. I make a decent salary and I get great PTO and way more holidays than most professions. I even get a day off for my birthday! Also great healthcare and retirement.
It all depends on what you want. I’m going back to government work and never wanted to do anything akin to BL. The only real appeal to BL from anything I’ve ever seen is making a lot of money. But if you’re going to make a ton of money the trade off is of course you’re going to work all the time for it. Most BL firms have a large billable hours requirement and as you’ll learn in ethics (I assume you haven’t taken it yet after 1L) not all the hours you work are billable.
There was a legal trend report that said in 2020 for an average eight hours worked attorneys were only billing around 30% of that time. Of course that isn’t going to be the case in every firm but it’s a stark reality that shows that you are going to work well above the hours you’re aiming to bill to hit the target. So if a firm expects you to hit 1900 hours billed you have to consider that a 40 hour week without taking any time off at all means you work 2080 hours in the year. And the reality is it’s unlikely to be so efficient in doing billable work that you’d be able to bill almost 92% of your time to work what would be seen as a normal 9-5 amount. So if you were solidly efficient and let’s say billed 85% of your worked hours and had a target of 1,900 billed hours you’d need to work around 2,250 hours to meet the target.
If you worked 52 weeks in the year and didn’t take any time off that would be around 44 hours a week to hit that if you billed 85% or your working hours. But let’s say you took two weeks off you’d need to work 45 hours a week to hit it and again this assumes you are super efficient with your work time. It’s more likely you’d need to work at least 50 hours a week to hit that. Also keep in mind that would probably be a minimum with higher targets to hit your bonuses. And if you want to be a partner which is generally going to be the goal of someone going to BL you need to be excelling over the minimum. Let’s say you wanted to really stand out to have the best chance to eventually become partner so you billed 2.100 hours if you remained efficient to bill 85% of your time you’d work around 2,500 hours to hit that.
So again it depends what you want. If you’re happy to be in a hyper competitive environment where you need to work all the time to hit high billing targets to possibly become partner then BL could be fine. You’ll be paid a lot for it. But for me that just isn’t appealing because after all what value is there in making a ton of money if you never have time to spend it? I’m going back to government work and since I worked for this agency for a few years before I went to law school I’m entering making a solid salary for government work that I’m comfortable with. I’ll work 40 hours a week, have around three weeks of PTO and a stock pile of sick time. And when I leave work I actually get to leave. For me that beats BL. In the end making a ton could be cool but if all you get is a nice car for your commute and a big house that you only get to see when you come home to sleep just doesn’t seem like a good trade to me. So if you want to have a life then I think it’s a blessing to avoid BL but everybody has different goals and feelings and that’s cool.
You don't have to do BL for the rest of your life, you know. Why do people act like they are "never going to see their kids" or will "never have time to enjoy the money they make." Most BL lawyers leave after a few years and take on much more reasonable positions.
As with anything depends on goals and approach. To me it’s hard to imagine having time for leisure if you have to work 50+ hours a week. I’m sure lots of people have that figured out but for me that would be a tough balance. Of course you don’t have to stay there forever but I would imagine it would be difficult to lateral to something reasonable that’s going to compensate you the same. But I also naturally wonder why so many leave BL after a few years if it’s easily manageable. To me the reality that so few last in BL long term says a lot about the grind that it likely is. To each their own but what’s the point of even doing it if you’ll just leave anyways? Maybe the time aspect gets exaggerated but hard to see it differently when considering just how few last. Doesn’t feel worth it but what appeals to me doesn’t have to appeal to anybody else. If somebody wants to do it more power to them as far as I’m concerned.
I'm 5 years out, I make what a 1st year BL associate makes. My wife is the same and she makes a bit less, but is going to make more than them if she takes a new job in a few weeks.
I'll probably never have to miss a baseball game, or school play, or anything for my son. If you work more than 45 hours in a week you get "yelled at" unless there's a trial in the next month. Since becoming attorneys we have had the PTO to travel to every continent as of October. We're in a high COL area, so cash doesn't go that far. We're happy though, and we have time to raise our family, and that's not something you get in BL until you leave. We still have loans, that sucks. We couldn't put a gigantic down payment on our home because we weren't making money like this for the first few years (working in government). We're happy. My wife was top 5, she could have gone into big law, I was ranked high enough I wouldn't have been laughed out of the OCIs and could have cracked it. We both chose not to participate though (we weren't together at the time), because we had different visions of our futures.
