<p>It’s not soul-destroying if a deal falls through. It may be a little frustrating for awhile, but we all know that any transaction can theoretically fall apart until the ink is dry. No good lawyer should ever be so self-indulgent as to let that fear stop them from giving 100%. We don’t get paid for giving 90%, in addition to our ethical obligations to our clients. Good question though.</p>
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<p>Having a deal fall apart is neither demoralizing or soul-crushing. It is what it is: work. You do your job, and if you’re lucky, you get to go home occasionally to enjoy your life. Lawyers at big firms generally get paid regardless of the outcome of the transaction since the hours get billed regardless of the end-result. Of course, if a bad outcome is in any way attributable to the attorneys, those attorneys/that firm may never get that business again. </p>
<p>Yes, it can be incredibly satisfying to close a deal, but it’s pretty much right on to the next after that. There isn’t a lot of time for back slapping and high fiving.</p>
<p>Hi sally, </p>
<p>Just wanting to ask (if you’re at liberty to say) what area of practice you work in? If I recall correctly, you said that you’ve worked on some very intellectually stimulating and complex deals before and just curious what area of law you work in. Also, have you worked in other areas than what you’re doing now? If so, how does the work compare (in terms of stress, time, intellectual novelty and stimulation, etc.)? </p>
<p>Thanks very much.</p>
<p>I do primarily corporate transactional work, with some day-to-day counseling of clients thrown in for good measure. My work includes mergers and acquisitions, securities and private equity (with securities thrown in for good measure) in a wide range of industries, though my most recent work has focused primarily on the health care and industrial/chemicals segments. I have worked in other areas of law and for other industries, and the work is fairly uniformly challenging, exciting, exhausting, stressful and capable of completely shutting down any work/life balance you ever hoped to achieve. </p>
<p>I did work in house for a few years as lead counsel to a several billion dollar business unit of a large public company, and I actually worked more hours and was a slave to many more masters then. I left and went back to a law firm. At least I get paid well for my time and work there.</p>
<p>I worked at least 8 and as many as 15 hours a day this past holiday weekend, and I did not sleep at all last night. I will likely not get to sleep until after midnight tonight. Undoubtedly, I will be back at work by 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.</p>
<p>Very interesting background (esp. the work on healthcare…actually that was very interesting!).</p>
<p>I’m not sure if this is too general of a question to ask, but are there certain practice areas in biglaw that can be categorized as ~usually~ having: </p>
<p>i.) more/less work hours,
ii.) more/less predictable work hours
iii.) more/less intellectually stimulating work?</p>
<p>It seems your work experience involves more work long overnight work hours and also more changing and intellectually challenging/stimulating situations than other areas (if I’m not mistaken). Just wondering if there are some general categories of biglaw that can labeled as having these features (listed above) that prospectives can think about? </p>
<p>Thank you very much again. And happy sleep and rest time to you!!! Reading your posts sometimes makes ME feel exhausted. lol.</p>
<p>IMHO, iii.) is totally subjective. I’ve known people in tax and bankruptcy who were fascinated by what they do. I’m interested by the conflict in litigation, but bored to death by dealmaking – I just don’t care whether this company buys that one or not. Others are the opposite.</p>
<p>That’s a good point, Hanna. </p>
<p>Perhaps one thing we can throw into iii.) is the novelty factor? How many new situations do you come across in a given area of biglaw practice? Not that that necessarily = intellectual fascination/stimulation either. lol. But, it would seem to add more variety at least for those who are bored by repetitive tasks and/or topics.</p>
<p>I actually had a friend who was fascinated by criminal law (of the everyday public defender/prosecution variety) and said he would have done it if not for the low pay. He said it was constantly exciting to learn of stories of real crimes and had a kind of personal fascination with it.</p>
<p>As someone who has done it, I can tell you that working for a big law firm
(and many small law firms as well) is indeed horrible.</p>
<p>I could write pages on the subject, based not only on my experience, but on the experiences of countless co-workers.</p>
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<p>One of the reasons why I chose to do corporate work is that there is little room for stepping on or hurting other people. Though in the course of negotiating a deal rarely will one win every point they were hoping to achieve for their clients, everyone does typically shake hands and walk away from a deal happy that it closed - either because they became richer by cashing out of an investment or a business or because they have a vision for where the transaction will lead them into the future. </p>
<p>Of course, there are plenty of cocky, arrogant corporate attorneys, and plenty of cocky, arrogant clients, but there are plenty more who are kind, generous and thoughtful. I have had mentors over the years who have gone way above and beyond the call of duty, in spite of their long hours at work, to teach me and show me many of the things that have made me successful today.</p>
<p>For me, litigation was not appealing because it was more about forcing the opposing side to submit and do something they were not otherwise inclined to do. That’s not to say that there aren’t truly aggrieved plaintiffs out there who deserve whatever settlement/judgment they receive, but the adversarial nature of litigation practice was never my cup of tea.</p>
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<p>Again, it’s not just about winning and losing, at least not in corporate transactional practice. It is about helping to guide your clients through difficult legal changes, challenging regulatory environments, competing shareholder interests, and tough negotiations. I regularly guide companies through their efforts to become more sustainable and to provide transparent sustainability reporting to the public. I help healthcare clients navigate their way through layer upon layer of sometimes competing regulatory regimes, reimbursement mechanisms, challenges from competitors and tax hurdles. I love my work. I sometimes could stand to have a little bit less of it.</p>
<p>Remember - this is a client service industry. Your client says jump and you merely ask, how high? If you are not successful making your clients happy (and making the folks on the other side of the transaction wish they had you as their counsel), you won’t be successful practicing corporate law. </p>
