Alternatives to big law?

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>I know I want to be a lawyer... never been more sure of anything before in my life. My problem lies in that while I know what I want to do... making money is important to me. Not so much for the materialistic reasons, but more so I want to provide my future family someday with the priveledged upbringing I had.</p>

<p>I know to do this, the most logical route would be to join a big law firm from law school and slave away at 90+ hours a week for the gloriously large paycheck. My problem is, I would still like to retain somewhat of a life outside of work. What's the point of making all that money if you cant even enjoy it? A lifestyle of waking up going to work, coming home going straight to bed and repeating every day doesnt really appeal to me.</p>

<p>Don't get me wrong, I'm not lazy. I don't mind working hard, or long hours for that matter. I just dont want my job to consume my ENTIRE life</p>

<p>Basically my question is, are there any high paying legal fields/careers/jobs that lie outside of the 90+ hour work week at big law firms?</p>

2

<p>As my grandma says, "no one's gonna pay you to smell roses." Generally, law jobs require one or more of the following: long hours, low pay, or years of specialized experience. </p>

<p>Law jobs with the government are regarded as a middle ground (in both pay and hours) between big firms and nonprofits, but there's a wide range in terms of how much these pay, how selective they are, and what sort of work you'd do.</p>

<p>Some people work "in house" as the lawyer to a specific company or organization (college, hospital, etc.) but these jobs are almost always filled by people who have worked as lawyers in other settings for many years beforehand.</p>

<p>Being a law professor pays well (especially relative to the hours required!) but it is probably the hardest job to get. Most law profs are hired from 5 or 6 schools, and you generally have to be the top of the class and have a significant position on a major journal--even then it can be rough. Most law profs clerk for a few years and/or work (at law firms, the government, as public defenders, etc.) before entering academia, anyway.</p>

3

<p>If waking up and doing work all day doesn't appeal to you, why do you want to be a lawyer? I could work all day like that because the law is fun to me, I enjoy it. If you really want to be a lawyer, you should make sure that doing this kind of work all day is fun to you and your personality.</p>

4

<p>working all day isn't the issue. its working all day, evening, well into the night, and many weekends.</p>

<p>urmom -- from your previous posts you seem to still be in hs. how in the world can you possibly say that the law is fun to you? i'm sorry, but i really don't think you know yet what the actual practice of law is like. </p>

<p>associates at large firms working at the type of large firms that pay the big bucks for the long hours (ie the ones the op seems to be referencing) are often doing mundane, time consuming tasks that most prospective law students never imagine when they dream about getting their law school acceptance letter. unless you've been there, i doubt you can even imagine what its like to work all night on a documentation for a deal only to learn the next day that something's changed and you have to be there again the next night redoing much of it. or trying to understand the nuances of some regulations while you try to compile documentation for a filing that seems to be due on a ridiculous timeframe. or redo research several times over because the senior attorney tells you that's not the answer the client was hoping for -- are you really sure and can't you look some more, they really think there is something out there somewhere that says something different. (i once spent a week trying to find the elusive case a partner swore must be out there holding what he thought it should hold -- it was only after i handed him a pile of several dozen cases that held the opposite of what he insisted that he finally let me stop hunting for the case he "thought" was out there.)</p>

5

<p>Unbelievablem - you described the life of an associate very well. My personal favorite was being invited to attend an arbitration with a Senior partner...so that I could make coffee all day and take notes. I also have "fond" memories of working really hard on cases, only to have them ripped away from me by other attorneys when they got closer to trial or something interesting was about to happen. The Partner who is insistent that you find law to support a weird theory exists at most firms. And he/she needs that law NOW, even if it means you have to research the weird theory weekends and evenings. </p>

<p>The same type of personality (aggressive, self-confident, wanting to win) that makes a successful litigator, can make for a horrible boss. If the associate has the same personality, it's even worse. </p>

<p>I think you're absolutely right that most law students (particularly students excitedly planning biglaw), don't have any idea about the cr*ppy work that awaits them. Likewise, most young lawyers are disappointed when they finally can announce that they're lawyers and people react with "so what..." (my cousin/uncle/aunt/neighbor or my friend's kid is a lawyer too).</p>

6

<p>My problem isn't that I dont love law or long hours. I just dont want to lead a lifestyle where the ONLY thing I do is work. I'm not saying I want an 8 hour day every day, I just want something a little less consuming than big law that pays around the same amount, possibly slightly less</p>

7

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I just want something a little less consuming than big law that pays around the same amount,

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<p>ok -- do you understand where that huge salary comes from? clients pay law firms based on hourly billings. attorneys keep track of their time to a fraction of an hour so that their time can be billed at rather hefty hourly rates to clients who are willing to pay big bucks for legal services.</p>

<p>high hourly rates times tons of hours billed equals a lot of money coming in -- enough to pay a very nice salary to that associate, to help cover overhead, and to make money for the partners. (this is how firms hope things work, a poor economy can seriously throw things out of whack, but that's a topic for a different thread.)</p>

<p>why would you expect to make the same type of money while working fewer hours? where do you think the money for that salary will come from?</p>