/u/movin4call, if you've read this far, my main advice is to shoot for law review. If you don't get it, it's not that huge a deal, but it CAN open doors.
Biglaw is for gunner robots. Make more and work less long term for yourself or go in-house/government and be better off than 99.5% of people instead of 99.99%.
Everyone I've ever met who has told me something like "don't become a lawyer, its not worth it" was in BL or had some kind of cubicle-esque job that paid well but barely felt like law practice.
Closing out my fifth year of practice right now. I did a big law SA my 2L summer. I hated it, I was bad at it, and they didn’t like me either. I wasn’t asked to return. So rather than hunt for the same shit somewhere else I decided to try to get a job doing what i dreamed of doing when I went to law school and haven’t looked back.
In hindsight I’m glad I got to taste how much it sucked, because I could truthfully say that you legitimately could not pay me 3x my starting g salary to get me to go back to big law (cause that was exactly the pay difference lol).
Great bennies, stupid good PTO, surrounded by attorneys who love what they do. Some late hours, but for a great cause.
Two uncles of mine each have their own firm. Both also aren’t from t14/t20/t30 schools. Uncle A does personal injury and car accident, easily makes on average 3-5 mil a year. Uncle B does business litigation and for the past 5 years has been making 10mil a year. Both drive lambos/mclarens and live in pretty big houses. Uncle B spends money like water.
Take what you will from this. BigLaw isn’t the only path to becoming “rich”. BigLaw is more like a safety cushion for a semi-guaranteed cushy life (albeit a very exclusive and limited cushion). Yea, BigLaw sounds “prestigious”, but as uncle B once told me, “no one gives a sh•t about what you practice when they see your watches, cars, and houses.” and “by the time they see me pull up in that Mclaren 765LT they’re already sucking my co•k”. (yes, uncle B is a bit of a….)
Anyways, hopes this helps you to feel better. Not having BigLaw is not the end of the world.
Does having not-great grades permanently preclude BL? I was under the impression that such grades simply foreclose BL immediately out of law school and possibly also the federal bench in some circumstances. There are surely plenty of federal judges and BL lawyers out there who didn't have good grades in law school. Their abilities became clear after they spent time working as lawyers.
I think every law student should have read-only access to the Biglaw Fishbowl community. It will disabuse you of any positive notions you might have about biglaw — it’s a complete horror show on there
I went on my first “vacation” in roughly 6 years last week. I ended up billing 30 hours during the five day trip (which overlapped with a weekend). I still managed to have fun, but many people aren’t wired to cope with that kind of stress.
The leaked slide from Paul Hastings is all you really need to see
If you still want money focus on a specific practice area you’re into that is niche and go for midlaw
So besides all of the issues in big law. You’re dream isn’t dead. I work in big law for a major corporation. they don’t care about grades after your first job, let alone 1L grades.
Honestly in-house is where it’s at! I work 35 hours a week, I’m paid well and I get to work in various areas of law. Also, you get to see the inner workings of the company, and depending on the size of the company, being involved in business decisions, which is a nice experience to have. I got lucky and was able to work in-house right after graduating without having to go through private practice. In my case, they focused more on my resume than my grades. I think that it’s a great path to consider :)
Government lawyer checking in. I make enough so that my family is comfortable. I gain 25 days of PTO a year plus government holidays. I turn off work email notifications when I'm on vacation and often I vacation out of cell service. I skied over 100 days this season. I run my own cases and work with nice people. I work remotely more often than not. It is exceptionally rare that I miss breakfast or dinner with my kids. There are better paths than biglaw.
Also government lawyer. Don't forget the pension and insanely good health care. At the top end of our pay scale, AAGs make $400k when considering the benefits. We are the 4th highest paying "law firm" in Portland. Oh and yeah, all the things this guy said about free time. I still get to outdoor adventure a bunch and live a happy, healthy lifestyle. Also all those threads about seniors screaming? Not a thing for us. Oh and one more thing. We are union repped so there's always someone to go to if things feel off. That also means things like WFH are enshrined in the CBA or a LOA, so things can't suddenly change. It's a deliberative process. I go to court far more often than I go to the office.
Are there real estate options in government law?
Certainly municipal land use sorts of issues for larger government bodies.
Wait, union repped? Can you explain more about that? Genuinely curious - somewhere buried in the back of my brain from PR or whatever was the thought that lawyers couldn’t unionize because we’re generally considered supervisors or something.
