I too want to get paid $80k for an entire year of doing nothing

Graduate School Law School
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<p>To be fair, getting hired by and then climbing the ladder at Skadden for 5 years is no mean feat. </p>

<p>But come on, seriously. What other employer will pay you $80k for a year - a sum that the vast majority of Americans could never even dream of making - but also complete immunity from layoffs for that entire year? That's just ridiculous, at a time when everybody else can work like dogs yet still may be laid off at anytime with no warning. </p>

<p>True, as the article states, $80k may not be enough to cover the living costs of a typical law firm associate. My response is simple: So? Cue the world's smallest violin. The United States shed over 650k workers in just the month of March alone. What about their living costs? Nobody seems to care about that. If some lawyers somehow have to scrape to get by on $80k for doing no work, pardon me if I find it hard to sympathize. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/nyregion/13bigcity.html?_r=1&ref=business%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/nyregion/13bigcity.html?_r=1&ref=business&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Well, a university, for one, if you’re a tenured professor. And they’ll give you complete immunity from layoffs forever.</p>

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<p>Don’t see what you’re making a fuss over, obviously this is a rarity and not the norm. I’ve spoken to a lot of lawyers and read things online about what life is like for corporate lawyers at some of these big firms and heard horror stories, 80-90 hour weeks, living behind your desk and not seeing the light of day, not having any social life or time with family. Sure the salary is good, but the lifestyle just horrible, and not worth it imo (although I understand a lot of people do it for years to pay back loans).</p>

<p>This woman is obviously not typical of the average lawyer, and outside of BigLaw, the salaries are a helluva lot smaller. No one is asking you to sympathize with her! Of course most people envy her.</p>

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<p>Ah, but even a tenured professor still has to do something, even in their sabbatical year. The woman in the article literally gets to do literally nothing. </p>

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<p>Yeah, but nobody’s forcing anybody to join BIGLAW. If you don’t want to work 80-90 hours a week, you can join a lower-end law firm. Or work for the government.</p>

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<p>But if you work for the Govt or a lower-end firm, then you don’t get paid a huge salary. The reason so many grads jump into BigLaw even if they hate it is just to pay back all those loans from 7 years of school. </p>

<p>I’m not disagreeing with you here, I just don’t understand your point. Some lawyer is getting paid $80K to do nothing, and that’s great for her, but this is the exception, not the norm. But thank you for posting the article. And it’s not like she’s doing nothing - teaching Engish to monks in Sri Lanka, helping bring solar power to remote parts of the Himalayas, practicing not-for-profit law - not exactly a vacation :)</p>

<p>Some of my HS teachers got paid $80-100K to do absolutely nothing and “worked” 35 hrs a week, although they were only allowed to teach 5 42minute classes a day, so more like 16 hour weeks. Maybe I should become a teacher…:D</p>

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<p>Or they enter BIGLAW to get paid a hefty salary for doing nothing for an entire year with complete layoff immunity, as not just that woman in question, but every associate at Skadden was offered. Now, to be fair, they probably didn’t know that this deal would be offered when they decided to join, but that only means that the offer is pure gravy for them. {Note, they don’t have to take the year off - they can keep working for full pay if they want.}</p>

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<p>The point is, this is precisely the sort of thing that is going to encourage more people to enter BIGLAW, or by extension, to enter law school in the first place. Like I said, I too want to get $80k without having to do nothing. Who doesn’t? In my case, it’s too late for me to go to law school, but young people are going to see this and they’re going to figure (rationally) that they too should enter law school so that they might - not guaranteed, but might - be able to get a paid ‘get-out-of-layoffs-free’ card that other Americans could never dream of having. I’ve read numerous threads on this forum about how too many people are entering law school for purely venal and careerist reasons - a recent thread decried the mercenary zeitgest of the profession - yet what do you expect when BIGLAW offers perks that other professions don’t? You can work 90 hours a week as a Silicon Valley engineer and still get laid off at anytime. The notion that any of them would get paid to do absolutely nothing for a whole year is simply ludicrous. </p>

