Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day? Forum

[Tom K]

I work in a firm with 6 attorneys in a small Midwestern city (200,000). The firm practices Social Security and Workers Compensation. I do Social Security cases. Of course, in one sense, there is no "typical" day, but I think I can give you a flavor of what it is like.

In a typical week, I handle 4 or 5 hearings with an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). This is actually quite a bit less than many attorneys handle, but we are able to give clients at least a reasonable level of competent representation. Sometimes, I might have 6-8 hearings in a week, but not usually. Hearings typically last 50 minutes and are scheduled an hour apart. Unless the hearings are back-to-back, I try to meet the client at least 1/2 an hour before the hearing for last-minutes prep. After the hearing, I try to explain to the client what happened at hearing and (to the extent possible) what to expect next.

A hearing sometimes lasts 5 minutes (rarely) and sometimes 2 hours. Part of the problem is that you don't always know which hearings the ALJ will immediately grant (the 5 minute hearings) and which ones would need more time. You may have a clue, but you don't know. The hearings are technically non-adversarial, but sometimes it feels like the ALJ is acting as opposing counsel. We often have vocational experts (rehabilitation counselors) appear as impartial expert witnesses and you learn what questions to ask. We occasionally have medical experts (doctors who reviewed the medical records and testify without having examined the claimant) who are supposed to testify impartially (it doesn't always feel that way). You cannot depose the medical expert before the hearing.

Typically, to prepare for the hearing, I also meet with clients scheduled for hearing anywhere from 1 day to 1 week prior to the hearing. This could be in person or by phone, depending in part on where the client lives; more often, by phone. I generally spend an hour or so advising the client what to expect at the hearing (the hearing is considered "informal," but testimony is under oath, etc) and go over their expected testimony.

Typically, I meet with 1 or 2 new/potential clients every day, generally for an hour. We discuss their case generally, go over the legal requirements for disability, discuss the administrative process, discuss the timeline for the case, and discuss fees. I have the client sign a fee agreement and related documents as well. If the client lives out of town, this may be by phone.

I spend quite a bit of time reviewing clients' file well before the hearing to determine if they even have a case, to come up with a theory of the case (if not done at the initial meeting), and to determine what medical and other evidence we need to obtain and submit prior to the hearing. I also have to review the file (more of a refresher) just before the hearing. I often submit a short written argument summarizing the case. Those are generally due a week or two before the hearing, so most of the actual prep work (other than client prep) will be done by then.

I spend a fair amount of time supervising legal assistants. The legal assistants do a lot of the work. They handle most of the client phone calls, fill out Social Security forms, request and submitt medical records, and sometimes do the "first draft," so to speak, of the pre-hearing conference with the client; that is, they ask the "standard" questions and I worry more about the specifics of this client's case.

On a daily basis, of course, it seems like there are too many phone calls. Also quite a few e-mails. I spend a lot of time putting out "brush fires" - a new/potential client calls the day before an appeal is due, we forgot to send out a request for medical records on a case, etc. I also am on a Social Security listserv that I check regularly.

About once a month, I write a federal court brief (15-20 hours) on an appeal. This kind of work (as well as the file reviews) is often done at night or on the weekend.

I also attend professional conferences at least once or twice a year. Since I practice in a fairly specialized area of law, I generally have to travel out of state for conferences that last 3-4 days.

[wert3813]

I work in a firm with 6 attorneys in a small Midwestern city (200,000). The firm practices Social Security and Workers Compensation. I do Social Security cases. Of course, in one sense, there is no "typical" day, but I think I can give you a flavor of what it is like.

In a typical week, I handle 4 or 5 hearings with an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). This is actually quite a bit less than many attorneys handle, but we are able to give clients at least a reasonable level of competent representation. Sometimes, I might have 6-8 hearings in a week, but not usually. Hearings typically last 50 minutes and are scheduled an hour apart. Unless the hearings are back-to-back, I try to meet the client at least 1/2 an hour before the hearing for last-minutes prep. After the hearing, I try to explain to the client what happened at hearing and (to the extent possible) what to expect next.

A hearing sometimes lasts 5 minutes (rarely) and sometimes 2 hours. Part of the problem is that you don't always know which hearings the ALJ will immediately grant (the 5 minute hearings) and which ones would need more time. You may have a clue, but you don't know. The hearings are technically non-adversarial, but sometimes it feels like the ALJ is acting as opposing counsel. We often have vocational experts (rehabilitation counselors) appear as impartial expert witnesses and you learn what questions to ask. We occasionally have medical experts (doctors who reviewed the medical records and testify without having examined the claimant) who are supposed to testify impartially (it doesn't always feel that way). You cannot depose the medical expert before the hearing.