<p>and just so you realize -- not every minute you are at the office ends up being "billable" -- so when someone tells you about how many hours an associate bills in a year, don't just divide that by 52 and assume that the number of hours you'll be in the office each week.</p>

<p>law is a service industry. the clients are paying big dollars for the attorney to meet their legal needs -- they want an answer tomorrow -- they get it tomorrow even if there really isn't a real good reason for them to need it tomorrow. they're willing to pay for it, you work the hours to provide it. you're compensated well for it. but you have to put in the hours to get the salary.</p>

<p>even if you aren't at a biglaw firm -- it still boils down to the simple fact that what an attorney earns is dictated by the hours he puts in and the hourly rate his client is paying. there's some variation -- some contingent fees, some retainers -- but private lawyers earn their money based on the hours they work. if you work for clients who can't afford to pay as much hourly, it makes it harder to earn the same kind of money, even if you are billing high hours. </p>

<p>at some point, a more senior attorney hopes to leverage the hours of his/her junior associates and earn a profit off of their billings, but don't ever think senior attorneys leave at 5 and just rake in their money from the sweat of their underlings -- they got to be the senior attorney by working their rear off -- they don't just stop once they "make it."</p>

8

<p>I'm sorry I don't think I'm articulating myself very well.</p>

<p>I dont expect equal pay for less work, thats irrational. What I'm looking for is something comprable, less hours, a little less pay, but still a decent salary.</p>

9

<p>even now when you try to clarify your position you refer to "less hours, a little less pay"- i notice you don't use the "little" to describe the "less" hours. you seem to assume that you can earn almost as much while working a meaningful amount less. ie, it seems as if you are looking to earn proportionately MORE per hour -- how else could you "work less" but only get paid a "LITTLE less?"</p>

<p>i know there's been information about this posted previously -- not sure exactly where or when -- but what you really need to gain an appreciation of is just how wide a range lawyers' salaries can cover. everyone hears about the biglaw salaries and seems to assume that those numbers are somehow "normal" -- many lawyers earn a lot less -- which does NOT mean that they work proportionately less. if anything you are probably more likely to find a job where you can work "a little less" and earn "less"</p>

<p>law is a service industry -- your hours are determined by the demands of your clients. and clients can be demanding. and senior attorney can be demanding of their junior associates in order to help prove to the clients just how well the firm can meet their needs, even when the client isn't being that demanding. your hours as an attorney will be dictated by the types of clients your firm has. </p>

<p>i don't think you've addressed this yet -- but why are you so sure you want to be a lawyer? what exactly do you foresee yourself doing?</p>

10

<p>Look - I understand where the desire to ask this sort of question comes from, but it's just not a very good question. Now, I'll preface this by saying that I am a college senior, going through the application process now (c'monnnnnnnnnnn HLS or CLS!!) so I am by no means an expert on this - so if I say something misguided please call me out on it. But a few things:</p>

<p>1) I've come to be very skeptical of people that start a post by saying something along the lines of "I love the law and my passion is the law and I want to do 'law' for ever and ever and ever". It just comes across as a bit...naive? Anyway, I don't mean to criticize you, but if you do love the law like you say you do, worry not about where you'll be ten to twenty years down the road - you should just be happy you have the chance to study what you love for the next three years of your life.</p>

<p>2) The truth is, as far as I've learned, that law salaries, especially coming right out of law school, are bimodal - that is to say most students (and I work mostly with T14 figures, because that's where I'm looking) either make over 100,000 doing biglaw work etc, or make less than say, 60,000, either doing public interest or not being able to find a biglaw job. I could be wrong in saying this, but it just doesn't seem like there is an awful lot in the middle between those two. Now the nice thing is that if you are interested in something like public interest, many schools are now offering loan repayment programs, which would make your life MUCH easier.</p>

<p>But in all honesty, the best advice I could give you is to stop making these kind of posts, and I don't mean that to be insulting. There is no miraculous answer that someone will be able to give you that combines great pay with an easy work schedule - what everyone said is right, people pay for the long hours, the tedium, etc. I do think the suggestion of government work would probably be your best option, but I don't know very much about any gov't law jobs, so I won't speak to that.</p>

<p>Make it easy on yourself - 1) Do you want to go to law school? 2) Why? 3) (if you're looking at top schools) It is no secret that grads of most top law schools go into biglaw, public interest, and clerkships and academia (for the elite). Understand that! So instead of asking what OTHER than that you could do, ask yourself if doing those things interests you.</p>

<p>Hope this helps, sorry if it came off as rude, trying to be helpful.</p>

<p><strong>EDIT</strong> Ha unbelievablem beat me to it - I second his thoughts</p>

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I second his thoughts

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<p>fyi -- her :)</p>

12

<p>Solomonm, I hope you realize that the real difficulty in working in BIGLAW lies not in the volume of hours that you must work, but in the unpredictability of when you will have to work those hours. It's not like you walk in on a Monday morning and set your schedule that week to work 80 hours. You work when there is work to be done, and I guarantee that particularly as a junior associate, it is not you dictating the schedule for that work. There are any number of 4 p.m. phone calls that lead to very late nights in the office. There are any number of times that you will have made plans with friends or family that will simply have to be cancelled (and you will quickly learn to rarely make definitive plans - "Well, assuming that I can get out of the office, I would love to meet you about 9 p.m. for dinner."). </p>