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<p>But that’s her choice. She could choose to do absolutely nothing and the firm would have no problem with that. Just think about that: your employer will happily pay you to do nothing. </p>

<p>The company is helping associates find pro bono work, and is encouraging them to do so. But the lawyers could also spend the year catching up on every episode of “Top Chef” that they missed during the boom years, or traveling around the world, “all of which is O.K. by us,” said Matthew Mallow, a partner at the firm.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/nyregion/13bigcity.html?_r=2&ref=business[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/nyregion/13bigcity.html?_r=2&ref=business&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Hey, I’m not defending teaching pay scales, as I think they are bloated also (especially when you factor in retirement benefits, summer vacations, and especially the tenure system which basically makes you unfireable). But at least they still have to show up. They still have to teach classes, even if some do so poorly. But these Skadden associates don’t even have to show up at all. They could spend the entire year on a beach somewhere, layoff immune, and no one would say boo.</p>

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<p>No one should be encouraged to enter BIGLAW (not that that’s easy, in any case) by this situation at Skadden. This is hardly a regular occurrence. It’s a one time offer at one firm. It’s smart on Skadden’s part to do this, as I’m sure that they’re looking ahead to a recovery that will allow them to be in a position to easily resume the ridiculous expectations they have of associates. They will have experienced people at the ready, people they know and have trained. Seems like a win/win situation to me.</p>

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No, because most people who enter BigLaw work ridiculous hours and enter expecting to do so. Now, I agree what this firm is doing seems astounding, paying associates all that money to do absolutely nothing, but you have to understand a normal BigLaw job often forces lawyers to work a crazy number of hours. No one enters BigLaw expecting the firm will pay them to do nothing. They enter expecting a high salary but no life outside work. Some of the stories I’ve heard from former corporate lawyers are just insane - working 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, basically going home to shower, eat, take a nap and then off to work again.

It is ridiculous, but again, hardly the norm. And while it’s astounding anyone could get paid a whopping $80K a year to do absolutely nothing, give young people some credit - we realize this is unusual. If it wasn’t, why would the NY Times be printing an article about it? Most students aren’t so stupid as to expect they too will be paid a hefty salary for doing absolutely nothing. </p>

<p>Also, it states in the article that the reason Skadden is doing this is because of the financial crisis. Well, the financial crisis won’t last forever, and then these lawyers will be chained to their desks again. Students my own age won’t be graduating Law School until 2015 or so, by which time the financial crisis will likely be over. This is crazy, but it won’t last for long.</p>

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<p>I highly doubt anyone’s deciding to enter biglaw because they MIGHT choose one of the few firms that offers a one-year deferral that pays 1/3 of the going rate for someone with their experience and shields them from being fired for a year (and makes them much more likely to be fired after that, if the firm still needs to downsize). </p>

<p>It’s impossible to have predicted which firms would offer this and which would just lay people off, and which would fire you and say it was because of your performance so they didn’t have to admit they were having economic problems–lots of firms have done these so-called “stealth layoffs” instead of or in addition to deferrals and economy-based layoffs. </p>

<p>I’m a 3L at a T14 school and right now people are scared. Many of those who accepted biglaw jobs won’t be able to start until January, if then (loans come due and student health insurance runs out in early fall). Those who planned to go into public interest are finding the market flooded with bigfirm refugees who are being paid by their firms. People who are clerking know they won’t be getting clerkship bonuses and will be lucky to have a job at the firms whose offers they deferred. None of these situations have been the norm, at least for the past five or so years (that’s when I started paying attention). </p>

<p>Things are bad, and they’ll probably settle down someplace better than this but not as good as it was a year or two ago. But anyone who thinks going to law school now will get them an $80k deferral down the road (and what would they do with the other 30-50 years of their working lives?) is unlikely to have the logical abilities to make it through law school and into Skadden anyway.</p>

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<p>Exactly. Just like when they read about these fat severance packages. I mean, can you imagine getting three months’ salary, not having to do anything and not even having to come back to work, ever? Plus, you’re immune to further layoffs, because you don’t actually work there anymore. It’s a dream come true.</p>