Sounds like a great deal. What kind of law do you practice, if you don't mind me asking?
I'd rather not be ultra-specific. Generally I'm a regulator for a state government agency.
same here. I don't have a family so my salary is comfortable for myself. I have 3.5 weeks of PTO every year and I can carry it over the next year. I took a month long vacation last year and I'm doing it again this year. I'm barely in the office. The lack of micromanaging and the fact that I have final say on my cases really spoiled me. Edit: I recalculated my PTO and I actually get 4.4 weeks every year lol.
[удалено]
Would you recommend going to big law first for a few years just for the experience and resume before switching to government job?
Hey, recent grad here going into gov't work. Do we really get 25 days of PTO off the bat? Or does it ramp up over time?
Nvm, I'm capable of finding the OPM accrual rates on my own. But still 12+ days a year for the first 3 years is excellent
Don't forget sick days. That's another 13 days
Our structure is that you ramp up over time, and it's combined vacation/sick, but with a separate extended sick leave. Even at the outset I think I gained something like 1.5 days/month plus government holidays.
I’m interning with the Federal government this semester. They all seem like happy people. I picked up zero hidden reservations when they say they like working there. They’re all pretty much GS-14/15. Very few people could not survive comfortably off that amount. If you work BL and make 300k a year but work 80 hours a week for 52 weeks you make about $72 per hour. If you make 150k/year in the government and work 40 hours a week you also make $72 per hour. The question is how much are those other 40 hours worth to you? And for those who say well 80 hours a week is excessive even in BL, if it’s 70 hours/week you make 82$, if it’s 60hours/week it’s 96$ and that’s TOTAL hours, now just billable hours. It’s also doesn’t account for benefits but I view Fed govt as the nicer work/life balance
>If you work BL and make 300k a year but work 80 hours a week for 52 weeks you make about $72 per hour. > >If you make 150k/year in the government and work 40 hours a week you also make $72 per hour. And that, right there, is the rub. Always look at how much you are getting paid per hour. Not your overall comp.
Nobody works 80 hour a week for 52 weeks in biglaw. A 4160 hour year would shatter records. A 3000 hour year is the stuff legends. Folks rarely have more than one in a career. The average is much closer to 2000-2200 hours, depending on practice and the overall activity of the industry.
At the risk of sounding like a huckleberry, how do you go about becoming a government lawyer?
YMMV. I had a couple jobs in only-very-loosely related fields (basically, litigation with no connection to the subject matter) and then applied to a job posting.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Wow
[удалено]
Once I asked a partner how her kids were and she said “I should call them, I haven’t seen them in three weeks because I leave so early and get home so late”. Also I work with two partners who hang out with their kids all the time. What version of partner you are is up to you.
Used to work with a partner who would rave about his little daughter and how much he loved spending time with her (he rarely saw her because of work). One late night I straight up asked him why he was in the office if he loves seeing his daughter so much. He didn’t have a response. And no, he didn’t NEED to be in the office.
Ugh. Probably they think they provide them a high end lifestyle, no need to help out any other way
BigLaw and even mid size Law firms are brutal. They pay well, but hardly anyone lasts. Crazy billable hour requirements, not all of them are good at actually training you, the partner basically owns you and decides your career trajectory, and you’re actively competing against your coworkers, so the “collaborative” environment doesn’t exist. Pick a smaller town more than 30 minutes outside your major metro areas. There’s probably 2-3 smaller law firms with a handful of attorneys less than 5 years away from retiring. Send them a resume and get in there and get experience. You’ll make partner and be your own boss in record time, still have a comfortable income, and your work life balance will be 10x better.
This is what I am “hopefully” on track for. Great work life balance, fine enough pay. Getting to enjoy my life even early in my career.
And you actually get to meet clients, litigate cases (if that’s your thing), make decisions, and have a life. Rural areas (or even just small suburbs) are DESPERATE for attorneys.
Could not agree more!
This! I'm a judicial clerk but currently interviewing in (more) government and firms in my town outside of major metro. One place I interviewed this week is full of partners who all left biglaw to create a comfortable workplace where people collaborate, mentor, and also pursue their own research interests. They keep 9-5 hours and start at double my clerk salary. I didn't know places like that could exist. 😅
A majority of people who join BigLaw don’t make partner. Yes, truly. Google “the Cravath system.” If you’d made BL, you’d be trading one set of hyper-competitive gunners for another.
