<p>Have you ever sat in a consulting case interview before? I have. Not only does the person being interviewed need to prepare extensively, but the person conducting interviewing also has to place a ton of effort, time, and attention. Top school + top GPA is just the initial screen to get to the interview stage. There are 3 stages of case interviews at top consulting firms. For every 100 candidates that top consulting firms interview out of first rounds, they end up extending offer to one of them. Yes, this is a ton of effort and time.</p>
<p>Not to mention, top firms recruiting top talent means not only finding the talent they want, but also luring that talent from the competing firms. </p>
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<p>I think you really need to stop with the hypothesis here and there, and just go ahead and talk to some Biglaw/ consulting / I-banking recruiters. Better yet, actually go through some of those interviews.</p>
<p>Top employers not only look for academic credentials. They also hire people based on fit, since they want to hire people they can tolerate working with for 70-80 hours a week.</p>
<p>The vast majority of partners are not exclusively salesmen at any Biglaw firm with which I’m familiar. Many Biglaw partners work long hours because they both have to manage and do actual work on their deals, but also because they need to generate new business. Sure, the junior corporate associates do a lot of the “grunt work” (i.e. due diligence, research, etc.), but at Biglaw firms where matters are leanly staffed, the partner is doing a lot of real work on the deal - including structuring the deal, working closely with the client on negotiating strategy, drafting and reviewing documents, reviewing material due diligence documents and working closely with the accounting, finance and other teams to make sure that the financials and deal terms reflect what the client really wants.</p>
<p>A little bit of history might be in order on Biglaw attorney salaries. </p>
<p>In the mid-1980s, NYC Biglaw paid just over $50,000/year. A that time, tuition and fees at T14 law schools averaged somewhere between $10,500 - $11,500/year. </p>
<p>Starting in the early 1990s through the late 1990s, salaries at NYC Biglaw firms rose to $80,000 - $87,000 (in later years)/year. During that time period, tuition and fees at T14 law schools rose from approximately $15,000/year to $25,000/year.</p>
<p>In 1998, NYC Biglaw salaries started to jump up fast in response to severely increased competition for the top candidates from dot com businesses and investment banking. From 1998 through the mid-2000s, salaries for NYC Biglaw first year associates rose quickly from $87,000/year to $94,000/year to $100,000/year to $110,000/year to $125,000/year to $140,000/year to $160,000/year. Over the same period (through the present), tuition and fees at T14 law schools rose from approximately $23,000/year to $50,000/year. </p>
<p>I’m not trying to draw any conclusions here - just reiterating the facts.<br>
Notably, law school tuition has risen at a far greater rate than associate salaries.
The number of law firms paying the very highest associate salaries has dropped materially since the heights of the mid-2000s.<br>
Many of the law firms that match the highest starting salaries for associates fail to match the very highest comp firms in salaries in later years as well as bonuses.
<p>Partners are in charge of supervising the overall scope and delivery of the project. I concur with you that they could share the load with ‘grunt work’ section; however partners usually spend a large chunk of their time and energy building book of business, overseeing junior attorneys’ work product, managing client expectations/ scope/ plan of the work, and working through the financials. In other words, they are in the position of revenue generating and supervising.</p>
<p>Associates exist in order to save parters’ time, from a load of grunt work, and hence end up saving the firm’s money. Associates play cost-reduction roles at law firms; where they command relatively low(er) rates of billing rate for processing a very large quantity of (grunt) work, that would need to be handled by partners or senior staff otherwise. </p>
<p>Interesting anecdote: my friend was talking about the conversation he had with his boss at his I-banking job, where his boss (Managing Director at the bank) lost his temper at one fo the assignments that my friend’s team turned in, since the excel spreadsheet contained several errors before being pitched out to potential clients. The angry boss shouted to the analyst team, of which my friend is a part, “You guys better learn to deal with Excel, or else you aren’t fit fot this job. I hired you guys specifically to crank out Excel spreadsheets and save my time.” </p>
<p>Some posters on this thread have questioned whether clients would be willing to pay for in-experienced 1st or 2nd year Biglaw associates. That is irrelevant, as I mentioned. Why? Two reasons. So, would the client be willing to pay 3-4 times more per hour, for the billig hours of partners/ senior staff to do the same, basic-level grunt work (of which there is a ton) that 1st year associates would otherwise do, for a fraction of cost? I somehow doubt it.</p>
<p>Second, partners’ and senior level attorneys’ (of counsel, senior associates) primary role is in closing deals and revenue generating, while supervising the overall scope of the client work. Good luck persuading these senior attorneys to spend 90-100% of their time doing doc review, mindless research, cut & paste, for 70-80 hours a week typically reserved for junior associates. Things just don’t work this way. Clients can moan and cry all day. It is the way things work. In Biglaw. In I-banking. In consulting. In pretty much every white-collar service-oriented profession, basically. </p>
<p>There is a very specific reason why Biglaw hires non-experienced junior associates. It is simply because these firms need them. Just like how I-banking and Consulting firms hire non-experienced analysts fresh out of school.</p>