Typically, to prepare for the hearing, I also meet with clients scheduled for hearing anywhere from 1 day to 1 week prior to the hearing. This could be in person or by phone, depending in part on where the client lives; more often, by phone. I generally spend an hour or so advising the client what to expect at the hearing (the hearing is considered "informal," but testimony is under oath, etc) and go over their expected testimony.

Typically, I meet with 1 or 2 new/potential clients every day, generally for an hour. We discuss their case generally, go over the legal requirements for disability, discuss the administrative process, discuss the timeline for the case, and discuss fees. I have the client sign a fee agreement and related documents as well. If the client lives out of town, this may be by phone.

I spend quite a bit of time reviewing clients' file well before the hearing to determine if they even have a case, to come up with a theory of the case (if not done at the initial meeting), and to determine what medical and other evidence we need to obtain and submit prior to the hearing. I also have to review the file (more of a refresher) just before the hearing. I often submit a short written argument summarizing the case. Those are generally due a week or two before the hearing, so most of the actual prep work (other than client prep) will be done by then.

I spend a fair amount of time supervising legal assistants. The legal assistants do a lot of the work. They handle most of the client phone calls, fill out Social Security forms, request and submitt medical records, and sometimes do the "first draft," so to speak, of the pre-hearing conference with the client; that is, they ask the "standard" questions and I worry more about the specifics of this client's case.

On a daily basis, of course, it seems like there are too many phone calls. Also quite a few e-mails. I spend a lot of time putting out "brush fires" - a new/potential client calls the day before an appeal is due, we forgot to send out a request for medical records on a case, etc. I also am on a Social Security listserv that I check regularly.

About once a month, I write a federal court brief (15-20 hours) on an appeal. This kind of work (as well as the file reviews) is often done at night or on the weekend.

I also attend professional conferences at least once or twice a year. Since I practice in a fairly specialized area of law, I generally have to travel out of state for conferences that last 3-4 days.

Hours and pay generally? And if you are partner hours and pay generally for the associates working under you? Thanks, this was help.

[Anonymous User]

No idea why you thought this wouldn't be interesting. Might be the single best thread I've seen on TLS so far, overall.

8:55 - arrive. All the partners are already in and about half the associates have shown up. I sorta pretend to read Bloomberg/Bankruptcy 360 alerts. We will be staffed on at least one of the cases discussed because local rules require non-Delaware counsel to hire local counsel to practice before any DE state or federal court, and there are only so many DE firms with respected BK practices.

Seems cushy for DE firms. Sounds like nice job security?

It's a pretty crazy thing we've got going.

Heading to one of DE Big 4 this fall, who knows you might be at my firm. Do you think other practice groups in the firm are this agreeable to work in? Is the apparent cushiness of your job owing to the BR group generally, or is a large part of it a reflection of the partners you typically work with?

[IAFG]

PM me for better guidance.

[BlueLotus]

Human rights work with an international NGO

Usually have 1 or 2 skype calls a day with partner organizations and discuss planning for project implementation or problems. Takes forever because connections are shitty so half the time is yelling CAN YOU HEAR ME.

Usually some kind of memo or brief question on international human rights treaties in some country. Involves researching a lot of case law and giving a brief opinion on whether the treaty is applicable in the courts there, and if it is, if they will pay any attention. Also often requires figuring out how legal systems operate all over the world and I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the hell civil law is and why anyone uses it.

And I almost always have either a donor report to work on, where I painstakingly document everything I've done for some project and try and show people what we did with their money. Or I'm making a powerpoint or some kind of presentation to give to on the ground staff to help them understand some obscure human rights issue or law. Usually I'm writing that in a language I barely understand and it takes forever.

Interesting. Do you ever work directly with the clients you serve?

[twenty 8]

Telecom work is very niche and the contracts, while at their core option and/or license agreements, are unique and require knowledge of what to look for to protct the landowner. If they take them to a regular real estate attorney, he'll jack up the rent and send it back as "good" without addressing 20 different things that could have been vastly improved. But they want to use their contracts attorney, so what can you do other than offer suggestions and tell them which ones are critical.

We don’t deal much with rentals, mainly acquisitions. One challenge I face is that the owner paid 8-10x cash flow for the business but ever since the recession the value of the company is evaluated at 4-5x cash flow. When our client offers 4-5x times the owner typically says something like “I’d give it away before selling at that price.” If the owner hasn’t been making payments then the lender is whom we ultimately deal with.