<p>When I was a BIGLAW junior associate, over the course of a year, I averaged about 75 hours per week. Unfortunately, those hours were incredibly inconsistent, so that I worked 60 hours one week, followed by two weeks of 100+ hours in the office, etc. It was never once up to me when I would work those hours, nor did I typically know more than a week or so in advance when my hours would accelerate. In fact, I often did not know when I walked into the office in the morning when I would go home, if at all. My peers and I kept a change of clothes, toothbrushes and other basic toiletries in the office at all times. During particularly brutal stretches, I sometimes caught cat naps on my partner's office sofa (with permission, of course). We often used the shower in the firm's gym to get ready for the next day without ever leaving the office. </p>

<p>The travel can also be brutal. I was not infrequently away from home for a week or so at a time (I was a corporate lawyer, it was much worse for litigators during a trial), and I was often required to travel between time zones and head straight from the plane into the office or a meeting, only to then stay up all night working abroad. </p>

<p>I also found that I never ever got to take the four weeks of vacation to which I was entitled. The most I ever took during any given year was two weeks. I guessed that help prop up those billable hours!</p>

<p>Another thing to keep in mind is that your billable hours are only a percentage of the actual hours that you work. You do not bill the time when you eat lunch, use the restroom or call your spouse at home to tell them you'll be late again. You do not bill the time that you spend filling out your journal of time to be billed to clients (which can take 30 minutes or so a day). I typically found that for every 12 hours that I worked, I billed about 10 hours, and I was particularly efficient compared to my peers/friends. </p>

<p>That said, it's not all so bad. In my first three (brutal hours) years of practice, I actually did more work and worked on more deals than lawyers at less demanding firms would work on in six years. I was given an incredible amount of responsibility, as some firms truly do encourage, and by the time I had worked for three years, I had already led the negotiations on deals worth over $100 million (with the background guidance of more seasoned lawyers, of course), travelled and worked on transactions in eight different countries and worked with attorneys and business people at the very highest levels of their respective organizations. </p>

<p>Looking back, I actually wouldn't change my decision to work in BIGLAW at all (though I am thrilled not to be working quite that many unpredictable hours now).</p>

13

<p>As far as my choice to go to law school and pursue law as a career.....</p>

<p>I had originally intended on majoring in business administration and economics. Not so much because I enjoyed it, but because it seemed like a safe choice in a career, something stable that I happened to have a natural talent for. However, as I took more classes I realized that I hated the actual material. I went back to subject material that genuinely interested me and I was excited to learn about. I'm no majoring in political science with a minor in communication law and media policy. I didn't make the decision to go to law school lightly. I spent countless hours researching it. I attended law school classes at my school to see what they were like and even went to the library and read case study books to see what the reading would be like for me a year from now. </p>

<p>Law and government have always been something that I've been genuinely interested in. While some people dread reading case studies I thoroughly enjoy going over them. While I realize that learning law and the actual practice of law are vastly different that hasn't deterred me from wanting to practice. I've shadowed with a family member who is currently practicing to see what the average day is like and I'm still not discouraged.</p>

<p>I'm really trying to find a middle ground as far as salary and workable hours. I don't want to only be making $60,000 a year but completely forgoing any life outside of work just isnt worth a $140,000+ salary a year. I would be quite content making something somewhere inbetween there around $100,000 a year. Like I said, I don't mind long hours, I really dont. I just want to be able to enjoy a life outside of work, maybe maintain a relationship should I pursue one. I'm just trying to find careers in law that fits that particular kind of profile.</p>

14

<p>A lot of solo practicioners do well. I would think Wills and Estates will be a good field given the aging population.</p>

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<p>re solo practice -- i also know a number is solo practice who are happy and doing ok -- but not earning nearly the type of salaries biglaw associates make -- or if they are, it is only after being practice for MANY years that they have reached that level.</p>

<p>a new law school graduate cannot expect to hang out his or her shingle in a private practice and expect to make a lot of money. also -- as a practical matter -- you learn very little about the actual practice of law in law school -- so learning from other, more experienced lawyers, is often essential -- so someone aspiring to solo practice has to think about how they will get that experience.</p>

<p>also -- realize that if hours are your concern -- ANY ONE starting their own business, no matter what type of business that is, has to expect to put in a ton of hours building that business -- clients don't just walk in the door. you have to network - often spending business-building hours doing things that you aren't earning money for so that you can ultimately end up with fee paying clients. and once you have those clients, you have to keep them happy or they won't be your clients for very long -- so again, your hours will depend on the nature of your clients and their demands. if you are in solo practice there just isn't anyone else to pick up the slack when you want to leave for vacation.</p>

16

<p>I think I know what he means. He's saying is there anyway to make near as much as one would at BIGLAW, but not with the life-draining aspects.</p>

<p>I think your only shot at that is perhaps a mid-sized law firm, or government. It's doubtful you'll have the opportunity to make as much, but they're kind of the in-betweens.</p>