<p>There is no area of law that is uniformly free from working long hours under tremendous pressure. Let me emphasize again - CLIENT SERVICE INDUSTRY. You help your clients to the very best of your ability even when your client is unreasonable (though as a partner, you can manage/massage expectations to some degree). If you want a career that involves self-determination, the ability to go home at times of your own choosing, and the right to choose only to work only on those matters that you find fulfilling or intellectually stimulating or that make you happy, this is likely not the career for you.</p>
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One business lawyer gave me very good advice: the only thing that you can charge for is your time, so act accordingly. First, don’t give it away for free, and second, realise that you cannot make money when you aren’t actively working.</p>
<p>In some industries, the amount of money you make is not a function of the number of hours you spend on something. However, in law, you make money when you work, and only when you work, because of the way lawyers bill their clients.</p>
<p>Obviously, you also cannot cut down your hours and your salary; this isn’t engineering, wherein you can go on a 32-hour week for 80% of the pay. As the hours are variable, it’s not really easy to just say “I would like to work a bit less and earn a bit less money.”</p>
<p>ariesathena is absolutely correct about the ability to scale back your work.</p>
<p>In fact, that is exactly the reason why it is extraordinarily difficult for those attorneys with young children (frequently women) who wish to work “part time” to do so effectively. Typically, “part time”, “mommy track” earns you a lower salary and bonus plus takes you off of the typical partner track, but requires a lot more work than you would think.</p>
<p>In my experience, “part time” attorneys usually work 4 days a week in the office, and while they may not be there all night, they are also not leaving at 5 o’clock. They are more likely to leave at 7, spend some time at home, and then pick up more work again later in the evening. On their “off” day, they still remain available for calls, questions, and for work whenever necessary. From what I’ve seen, these arrangements don’t seem to last indefinitely since many either resent working so much for so little money compared to their peers or just decide that they still can’t find the work/life balance that they need.</p>
<p>Again, when you have to satisfy demanding clients, working a set number of hours on a set schedule is often impossible. You may find yourself working fewer hours one week versus the next, but you can’t control when that occurs. Clients set the schedule. You merely respond.</p>
<p>Here’s another quick question about the life balance of biglaw. </p>
<p>Hypothetically, if you (biglaw professionals out there) had a child and/or a spouse who needed you in a way that required more time than your biglaw job could allow, how would you respond?</p>
<p>Just thought I’d chime in…</p>
<p>I have a close family member in BigLaw (not, however, in NYC, where the hours and lifestyle are worst). His first year as an associate, he often worked VERY long, but I don’t think he’s ever slept over at the office. He would, however, get assignments late at night and be forced to finish them before morning…I remember him working well into the early morning while technically on Christmas vacation (mind you, he wasn’t taking a lot of time off…it was maybe Dec 23rd or even the 24th)</p>
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<p>Quit, divorce, or give your child up for adoption.</p>
<p>I’m seeing many attorneys on this thread so I’d like to pose a small question for you all: if you could go through your undergrad years again, what field/job would you choose to go into? Would you go through law school again?</p>
<p>Curious about partner roles during those all-nighter assignments. Do partners actually have to be in and doing work (or supervising it) when those sudden all-night assignments come in. Or would a senior associate handle it (and manage/supervise the junior associates)? </p>
<p>I believe (I’d have to double-check) that someone said partners have more predictable hours (but not necessarily less) than associates in biglaw? Would they have less all-nighter type of work as well?</p>
<p>Partners have more control over the schedule because they assign the work. That doesn’t mean they don’t do all-nighters, but it is a bit less common.</p>
<p>Let’s see how many pages we can push this thread. …j/k :D</p>
<p>Actually, I really do have a follow-up to the whole long hours thing mentioned earlier. I know that the hours of any given week can vary (which is the tough part, due to unpredictability) and that on average you’ll likely be working around 60 (is that correct?) hours per week. </p>
<p>Two follow-up questions: </p>
<p>1.) Is there any ratio (roughly) for how many hours you must work in order to generate an actual billable hour? zoosermom mentioned before that there’s a difference between billable hours and actual hours worked. </p>
<p>2.) What’s the breakdown like usually like for the work being done per hour (I know this will vary depending on the day, but just thought I’d ask anyhow)? E.g., for a 12 hour day, would it be something like: </p>
<p>5 hours of research/reading
3 hours of typing
2 hours of client interaction
2 hours of “thinking” (made that up)</p>
<p>…sort of just curious about a typical day’s worth of work, but also for any other unique kinds of days as well (e.g. will there be days where you may spend all of it just reading?). </p>
<p>TA!</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen and what most of my friends have told me, efficient work is about 5 hours worked to 4 hours billed. So you’ll work 10 hours to bill your daily 8. Efficiency can go down due to unpredictability. For example, you may come into the office at 9 and just not have work to do until noon. That’s 3 hours tacked on to the ten or so you’ll need to get 8 billed. On the other hand, if you’re swamped you can easily bill much more efficiently. On a trial you could be billing just about every minute of your time. </p>
<p>What work you’re doing per hour depends an awful lot on what you’re working on. If you’re doing research you could easily do 8 hours of research in a day. Or you could do none because you’re writing motions and you already did the research you need.</p>
<p>I have a weird question, but just curious: </p>
<p>During these long hours that can last all night/morning in biglaw, what would an associate do if he/she hypothetically had an oral herpes flare-up that was visible? Could the associate actually call-in sick during those manic/frantic last-minute deadline work-all-night sessions? Or would the biglaw community care more about getting the work done and not care that someone had visible herpes sores?</p>