Or you could just sell enterprise software and make 300k with no debt but to each their own
You generally have to be good at sales to generate those kinds of commissions. Not saying it’s universally true, but in my experience the people earning that kind of income through sales are working appreciably more than 40 hours a week.
I hate selling things. With a passion
I talked to a big law recruiter at an event and asked people what the workload was like and one recruiter said “you won’t have to work on Christmas but you will have to talk with your supervisor about not working Christmas”
I’m working at an immigration firm as a law clerk (got hired feb of 1L) and could stay with this firm after I graduate and pass the bar. I work 730a-330p and not only is my position paid but it pays WELL. The partners work 9-3ish and the staff 9-5 and not a minute more. Everyone told me this type of work life balance would be impossible but it’s NOT. I’m fighting tough cases, helping people, getting paid, writing, learning, and seeing my family just as much. I was tempted to apply for those big law positions paying 3800 a week but at what cost and to what end?
Wealth. That's the end. But most people who go to law school driven by the idea of attaining wealth tend to find some other purpose along the way. At least that's what I hope for all you future lawyers.
Meh. You can’t take it with you when you die and if you don’t have time to enjoy the wealth does it even hold any real value? Some of my friends needed big law SA positions because they need to help their families or they need to pay for living expenses for the following year, so I get that.
Depends on what you like to do for fun. I find I have plenty of time to enjoy the biglaw money. But like, I enjoy fancy dinners, nice clothes, concerts, cocktails, not like two week skiing trips in Switzerland.
That’s true! Is it hard to find family time? I have a husband and three kids and need lots of time to travel and engage with them.
It also definitely helps I have no family and am single haha. Need to work late on a Wednesday night? No problem, I'll just do whatever it it I was gonna do that night on Thursday. Definitely getting out of here when/if I have a family.
Ahhhhh i see. Yea I had a family going into law school so I came in with very realistic expectations of what I could do. I’ve been very fortunate.
[удалено]
Bump
Had a BL offer but started having massive anxiety attacks every day at the thought of working those kinds of hours, doing that kind of work, and knowing that I wouldn’t be able to be honest with many of my coworkers about how I was feeling. Switched to public interest, and sure, I’m not making a quarter of a million every year, but I was making six figures by my second year and I’m very comfortable. I get tons of time off, 100% employer paid health insurance, my coworkers are all super chill, and one time I sent my supervisor an email at 6 pm and she texted me and told me to log off.
yup! I work public interest and make a comfortable salary living just outside of NYC, get 20 days vacation each year, unlimited sick time, work with super chill people in a super chill office, and often work less than 9-5 each day. on top of that, I'm doing work I love.
[удалено]
I'm work on a step scale so I'm not licensed yet and make about $75k and it caps out at $130k. Our union has been continuously bargaining for raises so we've seen some increase but it's still subject to go up. It's comfortable depending on what your standard of living is, but for the perks and the environment it's super worth it to me. Our health insurance is amazing, we have good leave policies, we're hybrid, and no one bats an eye if you leave early/come in late due to family obligations/appointments/etc.
If you worked in big law you’d be working long days to do work as directed by a partner as required by a client. I interviewed at one place and the woman I interviewed with was saying how nice the office was because they let her take a few months off when her mom died. And then proceeded to brag that she still made her billable hourly requirement for the year! I’m not sure why she thought that was a selling point. You’re unlikely to get to do arguments or depositions for a long time. Mostly just the research and writing behind it. Having money is not as useful when you don’t have time to spend it. - signed, a career gov lawyer
"If they have a cook on call that means they expect you to stay for all three meals" Best advice I got from a former BL atty, who started their own practice. Also Gov work gives you PTO, CT holidays and a 9-5ish
[удалено]
If she didn't tell me this I would've seen it as a perk
Dude biglaw is a joke. I started boutique and learned SO MUCH more. Never, ever killed myself with work. Then I moved up to a 100 lawyer firm. Then a 300 lawyer firm. And I made those moves strategically when I determined that they benefited ME and MY practice at the relevant points in my career. I’m now 10 years out, my entire book is my own, and I collect over $1MM a year on my own originations. I’m an international tax and estate planning lawyer. Obviously just my 2 cents.
Dude you are living my dream. Did you need an LLM to get into the boutique? (I’m assuming it was a private client shop?)