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<p>I think that anyone who is encouraged to work in BIGLAW or to enter law school because of this one-time, extraordinary program is misguided. This program is yet another sign that law firms are struggling mightily in this economy. Skadden is not doing this out of some feeling that associates are so downtrodden and exhausted that they need a break. Instead, they are doing this to reduce their payroll for a year while the economy is in the toilet. Skadden is betting that the economy will be better a year from now, and there will be work for these 125 attorneys when they return from their year away from the firm. </p>

<p>I would be willing to bet a whole lot of money that if the economy still sucks when these associates return to the firm, there will be layoffs at that time. Unfortunately, those who stuck around and continued to work at the firm during the year will probably be in a much better position to avoid layoffs than those who took their time off from the firm. In addition, there can be absolutely no assurance that when time comes for promotions to counsel and/or partner, that it won’t hurt your career if you were one of the folks who chose to take off for a year, particularly if you are up against seemingly more “loyal” attorneys for the positions. </p>

<p>I do give Skadden a lot of credit for being innovative and forward thinking in this situation – one of the biggest problems with laying off associates is that when the economy comes roaring back (and that’s usually how it happens – at least it did in 1992, 1997 and late 2001), law firms are quite short staffed for some period of time, particularly in the mid-level and senior associate ranks. It is a better plan to give associates some time off, while paying them 1/3 of their salaries (quite a savings for Skadden) while things are slow, than to fire them all and hope for the best later. </p>

<p>That said, this is a one-time thing. There is no embedded subtext that shows that Skadden gives a hoot about the health and well-being of their attorneys today any more than Skadden did last year. This move is being made by Skadden because it benefits Skadden. Any benefit it might have for anyone else is purely coincidental.</p>

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<p>Sakky, </p>

<p>What would you prefer to have Skadden do to save costs? Lay off lawyers and pay them nothing!!! That would be fairer somehow!!! </p>

<p>I applaud Skadden. Instead of choosing some attorneys to let go–in a market in which those lawyers would be hard pressed to find another job–the firm is giving associates this option. If it did lay off a fifth year associate, I would hope that it would offer three months severance pay, and that would be $60,000. So, doing this is only costing the firm $20,000 more for a 5th year associate. In some cases, there would be a risk of litigation–claims that an associate was chosen to be laid off because she was pregnant and the firm knew it, for example. This plan eliminates teh risk of litigation. </p>

<p>Losing your job can be devastating. Sure, it can be devastating for anyone–we all know that. But lawyers as a group have higher educational loans to pay off. And defaulting on those loans can have a FAR greater impact on a lawyer’s future career prospect than it does for people in other occupations. Gee, Skadden decided not to do this to people who have worked 20/6.5 for them for 1 to 8 years. That’s really “ridiculous” isn’t it? No, I don’t think so. </p>

<p>Moreover, whenever people are laid off, it has a terrible effect of those who aren’t. Everyone worries that (s)he may be laid off next. The fact that Skadden is trying to avoid this is going to help morale. </p>

<p>Frankly, I REALLY hope that employers in other sectors will think “maybe we should try that.” Instead of cutting our work force and giving them 3 months severance, lets offer folks one-third of their salary to take a year off. If we get enough volunteers, we won’t ruin people’s lives. </p>

<p>Governments have done something similar for a lot of years–but it’s usually been an option only offered to older employees. So, when NYC had money problems a few years back, it gave teachers over the age of 55 the option to retire and collect retirement benefits equal to what they would have earned if they worked to 65. (Unfortunately, it really hurt our public schools.) </p>

<p>Again, I think this is a really smart move by Skadden and I hope it spreads like wildfire throughout corporate America.</p>

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<p>Professors get to do this all the time, aka sabbatical.</p>

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<p>You don’t need to climb the ladder for 5 years at Skadden (which is brutal enough that any reward would be insufficient). </p>

<p>Latham and Weil are both giving 75K for incoming first years to defer for a year, Fried Frank 70k, Shearman $65k. Many of these people have never had a job before, then they get $35K as a summer associate to drink and go to expensive restaurants, then $75k to not work for a year - talk about a sweet gig. If they’re really lucky, then they’ll get fired at the end of the year (Latham is giving 6 months, so that’s another free $80k).</p>