<p>Lastly- one last reason why top firms are so obsessed with hiring the ‘top talent’, is because of the fact that out of each hiring class, several people will join the firm’s leadership. In that regard, these firms would need to pay close attention to the caliber and talent pool of the candidates they consider for entry level hiring. (in addition to the fact that top talents are desirable for a number of other reasons, as mentioned earlier)</p>
<p>I could be way off, but from researching law school and biglaw a lot lately (I’m still in UG, so a very big disclaimer here!), I was under the impression that biglaw hires from top law schools not so much because they believe these people are always the “best” of the best law prospects, nor that biglaw work at the junior associate level necessarily requires a tremendous amount of “talent,” but that doing so does two major things:</p>
<p>a.) gives peace of mind to the client
b.) justifies the bills they charge the client</p>
<p>From what I’ve read (again, I’m going to insert that big disclaimer, b/c I’m still in undergrad and still learning), much of the work that junior associates do is quite ordinary. Work ranging from document review to cut & paste does not necessarily require high level expertise and legal talent. Indeed, I think that’s why over the past few years biglaw clients have stopped paying for junior associates to do document review anymore and have outsourced it to places like West Virginia at lower rates (for “other” law school graduates to do). </p>
<p>Secondly, it’s not necessarily clear that the best “talent” comes directly from the top of the class at the T14, although that is a reasonable place to obviously look. From my understanding (big disclaimer again), law school exams do not necessarily test for the exact type of skills that would be needed to succeed in law. They may test for some, but there seem to be a good number of other skills that would lay outside of the single end-of-the-semester exams that students’ grades are based off of. It’s just not that clear to me that law school exams do that great of a job predicting future legal success. I believe there was a study that was done at Berkeley that seemed to argue that position (I’ll try to look it up). That’s not at all to say, though, that those who do excel at T14’s aren’t talented or going to become great biglaw attorneys. I’m sure many do! It’s just that T14 status and/or law school grades may not be such a great indicator/predictor of legal talent. …But, that’s open for argument. </p>
<p>So, then, what does the client pay for? I believe the most important thing may be peace of mind. As imperfect of an indicator as T14 or top-of-the-class status may be for legal talent and as much as the work done by associates may not be that extraordinary (that a non-T14 or middle-of-the-class student elsewhere couldn’t have done it), I think there is probably still a desire for peace of mind that the work being done (which could involve millions of dollars at stake) is being handled by the most capable people. And people naturally associate talent and competence with easy to decipher markers of success, such as degrees from Harvard or UPenn…etc. So, clients would seem likely to continue to pay high rates for biglaw work (where recruitment is done primarily from the T14 and top-of-the-class elsewhere). It’s likely worth the extra money vs. any real or perceived threats of potential foul-ups of their work.</p>
<p>Is this a reasonable assumption? Or, am I way off?</p>
<p>I’m amazed at how much insight you have into the inner workings of BigLaw as a law student, NYULawyer. I look forward to seeing your postings in a few years.</p>
Who do you think actually pulls the trigger on hiring decisions?</p>
<p>I’ve been recruiting in BigLaw since the early 1980s through to today and I respectfully submit that your perspective is not quite correct.</p>
<p>As far as the true “grunt work” it’s not done by actual employees of firms anymore, it’s done by the thousands of temp attorneys or staff attorneys nowadays. You may be unaware, as a law student, of what actually happens on a day-to-day basis in a law firm, but you will learn. You will also learn the difference between a recruit and a junior employee. Here’s a tip for you: young attorneys who come into law firms thinking they know everything about the operation of a law firm, often run into serious trouble very quickly and without the right attitude, no one will throw them a lifeline. When you start your first day, remember that whatever you think you know, you have never been a working attorney at that firm, on that floor, with that staff on that team. Listen a lot more than you speak. A lot more.</p>
<p>Litigation partners are not salesmen either. The simple reason for that is that her name is on every document filed in every court. Nothing goes out without the oversight and approval of the partner signing. NOthing.</p>
No, no, no, no. Associates exist to generate profit for firms. They don’t “save money” they generate the revenue that ends up as the profits per partner which is so important to the AmLaw listings.</p>
<p>
Not quite right there, either, anymore. The top recruits are clerks, who are, by definition, not inexperienced. Any firm that could fill a class with clerks would do so. As was pointed out earlier in the thread, non-clerks are less desirable, make less money, fewer perks and make partner less often.</p>
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No. It’s about the book of business first, second and third. Then it’s about whether the partners want to eat lunch with this person every month for X number of years.</p>
<p>I am still chuckling at being told that my job is merely revenue generating and supervising. </p>
<p>I would just note that clerkships are not as important in the hiring process and subsequent career progression of corporate associates. Of course, federal appellate and Supreme Court clerkships are always well-noted, but others have significantly less impact.</p>