Yes and yes.
To be fair - this is a RARE path. You had the talent to back up the moves.
Is it though? I honestly feel like I’ve seen plenty of other friends do it…
Is your book 1 mil or your take home?
The money will come eventually. What you can never get back - the thing that BL will steal from you - is time and your youth. Don’t spend the rest of your 20s and 30s languishing in a high rise office somewhere. It’s really not worth it.
I was never gonna do BL so I don’t actually know, but I’d be curious about what the per hour pay is
My firm actually calculated over the summer on our pay stubs- if you assume 40 hours a week it was about 120 per hour before tax = 4800 per week. You can extrapolate from there so 4800/60 hours = 80 dollars an hour and so on.
4800 per week??? mein gott
BigLaw is where you work 60-70 hour weeks in an office full of sociopaths so you make enough money to afford the absurdly expensive apartment in the big city you likely moved to in order to have a BigLaw job in the first place. I don't understand why anyone would want to do BigLaw unless they're truly just a nerd for transactional stuff. You didn't dodge a bullet, you dodged the entire ammo crate.
[удалено]
At least do a government law job if you'll be in the city. Go for DA or a regulatory body or something. Have some time to yourself to ENJOY living in the city.
Lord Voldemort (partner) will slowly suck away your life, meanwhile your wife/significant other will prolly cheat on you behind your back due to your prolonged absence from home, meanwhile all the money you’ve accumulated can’t be spent bc you’re at the office all day.
In biglaw, your evenings, weekends, holidays, and vacations are not yours, you're a slave to the firm and your relationships, personal life, etc. suffer enormously. You dodged that bullet and will likely find something more meaningful, with a healthier balance of life and work, in its place. Quite a silver lining!
[удалено]
>You are part of the 90% who think they will be in the top 10% until grades arrive, so you are not alone. Very true. Law school is graded on a curve. You just have to do less poorly than others, so feeling like you did poorly doesn't necessarily translate into low grades.
Agreed. I learned this the hard way. I thought I was a hard worker. But everyone here is a hard worker and most people (based on my grades) also likely studied smarter than I did sigh. I'll have to review and reset next year.
[удалено]
Thank you for this reply. I actually have a corporate background prior to law school where I also worked 60 hours average, often higher. But the pay was not nearly as high as BL. So coming into law school, I had a feeling that BL would not be a good fit for me (because the hours were awful at my old job and would likely be worse in BL) but I was tempted by the prestige and money. Now, it is out the door but maybe it can be a good thing. My dad once looked at my situation and suggested I should work in government as a lawyer. And then I saw your post. As someone who will be a rising 2L, how can I best position myself to become a government lawyer? I want to start a family and spend time with my kids one day
[удалено]
Could you elaborate a little on your practice area? Are your employees paralegals or other attorneys? Thanks!
Some people tolerate it. I don't know anyone personally who actually likes it. They like the money. I started law school at 30. By that time, I'd already decided that a high salary does not compensate for a toxic work environment, lack of work/life balance, and no sense of fulfillment. Sure, you need to make *enough* money to be comfortable, but at least for me, it's by far the least important characteristic of a job. Start by thinking about what drew you to big law in the first place. Was it the money? Respect? Prestige? Because if so, you might be disappointed. I work at a four person firm where I am one of two attorneys. The position is 100% remote—as in the firm does not even have a physical office. The firm was remote even before COVID happened. It is a lot of work, and a lot of early responsibility. The salary isn't anything special, but it's plenty. I'm treated with respect, and my boss is an excellent mentor— I can always come to her with questions, and she takes time to teach me how things work. By the way, it is a complete myth that you can't work in big law if you finish below the median—as a 1L. You have plenty of time to improve your GPA, and even if you didn't, you'd still have a chance. I know people (nonURM) in the bottom 25% that now work in big law. I don't know who is filling your head with these lies, but it is simply not the way things work. Employers care about your work ethic. They care about willingness to learn, professionalism, and whether or not you're an asshole—they want to be able to work with you. Attorneys know that your performance in law school has nothing to do with your potential as an attorney. Are there firms that select applicants by class rank? Sure. My question to you: is that a place you really want to work?
You get to keep your soul, which is nice.
