Is big law worth it?

Get the JD and consult if the school is ranked high enough for the MBB tier. Same salary.

Or MBA.

Not viable or worth it long term. May be worth it short term for the experience and/or as a launching point. You will not be able to have a normal family life or train as an associate at most big law firms.

Nope. You can't even make REAL partner anymore within a reasonable time frame. By REAL partner, that means EQUITY. To become equity partner, you need real luck and lots of politics. Research it.

Not to mention once in, you could lose partnership at the whim of the other senior partners.

Better careers out there.

Depends on what you want. I did that early in my career and made partner and then partner on the management committee. For me it was like running, I wanted to see how good I could be. If you want to make partner on a short time line like I did then you have to be a rainmaker. In addition to billing close to 2,000 hrs/yr, I built a portable book of business that I controlled. Two years after I made partner I left and started my own firm. The hours to make partner in big law are horrendous. If you care about family and something outside, like running, then it has to be a short term (less than 10 years) proposition.

Been there and got out wrote:

Depends on what you want. I did that early in my career and made partner and then partner on the management committee. For me it was like running, I wanted to see how good I could be. If you want to make partner on a short time line like I did then you have to be a rainmaker. In addition to billing close to 2,000 hrs/yr, I built a portable book of business that I controlled. Two years after I made partner I left and started my own firm. The hours to make partner in big law are horrendous. If you care about family and something outside, like running, then it has to be a short term (less than 10 years) proposition.

Is it true within the creme of the big law firms (like Wachtell Lipton Katz), it's almost expected that you work 2000-2500 hrs/year to advance?

2000-2500 hrs/yr is only 40-50 hrs/week....

But that's 52 weeks a year, zero workdays off.

That's billable hours- not working hours. Figure 70 hours per week in the office as a young lawyer. I know very few lawyers who have both found it worth it and made the cut.

To the person who said 2000-2500 is 40-50 hours per week: That is not really how it works. Nowadays, the big firms have gotten down to billing out in 10th of an hour (6 minute) intervals. The thing is, sometimes, you have to work up to 5 hours for you to be able to bill 1 full hour in good faith.

Lawyer since 87 wrote:

That's billable hours- not working hours. Figure 70 hours per week in the office as a young lawyer. I know very few lawyers who have both found it worth it and made the cut.

Sorry didn't see this post.

"Big Law" is not a monolith. There are huge differences between practice areas, firms, and geographies.

I'm a biglaw associate and I absolutely love my job. My firm doesn't much care about facetime, so the office is largely deserted by 6:30pm. While I usually work later than that, I generally do it from my couch at home. It's not that different from being in school. Also, most of my work is appellate briefwriting, so I know my schedule well in advance.

The worst part of the job is that you are on call 24/7. That said, it's been rare in my experience that my weekends get ruined by work. Weeknight plans are more of a crapshoot, but you get used to that. As for all-nighters, I think that I work past midnight no more than 10 nights a year. I've never done an all-nighter in my life. I don't think I've ever billed more than 60 hours in a week, except for trial weeks (which are nuts, but also exhilarating, fun, and a great way to rack up a ton of hours). My typical workday is 9:30-7, with maybe another 45 minutes billable reading in bed before I go to sleep. I usually bill about 4-6 hours total on the weekend, just because it's not that hard to do when you have a full day off. I bill more than most of my classmates.

You get used to dealing with the lack of flexibility. Two years ago I billed 15 hours on Christmas Eve. But then, when a case settled in March, I booked an evening ticket to Barbardos and didn't come back for 10 days.

Another example of differences in firms. I have friends who are in firms where it's sort of an alpha move to ruin the weekend of someone junior to you. In my firm, by contrast, if you have plans when something comes up, people senior to you will bend over backwards to salvage your plans, even if it means doing your work themselves and writing off half their usual billable rate.

Are you working toward a partnership?

dertrhg wrote:

Are you working toward a partnership?

It's a bit early to say for sure, though the odds are always long. We have non-equity "partners" as an intermediate step, and for the most part, people can make that jump so long as they're good lawyers. Getting a real piece of the pie requires one to originate business. I'm doing a lot of the things that someone at my level should be doing to develop business eventually, but we'll see.

It's also pretty common for associates to go into government for a few years, and that can be very helpful if one returns to the firm. If you go to a regulatory agency, then you can really know the ins and outs of that area of law, plus you can get relationships with the people who are going to be bringing enforcement actions against your clients. There's no easier client pitch than: "I worked for three years with the guy who is leading the investigation of your bank." You can also get experience that's tough to get at a firm. I've argued a few cases in federal court, but some of my friends in government are arguing ten cases a year. Not even superstar partners in biglaw are doing that.

Worth it? Hell NO!!!

If you're already in law school, then you may have no choice with student loan debt to repay. If you're thinking about law school, don't do it!

Big law firms don't give a shit about your development. They are primarily concerned with profits/partner. Sure, they will hire some young associate to give up their life, bill 2000+ hours/year in exchange for a tempting salary. But after a few years, unless that associate has magically found the time to develop their own clients, why would the firm elevate the associate or even retain him (at an increased salary) when 100s of other bright-eyed lemmings are waiting in the wings?

Quick story: I was working on a case involving a huge Chicago law firm. A young associate was absolutely burning the midnight oil for weeks and mentioned that he was getting married the following weekend. The partner was upset and begrudgingly told him that he could have the weekend off but was expected to be back at work the following week - no honeymoon!!! Now I don't know whatever happened to that young man. Perhaps he got a big bonus and time off after the case was over, but he didn't even blink.