You are, of course, perfectly correct! And that makes sense since corporate attorneys don’t utilize the court system in the same way as litigation associates.</p>
<p>
And do you have a pool boy to feed you bonbons, too! Obviously, if you are working for a living you aren’t doing the right thing and need to get on the supervising thing more. Perhaps you should purchase a whip. Or a cattle prod.</p>
<p>And yet you posted upthread that the market was irrelevant. Don’t the customers have to sign on the dotted line to accept those fees? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>You’re a bit off, crankyoldman. Federal clerkships are indeed next to impossible to get as you say, but biglaw hiring isn’t that bad at the Top 13 or so schools (I left out Georgetown from the traditional demarcation of “top” schools, because it’s graduate employment outcomes have really been lagging the entire T14). </p>
<p>Here’s are the class of 2011’s biglaw hiring numbers (using the NLJ 250 as a proxy for biglaw - exluding boutique firms and slightly smaller firms): </p>
<ol>
<li> UPenn 56.9% (of the class)</li>
<li> Northwestern 52.1%<br></li>
<li> Columbia 51.6%</li>
<li> Harvard 48.8%</li>
<li> Stanford 48%</li>
<li> Berkeley 45.9%</li>
<li> Chicago 45.3%</li>
<li> Duke 40.6%</li>
<li> NYU 40.1%</li>
</ol>
<p>…etc. </p>
<p>It’s still not good that close to ** half ** or more of the classes at T14’s can’t get biglaw in recent years, but it’s definitely not as low as only 10%.</p>
<p>I’ll note a few things: Yale is low down on the list, but likely places a lot of graduates into BigLaw one or two years after graduation - i.e. after clerkships. (Some other schools on that list place a lot of students into clerkships, and then into BigLaw, or at least reasonably-sized law firms.)</p>
<p>The list skews towards coastal schools, but schools in flyover states might place their students into the largest firms in the local market. As long as the price tag of the law school reflects that, you are still in good shape.</p>
<p>Frighteningly, it doesn’t take long to get down into the single digits for NLJ 250 hiring, which means that at about 85% of law schools, you have a 90% chance or better of NOT getting a job that can pay down your loans. Digest that for a moment, kids. Then ask whether or not BigLaw firms are going to work your butt into the ground, knowing that if you don’t want to do it, hundreds of hungry, talented lawyers will line up to take your place on the chain gang.</p>
<p>brownug: I’ve been a bit off for years, but still have a different take on “BigLaw”; it’s not the top 250 law firms. Between mergers and big name firm collapses, it’s not the same, and I’d wager that few of the “top 250” pay the proverbial 160K a year. So I stand by my analysis. If you really want to get that 160K job, for better or worse, you better go to a big name school and get really good grades.
To OP: You can decide, based on the preceeding posts, if the “horror” reports are true. What is a fact is that you will work hard: my understanding is that an associate pulling in the 160K must have at least 2000+ billable hours per year; some firms are higher. That’s a lot of work.</p>
<p>crankyoldman: i think the nlj 250 is an easy way to define big law very generally speaking, but you are right that outside the top 100 or so firms, salaries are much closer to $100k than the $160k mark. </p>
<p>i think the vault 100 rankings are a much more accurate definition of the real big law firms in the nation. there aren’t any stats that i know of that only count these top 100 firms, but there is no doubt that the statistics would greatly affect the placement numbers being posted. i won’t even try and speculate the placement numbers of law schools into the top 100 firms, but it would likely be downright depressing, even relative to the already frightening numbers for placement into the nlj 250.</p>
<p>I did see the debate back and forth. It looks like there was no clear consensus as to what the cause of death was for that associate. I think it would be unfair (and maybe even reckless) to blame a law firm when there wasn’t any determined cause of death. Out of respect, I’m not going to comment further on that. </p>
<p>But, on the other hand, I think what still got me thinking was the author’s personal anecdote about his biglaw co-worker having passed out in front of the team due to exhaustion on an assignment (and later making partner within that same year) and being carried away by ambulance.</p>
<p>He asked a poignant question later in that article. Even if we don’t know our limits (I loved the thermostat quote), why in the world would we want to test them to the point of possibly dying or harming ourselves? Unlike a Navy Seal in combat who might be forced to stay up days on end in a life or death mission (and probably considered a hero), most normal everyday people don’t have to put themselves through things that would potentially harm them.</p>
<p>Anecdotally, I’ve seen some stories online like that. They’ve described partners as “psychopaths” who expect the lawyers to answer their phones at 2AM or to take emails and go over work stuff when the person is on vacation with his or her family.</p>
<p>Others talked about how there was a culture of machismo in these firms where people never wanted to show weakness and that no matter how tired they were and how long they’d been up that there was a show of outward strength (e.g., talking about running a marathon right after working 30-40 hours straight) and a show of commitment to the firm via sacrifice. The biglaw workers were also described as psychopaths and obsessed with always wanting to put on a show of strength to others. </p>
<p>Remember…those hiring statistics for Biglaw do not take into account the number of students who do not even pursue those jobs, preferring public interest, government or clerkship positions. My S is a 3L at Harvard; he reports that most anyone who wanted a Biglaw-type job has one. Clearly there are exceptions, but it’s not like 51% of the class is unemployed at graduation. NYU, in particular, has a significant public interest bias amongst their students.</p>