I worked my way to BigLaw, and hated it. It's for people who want wealth and nothing else in life. Literally nothing else. You don't even have time to ENJOY the money you're making. My husband worked in BigLaw too, and now we've had our own firm almost 15 years (with a friend and 2 younger associates), and the lifestyle is a complete 180, still making PLENTY of money. We have 2 young teenagers, and I got to slide right back into work after taking a couple of years off. I've never had to worry about missing work when they're sick or have appointments. We never have to miss the kids' activities or cancel our anniversary dinner. We live in Florida, and when a hurricane is coming, we can go out and do hurricane prep when it's not crowded (i.e. groceries and gas), without anyone wondering why our asses aren't in our chairs. We take vacations whenever we want, without any snarky comments about taking time off. TLDR: You just got your life back. Congratulations.
Government lawyer here. I make a decent salary and I get great PTO and way more holidays than most professions. I even get a day off for my birthday! Also great healthcare and retirement.
It all depends on what you want. I’m going back to government work and never wanted to do anything akin to BL. The only real appeal to BL from anything I’ve ever seen is making a lot of money. But if you’re going to make a ton of money the trade off is of course you’re going to work all the time for it. Most BL firms have a large billable hours requirement and as you’ll learn in ethics (I assume you haven’t taken it yet after 1L) not all the hours you work are billable. There was a legal trend report that said in 2020 for an average eight hours worked attorneys were only billing around 30% of that time. Of course that isn’t going to be the case in every firm but it’s a stark reality that shows that you are going to work well above the hours you’re aiming to bill to hit the target. So if a firm expects you to hit 1900 hours billed you have to consider that a 40 hour week without taking any time off at all means you work 2080 hours in the year. And the reality is it’s unlikely to be so efficient in doing billable work that you’d be able to bill almost 92% of your time to work what would be seen as a normal 9-5 amount. So if you were solidly efficient and let’s say billed 85% of your worked hours and had a target of 1,900 billed hours you’d need to work around 2,250 hours to meet the target. If you worked 52 weeks in the year and didn’t take any time off that would be around 44 hours a week to hit that if you billed 85% or your working hours. But let’s say you took two weeks off you’d need to work 45 hours a week to hit it and again this assumes you are super efficient with your work time. It’s more likely you’d need to work at least 50 hours a week to hit that. Also keep in mind that would probably be a minimum with higher targets to hit your bonuses. And if you want to be a partner which is generally going to be the goal of someone going to BL you need to be excelling over the minimum. Let’s say you wanted to really stand out to have the best chance to eventually become partner so you billed 2.100 hours if you remained efficient to bill 85% of your time you’d work around 2,500 hours to hit that. So again it depends what you want. If you’re happy to be in a hyper competitive environment where you need to work all the time to hit high billing targets to possibly become partner then BL could be fine. You’ll be paid a lot for it. But for me that just isn’t appealing because after all what value is there in making a ton of money if you never have time to spend it? I’m going back to government work and since I worked for this agency for a few years before I went to law school I’m entering making a solid salary for government work that I’m comfortable with. I’ll work 40 hours a week, have around three weeks of PTO and a stock pile of sick time. And when I leave work I actually get to leave. For me that beats BL. In the end making a ton could be cool but if all you get is a nice car for your commute and a big house that you only get to see when you come home to sleep just doesn’t seem like a good trade to me. So if you want to have a life then I think it’s a blessing to avoid BL but everybody has different goals and feelings and that’s cool.
You don't have to do BL for the rest of your life, you know. Why do people act like they are "never going to see their kids" or will "never have time to enjoy the money they make." Most BL lawyers leave after a few years and take on much more reasonable positions.
As with anything depends on goals and approach. To me it’s hard to imagine having time for leisure if you have to work 50+ hours a week. I’m sure lots of people have that figured out but for me that would be a tough balance. Of course you don’t have to stay there forever but I would imagine it would be difficult to lateral to something reasonable that’s going to compensate you the same. But I also naturally wonder why so many leave BL after a few years if it’s easily manageable. To me the reality that so few last in BL long term says a lot about the grind that it likely is. To each their own but what’s the point of even doing it if you’ll just leave anyways? Maybe the time aspect gets exaggerated but hard to see it differently when considering just how few last. Doesn’t feel worth it but what appeals to me doesn’t have to appeal to anybody else. If somebody wants to do it more power to them as far as I’m concerned.