I’ve seen owners be delinquent by as much as a year but the lender refuses to act because they don’t want to take the hit, especially if the disparity is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. At that point the project is turned over to a workout specialist (which is not yet in my wheelhouse) but I often spend part of the day in those meetings.

[dunkin]

If any practitioner working in civil Legal Aid could chime in, I would greatly appreciate it!

I'll bite.

Get in around 8ish, start preparing for either day with clients or day of solo work. I'm currently funded under a grant, so most of my clients are scheduled in advance, which I know is not true for every legal aid attorney. Our office also works closely with the local court, so sometimes I get drop-in limited service clients or the occasional emergency intakes. Mornings that aren't full of client meetings are usually filled up by things that *have* to be done that day, like court filings or submitting other time-sensitive docs. I have multiple cases that are in litigation now, and those are by far the most time consuming. It doesn't help that I'm new to all of this (2013 grad), but hey, gotta learn sometime, eh?

If my day is full of clients, those days are waaay more exhausting. Today was one of those. I'm still new enough to feel like every client is an issue-spotting law school exam, because if their personal stories aren't unique enough, they'll present me enough hypos to make things weird.

Regardless of whether I'm seeing clients or just researching/figuring out law stuff, the mornings fly by. Before I know it, it's lunchtime, where I more often than not take less than a half hour or eat at my desk, just to get work done.

In the afternoon, I might have a work meeting or other cases to follow up on that I didn't get to in the morning. I currently have ~60 cases. Regardless, I have to squeeze in administrative work, like closing case files or tracking my time to comply with fed (LSC) requirements. Thing about legal aid is, we don't have the resources to have much staff for each lawyer. So a good amount of my time is spent doing admin stuff, and I must say, I've become pretty proficient with copy machines. (My personal printer is another story. I literally fight jams in that thing every day.)

While most people in my office leave around 5ish, I'm usually there until at least 6ish. If it's grant reporting time, then I may pull a 12-hour day.

Oh, and there's the occasional community outreach event days, where I'll go to different sites to talk about what services our office provides.

In short, my days can be challenging, varied, and full of a lot of admin stuff. That can get annoying, esp. if I know I have a lot of law stuff to be done, but it is what it is. Things can obviously get stressful, too, and as with many PI jobs, I have to make an active effort to not get burned out. Productive and rewarding days, like-minded coworkers, and grateful clients definitely help.

[BlueLotus]

^Excellent post. Thank you!

[Sweeny12]

This is a great thread!

I'd like to hear from someone out there who specializes in appellate work or works at an appellate boutique.

[bk1]

NOTICE: the OP has been updated to reflect how 0Ls should interact with this thread. If you are a 0L, please give it a read.

[Saddle Up]

Enrolled OL here. My brother is an attorney (and my sis starts in a couple months) but there is a question I have never asked. How do you disperse new unsolicited clients? Are they automatic house accounts that are then rotated to associates? For smaller firms I guess they would be classified as walk-ins (which I am told doesn’t happen in BL).

Also, in looking at several firm web sites every attorney has their own bio page, has your attorney page ever directly generated new business? If so, can you claim that client?

[smallfirmassociate]

Enrolled OL here. My brother is an attorney (and my sis starts in a couple months) but there is a question I have never asked. How do you disperse new unsolicited clients? Are they automatic house accounts that are then rotated to associates? For smaller firms I guess they would be classified as walk-ins (which I am told doesn’t happen in BL).

Also, in looking at several firm web sites every attorney has their own bio page, has your attorney page ever directly generated new business? If so, can you claim that client?

At my small office, most walk-ins disperse themselves. What I mean is that only one attorney might actually be in the office at the time, since with only 2-3 attorneys per office and with hearings and CLE's and lunch breaks, etc., that's pretty common. Or perhaps it's a matter that only one attorney really deals with (for example, the partners in my office only rarely do divorces and small family law matters any more, so I get those), or an area where one attorney has expertise. Or they were referred directly to a certain attorney from a different client or former client.

Failing all of the above, I defer to the senior partner at the office and let him decide, although he's never seemed too concerned about controlling the work flow or if I take a client he might have wanted, etc. It doesn't really matter since all roads lead to Rome at my firm -- e.g. his pay only depends on total firm revenue and not how much business he billed specifically.

I suspect this is vastly different at larger firms, so I'm interested in hearing from some of those attorneys.

[chipotle123]

Any Tax Lawyers out there?