I run with a few guys at big firms who have managed to stay in decent shape and have moved up the ladder. We're 40+. Most of my former classmates have burned out/disappeared from the profession and/or are fat/divorced/depressed. I feel awful for the young people who have gone into this profession. It is criminal that the law schools still dupe people into attending by holding out $160k salaries, successful graduates, "saving the world", etc. There may have been some truth to their claims 20 years ago, but the profession has changed and there simply isn't enough work to support the 1000s of graduates being pumped out every year. Don't do it.

Law is a sales position at the end of the day. If you cannot become a rainmaker, you will always be at the whim of a partner or other employer, regardless of what route you go. Big Law was built off the backs of those who are hard workers, but who cannot sell legal services to new or existing clients. If you can sell, you have permanent job security regardless of the size of your firm. If you cannot, you will always be a commodity.

As an initial matter, I think that the hope of working in biglaw/getting the big salary is not a particularly good reason to go to law school, especially from a lower ranked school where it can be true crapshoot to even get the job. On the other hand, if you are at a T14 (or really T10) law school, you can generally get a biglaw job pretty easily if you are not a total idiot and/or extremely socially awkward. This was mostly true even during the heart of the recession. So, assuming you can get the job, is it worth it?

Totally depends. I worked in biglaw for two years before switching to the government. I actually never really wanted to work in biglaw, but it basically turned out to be easier to get a job in biglaw from my T10 law school during the recession than it was to get a government job, probably due to all the state and local budget cuts. So biglaw is where I ended up. It was fine, but perhaps only because I basically had one foot out the door right when I arrived. I said no to stuff, didn't work on weekends unless someone directly asked me to, didn't bill a ton of hours (probably averaged about 1750 hrs/yr) -- probably not things one would want to do if they were trying to make partner. That said, I got great reviews (pro tip: reviewers can generally only really judge you on the work that you do, not on the work that you don't do) and the partners I worked for have been excellent references now that I've moved on. Also, the resources and training were really very good, and I was able to pay off all my student loans, put a down payment on a house, and save a decent amount of $$ over the two years I was there (of course, I have a wife who also used to work in biglaw, so results may not be typical). At the end of the day though, I really did not like the work at all -- mostly very tedious (as a lot of legal work is) and very unsympathetic clients (mostly big banks and other financial institutions in my case). On the other hand, I love government work, even though a lot of my work is still tedious and I get paid less than half as much as I used to. The primary differences for me are that I generally really believe in my clients and their mission now, plus I have the luxury of a real 9-5 job, which gives me some actual time to spend with my wife and young kids, do some structured training, etc. I don't regret my time in biglaw, but like I said, I knew I was getting out.

As I mentioned, my wife also worked in biglaw (for almost 5 yrs), though unlike me she signed up at least open to the idea that she would make a career of it. She did really well too, and was identified as a "rising star" and put on high profile cases with high profile mentors (who, to their credit, really did mentor her), and...she hated it. I am pretty confident she would have made partner if she stuck it out (she was already responsible for some big clients at the request of those clients, etc.), but it just was not worth it (mind you, she averaged about 2500 hrs/yr, and probably peaked at close to 3000 -- that will crush all but a hearty few). It was so bad, she almost left the law altogether, which would have been a shame because she is such a great lawyer. Thankfully she found a good gig in-house, and is now pretty happy.

So, I think biglaw as a career can be worth it if you really love the work (and some people do!). But, if you're doing it just for the money, or because you have this vague idea that it will be "interesting" and "prestigious", I think you're more than likely to burn out. In my experience, the partners that were truly successful basically lived and breathed their practices -- everything else, including family, was secondary (if it even rated at all). If that is not you, I think biglaw is a bad bet for the long haul.

I also think biglaw can be a great stepping stone to more satisfying and humane work with the government or in-house, particularly if you don't have a family, but beware of the power of inertia. Plenty of my classmates (and even some of my wife's, who have been practicing for several years longer than me) are still in biglaw even though they really hate it and want to leave, simply because they can't get it together to even look for other jobs. Also beware of the "golden handcuffs" -- another friend desperately wants to leave biglaw for government, but is basically trapped paying for a nice Manhattan apartment, huge student loans, two kids, and a stay-at-home spouse. He's in it for the long haul, but not really by choice.

Good luck!

Enough good stuff has been said on the topic so let me just clear up the billing hours myth.

Most BigLaw associates shoot to bill 2000 (at a minimum) and 2,500 is usually a max in terms of where bonuses top out.

To bill 50 hours of work as a new associate, you are likely working 1.5 hours. This add up to 75ish hours per week which are tough weeks but not impossible. The "80 to 100 hour week" stuff is a myth. It happens but rarely and, in these days, the partners are very concerned about life-work balance. So, no one is averaging 80-100 hour weeks for any appreciable number of weeks.

I will add that as you learn how to do your job, it takes less hours to do the same amount of work. Eventually--and this bugs people--you might even bill more hours than you work.

One might be able to do something in 20 minutes that takes a reasonable attorney 3 hours. You bill the client for 3 hours.

So, as one moves towards partner, you do less "legal" work and more client /relationship building.

That's the business.

Mundus Vult wrote:

I will add that as you learn how to do your job, it takes less hours to do the same amount of work. Eventually--and this bugs people--you might even bill more hours than you work.

One might be able to do something in 20 minutes that takes a reasonable attorney 3 hours. You bill the client for 3 hours.

Of course it bugs people. It's criminal. No ethical lawyer does this, although many lawyers at big law firms do and -- instead of being fired and reported to disciplinary counsel -- get rewarded for it by the firm.