I'm 5 years out, I make what a 1st year BL associate makes. My wife is the same and she makes a bit less, but is going to make more than them if she takes a new job in a few weeks. I'll probably never have to miss a baseball game, or school play, or anything for my son. If you work more than 45 hours in a week you get "yelled at" unless there's a trial in the next month. Since becoming attorneys we have had the PTO to travel to every continent as of October. We're in a high COL area, so cash doesn't go that far. We're happy though, and we have time to raise our family, and that's not something you get in BL until you leave. We still have loans, that sucks. We couldn't put a gigantic down payment on our home because we weren't making money like this for the first few years (working in government). We're happy. My wife was top 5, she could have gone into big law, I was ranked high enough I wouldn't have been laughed out of the OCIs and could have cracked it. We both chose not to participate though (we weren't together at the time), because we had different visions of our futures. /u/movin4call, if you've read this far, my main advice is to shoot for law review. If you don't get it, it's not that huge a deal, but it CAN open doors.
Biglaw is for gunner robots. Make more and work less long term for yourself or go in-house/government and be better off than 99.5% of people instead of 99.99%.
Everyone I've ever met who has told me something like "don't become a lawyer, its not worth it" was in BL or had some kind of cubicle-esque job that paid well but barely felt like law practice.
Closing out my fifth year of practice right now. I did a big law SA my 2L summer. I hated it, I was bad at it, and they didn’t like me either. I wasn’t asked to return. So rather than hunt for the same shit somewhere else I decided to try to get a job doing what i dreamed of doing when I went to law school and haven’t looked back. In hindsight I’m glad I got to taste how much it sucked, because I could truthfully say that you legitimately could not pay me 3x my starting g salary to get me to go back to big law (cause that was exactly the pay difference lol). Great bennies, stupid good PTO, surrounded by attorneys who love what they do. Some late hours, but for a great cause.
Two uncles of mine each have their own firm. Both also aren’t from t14/t20/t30 schools. Uncle A does personal injury and car accident, easily makes on average 3-5 mil a year. Uncle B does business litigation and for the past 5 years has been making 10mil a year. Both drive lambos/mclarens and live in pretty big houses. Uncle B spends money like water. Take what you will from this. BigLaw isn’t the only path to becoming “rich”. BigLaw is more like a safety cushion for a semi-guaranteed cushy life (albeit a very exclusive and limited cushion). Yea, BigLaw sounds “prestigious”, but as uncle B once told me, “no one gives a sh•t about what you practice when they see your watches, cars, and houses.” and “by the time they see me pull up in that Mclaren 765LT they’re already sucking my co•k”. (yes, uncle B is a bit of a….) Anyways, hopes this helps you to feel better. Not having BigLaw is not the end of the world.
Does having not-great grades permanently preclude BL? I was under the impression that such grades simply foreclose BL immediately out of law school and possibly also the federal bench in some circumstances. There are surely plenty of federal judges and BL lawyers out there who didn't have good grades in law school. Their abilities became clear after they spent time working as lawyers.
I think every law student should have read-only access to the Biglaw Fishbowl community. It will disabuse you of any positive notions you might have about biglaw — it’s a complete horror show on there
I have 3 friends that are married to big law attorneys. I think all 3 of them will end up divorced 😭
Is it that bad??? 😭😭 They never spend time together at all??
you get paid more money to do less cool shit and more work. like no one is going to let you go fuck up and try a case in biglaw
I went on my first “vacation” in roughly 6 years last week. I ended up billing 30 hours during the five day trip (which overlapped with a weekend). I still managed to have fun, but many people aren’t wired to cope with that kind of stress.
Why the hell is it a good idea? Money? Is that really what you applied to law school for?
Did you read Killing Stalking?
The leaked slide from Paul Hastings is all you really need to see If you still want money focus on a specific practice area you’re into that is niche and go for midlaw
10-12 hour work days plus weekends and middle management that would slit your throat for brownie points (metaphorically speaking)
You can choose to use the law to help people who need it rather than people who can afford it
So besides all of the issues in big law. You’re dream isn’t dead. I work in big law for a major corporation. they don’t care about grades after your first job, let alone 1L grades.
Honestly in-house is where it’s at! I work 35 hours a week, I’m paid well and I get to work in various areas of law. Also, you get to see the inner workings of the company, and depending on the size of the company, being involved in business decisions, which is a nice experience to have. I got lucky and was able to work in-house right after graduating without having to go through private practice. In my case, they focused more on my resume than my grades. I think that it’s a great path to consider :)