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<p>To the best of my knowledge, firms are not “giving away” money to new incoming attorneys. Instead, regardless of how many student loans these newly minted attorneys may have to make payments on, these attorneys are being forced to start 4-12 months later than originally anticipated. The stipends that are being offered to these deferred associate attorneys generally has strings attached – that is, they only get the money if they can find public interest employment for the period of their deferrment. Finding public interest employment has been discussed recently on another thread, but suffice it to say that public interest positions are generally very competitive and, in many cases, have already been filled. In addition, regardless of whether the public interest employers would even have to pay these deferred associates (and assuming that they would not), many will still have problems absorbing so many new attorneys who know little to nothing about practicing law, and who would need desks, computers, etc. </p>

<p>For these deferred attorneys, their summer associate positions have already passed. Who knows what summer associate programs will look like this summer and in the future – particularly since many programs have already been scaled back or cancelled. </p>

<p>With respect to severence payments, those payments (if they are offered at all, whcih they often are not) are largely dependent on the extent of an attorney’s tenure with the firm. in other words, a deferred attorney who never actually steps foot in the door of the firm nor does a day of work is unlikely to get much severance, if any.</p>

<p>I think that your analysis assumes that money is being thrown to the wind here without strings attached, when that is far from the case.</p>

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<p>Nope, I deliberately mentioned only the firms that are giving it no strings attached. Latham says it “encourages” finding PI work, but it is entirely optional. On the other hand, some firms I didn’t include like Orrick are requiring public interest work. And the 1 year paid deferral programs are optional - people are not forced into them. Most firms are deferring start dates several months, and some even more, not by choice, but that is a different thing.</p>

<p>And Latham gave 6 months severance to all associates laid off. Admittedly, that is on the high end, as some other firms have only given 3 or 4 months (and a few nothing like, of course, Thelen and Heller, which collapsed completely). If offers to incoming first years are revoked before they start work (pretty much only happened at Luce, I think), they don’t get much, if anything, but even first years are getting the same length of severance, although it is less money, of course, since they have lower salaries.</p>

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<p>If I am not mistaken, the attached is a portion of the actual memo sent by Latham & Watkins to its incoming summer associates. The deferral program until October 2010 is only open to a limited number of participants, and I understand from the folks there that the students who are accepted into the deferral program will lose a year of seniority (in other words, they will start in October 2010 as first year associates), which means that they will get paid as first years when their peers from law school are second years. </p>

<p>In addition, Latham is one of the handful of BIGLAW firms so far that has actually frozen salaries, so that even once you move up a class year, you will not be getting raises for the time being. </p>

<p>Furthermore, Latham has laid off more associates (almost 200 associates) than almost any other firm out there.</p>

<p>I maintain that there is no such thing as a free lunch.</p>

<p>In any event, here are the exerpts from the Latham memo:</p>

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<p>There are different “strings” with each of the programs at Weil, Fried Frank and Shearman.</p>

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<p>And?
“This Deferral Program provides an opportunity to use the intervening period to work at a public service organization or pursue academic, political or other interests.”
“Other interests” = Xbox if you want, not to mention it’s just an opportunity. They have explicitly said you aren’t required to actually do anything: “While working in public service isn’t mandatory for Latham & Watkins associates, the firm said there was a ‘sincere hope’ the deferred associates would ‘use the intervening period to pursue a community service or other public advocacy projects of their choosing’.”</p>

<p>Here’s Fried Frank:
“We are also offering an opportunity for members of the fall 2009 class to defer until the fall 2010. We are encouraging those associates to develop their legal skills by pursuing a public interest or government position or by volunteering with a legal, political or community-based organization. Those who elect this deferral will receive a stipend of $70,000 plus health benefits. Finally, both of our summer associate programs in New York and Washington DC will now conform to a ten, not twelve-week schedule.”</p>

<p>Again, they are just “encouraging”.</p>

<p>Shearman says: "We strongly encourage incoming Class of 2009 associates who choose to participate in the Delayed Start Program to pursue public interest activities during the deferral year. "</p>