[emciosn]

IAFG--in terms of your work flow/predictability would you say the life of a corporate restructuring attorney is more like that of a litigator or a transactionsal/corporate attorney? Would the answer be different for someone in your position as opposed to a restructuring associatte at a big firm in NY/Chi/LA?

[IAFG]

The nature of my work (waiting around for outside counsel to contribute and then scrambling) is so different that I wouldn't really compare it to either. Local counsel work is mostly a different animal (when it comes to the fire drills).

BK is often very expedited. So it can be pretty hard to plan your schedule. There are lots of cancelled vacations. Like, a debtor knows they're going to file, but you're waiting, waiting, waiting for them to get their ducks in a row. And then some deadline with a creditor is looming so they rush to get it filed and everyone scrambles to make it happen.

Someone who does creditor side might tell you something very different tho.

[emciosn]

The nature of my work (waiting around for outside counsel to contribute and then scrambling) is so different that I wouldn't really compare it to either. Local counsel work is mostly a different animal (when it comes to the fire drills).

BK is often very expedited. So it can be pretty hard to plan your schedule. There are lots of cancelled vacations. Like, a debtor knows they're going to file, but you're waiting, waiting, waiting for them to get their ducks in a row. And then some deadline with a creditor is looming so they rush to get it filed and everyone scrambles to make it happen.

Someone who does creditor side might tell you something very different tho.

Do you have any notion of what its like for your counterparts at the out-of-state firms?

[Rowinguy2009]

Enrolled OL here. My brother is an attorney (and my sis starts in a couple months) but there is a question I have never asked. How do you disperse new unsolicited clients? Are they automatic house accounts that are then rotated to associates? For smaller firms I guess they would be classified as walk-ins (which I am told doesn’t happen in BL).

Also, in looking at several firm web sites every attorney has their own bio page, has your attorney page ever directly generated new business? If so, can you claim that client?

At my firm (140 attorneys), this will really just be handled by the first attorney/partner the unsolicited client talks to. I think partners certainly receive random calls from legit clients based on the partner's webpage or some other random website. To be sure, this is really rare, most of the time the partner is getting the call because there is at least some connection between the partner and client, even if its small.

If the partner who talks to client feels he can take the case, you can almost gurantees he's going to (or at least farm out to an associate while keeping himself as the "billing partner"). If it's an issue that is outside of his area of expertise or he's just ridiculously swamped, he'll probably e-mail the appropriate practice group to see if someone can take it. At my firm it's a much less formal process than you would imagine. Would be curious to know if huge firms are different in this respect.

[IAFG]

The nature of my work (waiting around for outside counsel to contribute and then scrambling) is so different that I wouldn't really compare it to either. Local counsel work is mostly a different animal (when it comes to the fire drills).

BK is often very expedited. So it can be pretty hard to plan your schedule. There are lots of cancelled vacations. Like, a debtor knows they're going to file, but you're waiting, waiting, waiting for them to get their ducks in a row. And then some deadline with a creditor is looming so they rush to get it filed and everyone scrambles to make it happen.

Someone who does creditor side might tell you something very different tho.

Do you have any notion of what its like for your counterparts at the out-of-state firms?

Second paragraph applies to them as far as I know. For debtor work.

[emciosn]

The nature of my work (waiting around for outside counsel to contribute and then scrambling) is so different that I wouldn't really compare it to either. Local counsel work is mostly a different animal (when it comes to the fire drills).

BK is often very expedited. So it can be pretty hard to plan your schedule. There are lots of cancelled vacations. Like, a debtor knows they're going to file, but you're waiting, waiting, waiting for them to get their ducks in a row. And then some deadline with a creditor is looming so they rush to get it filed and everyone scrambles to make it happen.

Someone who does creditor side might tell you something very different tho.

Do you have any notion of what its like for your counterparts at the out-of-state firms?

Second paragraph applies to them as far as I know. For debtor work.

Thanks!

[Ricky-Bobby]

Any Tax Lawyers out there?

Interested in this as well.

[brotherdarkness]

.

[Nebby]

Any Tax Lawyers out there?

There's a lot of them.

https://www.google.com/search?q=tax+att ... 2&ie=UTF-8

[A. Nony Mouse]

Any Tax Lawyers out there?

There's a lot of them.

https://www.google.com/search?q=tax+att ... 2&ie=UTF-8

But shockingly, googling them doesn't get them to come post in this thread about what their day is like.

[Elston Gunn]

Any DC regulatory lawyers out there?

[BlueLotus]

Any immigration lawyers? Or family lawyers?

Thanks to bk for this valuable thread.