<p>I always hear about BIGLAW (The hours, the pay, etc...) but never seem to hear about Mid-Sized Firms. Can anybody tell me about them?</p>
<p>What are the hours like? How is the pay? What type of Law Schools do they recruit from? How is advancement at those firms?</p>
<p>In the bigger cities, the trend in the last several years has been that mid-sized firms have either merged with larger firms (most commonly) or merged with other mid-sized firms to create larger firms (less commonly).</p>
<p>When I refer to mid-sized, I'm referring to law firms with between 25-100 attorneys.</p>
<p>i will offer the following, which admittedly is based on dated information, but may be helpful.</p>
<p>when i was in law school, quite a number of years ago, i knew i did not want to work at a BIG FIRM. i attended a top law school where BIG FIRM was the common route. I tried to seek out smaller firms -- by my definition, about 25 lawyers or so. I found that there was little common definition among them. </p>
<p>At some of these firms, the lawyers thought of themselves as working at a large office, since they compared themselves to what they considered "small" -- ie, under 10 lawyers. At other firms, they viewed themselves as small since they compared themselves to the BIG firms, but they tried to hold themselves out as every bit as "good" as the BIG firms -- they perhaps had fewer BIG clients, but I often found the associates describing hours and work loads similar to BIG firms -- though a big difference was the degree to which they got to work with the name partners and the fewer levels of hierarchy. Some of the firms were "boutique" firms -- they specialized in one or two areas of the law -- and tried to be just as good as the BIG firms in addressing issues within their field -- they had some steady clients, but many others that came to them with issues related to their specialty field. Again, the associates often described hours similar to the BIG firms. </p>
<p>I will also note that even years ago, I saw some of what sally has described. Several of these boutique firms that I knew of ended up either being swallowed by larger firms or banding together. Several other smaller firms I interviewed were not still in existence as separate entities even 5 years later.</p>
<p>I worked at two firms before leaving the practice of law. One a small branch office of a large firm, one a small boutique firm - neither a NYC firm. As bad as I'd thought the hours at the branch office were, the hours were worse at the boutique firm. While one of the supposed selling points of the boutique firm was the more secure route to partnership, many associates fell by the wayside well before they could even be considered for partner (some of their own choice, some of the firm's choice). Neither office exists in the same form as when I worked for them.</p>
<p>What I think is more important than the shear size of the firm is the nature of the practice. A lot of smaller firms may be aspiring to the same types of clients and same level of work as the bigger firms (at least this was the case when I was working) -- hours at those types of smaller firms were not necessarily much better than at larger firms -- though probably there was less of a feel of the "firm" being impersonal since there'd be more interaction among all the attorneys. But, I never worked at a BIG FIRM, so maybe it really was worse at them. I imagine at a BIG FIRM there simply may be more opportunity for maintaining the same level of madness more consistently whereas a smaller firm may lend itself more to some lulls (which is NOT necessarily something the partners at the small firm want). Whereas life at a smaller firm that is not trying to play in the same league as the BIG firms may in fact be different.</p>
<p>bottomline -- don't just look at size -- look at the nature of the practice -- what type of work do the lawyers do and what are the inherent time demands of that practice -- law is a service industry in which it is the lawyers job to meet the demand of the clients -- look at who the clients are and what types of demands they make.</p>
<p>Thanks to both of you for the info! I work at a small firm (7 attorneys), and it is really relaxed there (They always open no earlier than 8 and close no later than 6), but then again most of the attorney's there are near retirement, and they had recently downsized.</p>
<p>I had also assumed that the intensity at the mid-sized firms would be mostly somewhere in between the small and big firms, but it is apparent that that is not necessarily the case. I guess I might as well take a shot at BIGLAW when the time comes.</p>