<p>Weil explicitly says that you get $75,000 for deferring or $90,000 if you “choose to work” in a firm-approved PI or pro bono organization: <a href=“http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/files/weil-gotshal-memo.pdf[/url]”>http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/files/weil-gotshal-memo.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Obviously they all phrase it as some kind of job training thing so it doesn’t just sound like they are desperately scrimping to save any cash they can. But no, no strings attached to any of them, just one big, happy free lunch.</p>

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<p>Clearly you feel differently, but to me, it seems a slap in the face to suddenly tell soon-to-graduate law school students who have planned their lives around being employed by a firm in a specific city that there is no job for them until 2010 (and 2011 in some instances).</p>

<p>Why is it a free lunch when many young attorney’s lives have been irrevocably altered by these changes? </p>

<p>How is that possibly a good thing for everyone? What about young attorneys who were counting on the starting salaries they were promised in order to pay off student loans, to pay for apartments they have already committed to renting, to paying off credit card debt they ran up while in law school or to pay living expenses? I, for one, needed to start working after graduation from law school as soon as possible. I couldn’t wait for that salary to begin, because my student loan payments weren’t going to wait. If my law firm told me within just a few months of my planned starting date that I was going to be paid half of my salary (whether or not I was required to show up at the office), it would have been a devastating financial blow.</p>

<p>How is it a good thing for everyone to lose a class year in terms of standing and salary? </p>

<p>Why is it a good thing to be an attorney in title only, since without experience, a young attorney basically knows nothing? </p>

<p>Is it possible that some young attorneys in this position are happy about this half-salary for a year? Of course. Is it possible that there are people out there where someone bankrolled their college and law school tuitions, so that they are relatively financially carefree? Absolutely. Is it also perfectly possible that this is a terribly difficult situation for many soon-to-graduate attorneys? Undoubtedly. </p>

<p>Maybe this situation might turn out to be some kind of boondoggle for some number of young attorneys, but I suspect that it is unwelcome news for most.</p>

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<p>Sallyawp, my response is of a similar gist to my initial posts on this thread: Young lawyers, welcome to the real world. People throughout the economy are losing their jobs left and right. I don’t see anybody helping them. Nobody is offering to pay them $80k a year to do absolutely nothing, as the NYTimes article discussed. Nobody is offering to pay them a stipend to defer their job offers for a year, as cherokeejaw said. These people are not even getting offers at all, or are having their offers fully rescinded with no opportunity for deferral. Or, if they have jobs, then they’re just being laid off completely. For example, just today, Yahoo announced they would lay off 5% of its workforce, or 700 workers. There is speculation that Microsoft will lay off more workers soon, on top of the 5000 job cuts that the company had already announced earlier in the year. And then there is the metastasizing disaster of the US auto industry. I also have strong memories of the dotcom crash of 2001 when thousands upon thousands of engineers were thrown out of their jobs. </p>

<p>Sallyawp, since you have an MBA, perhaps you might feel more sympathy for your degree compatriots. I know many MBA’s who graduated in the last few years from the top programs who’ve already lost their jobs. I know many MBA students who are graduating next month who don’t have any job offers, including some who have had accepted offers rescinded. Nobody is offering them a year-long deferral for a $70-90k stipend to do pro-bono work. Certainly nobody is offering them a year off to do nothing for $80k along with a ‘get-out-of-layoffs-free’ card for an entire year. They’re getting nothing. These people were counting on high-paying MBA jobs to pay back their student loans. Their careers have been set back by at least a year, if not more. Many of them are effectively bankrupt. Yet nobody seems to be helping them.</p>

<p>It is precisely that sense of entitlement within BIGLAW that I find so poignant: that somehow, lawyers at the major law firms should not have to suffer the same trials and tribulations that everybody else does. The lengths to which BIGLAW firms will go to avoid layoffs are simply incomprehensible to the vast majority of Americans who work for employers who, frankly, have zero sympathy for their workers. For example, numerous companies have been eliminating workers without even paying severance. Heck, one Chicago factory recently tried to get away with eliminating their work force without even paying accrued vacation (although the pay was recently restored).</p>