110 hour week Forum

[sublime]

..

[smallfirmassociate]

Read a very cool quote related to this today:

"The most dangerous risk of all - The risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later."

That sounds nice and all, but the flip side of that coin is writing failed novels and whimsically traveling the world, then realizing you're 34 years old, living in some shitty small box in suburban Atlanta, working at a pizza joint and smoking weed with college kids who don't even know the Oasis songs you're playing on the acoustic guitar in a futile attempt to impress them.

The choice was never biglaw or living in a box. Even those in seemingly less desirable legal positions still can make an entirely comfortable living. Sure, they won't have the same cars, houses, vacations, or anything like that. But as we've been saying all along, for many people, ability to see family, enjoy life and personal time, find balance, etc. doesn't mean being in destitute poverty.

Hi anon, I would like to talk to you, but seeing as you're an amorphous blob of unidentified nothingness for no reason whatsoever, I can't bring myself to respond.

[BarbellDreams]

Anon is absolutely right. Its not just 40k or 160k and nothing in between. With that said, not really sure why it was anon.

[kaiser]

Anon is absolutely right. Its not just 40k or 160k and nothing in between. With that said, not really sure why it was anon.

That anon was me. Yeah, not reason that should have been anon. Sometimes I just click anon by default.

[DELG]

Anon is absolutely right. Its not just 40k or 160k and nothing in between. With that said, not really sure why it was anon.

tbf it is sorta like that

not completely but those are the big magnets even later

[kaiser]

Anon is absolutely right. Its not just 40k or 160k and nothing in between. With that said, not really sure why it was anon.

tbf it is sorta like that

not completely but those are the big magnets even later

I think that is more of an entry level fork in the road. It becomes far less bimodal when talking about second legal jobs.

[smallfirmassociate]

Anon is absolutely right. Its not just 40k or 160k and nothing in between. With that said, not really sure why it was anon.

That anon was me. Yeah, not reason that should have been anon. Sometimes I just click anon by default.

Cool. I agree with the general sentiment that a person doesn't HAVE to choose either 40k or 160k, but I point to the later poster who mentioned the bimodal distribution. The problem is that there isn't much efficiency in between 40k and 160k. You can work for 40k - 80k at a firm, but you might work 80%+ of the hours of the guy making $165k (plus bonuses). It's not like there are even a small, noticeable cadre of jobs advertising 65k at 40 hours per week out there for people to accept instead of biglaw.

[kaiser]

Anon is absolutely right. Its not just 40k or 160k and nothing in between. With that said, not really sure why it was anon.

That anon was me. Yeah, not reason that should have been anon. Sometimes I just click anon by default.

Cool. I agree with the general sentiment that a person doesn't HAVE to choose either 40k or 160k, but I point to the later poster who mentioned the bimodal distribution. The problem is that there isn't much efficiency in between 40k and 160k. You can work for 40k - 80k at a firm, but you might work 80%+ of the hours of the guy making $165k (plus bonuses). It's not like there are even a small, noticeable cadre of jobs advertising 65k at 40 hours per week out there for people to accept instead of biglaw.

Its those marginal hours that often make biglaw so bad. I've always said that I'd take half the salary for something like 25% less hours and stress. I would never say 50% less pay for 50% less hours/stress. I can take most of it. But its that last bit of stress that makes things really boil over and make life difficult.

[Desert Fox]

I like my job I just want to do like 15% less of it.

have u done 6 months of lit yet

[Desert Fox]

Anon is absolutely right. Its not just 40k or 160k and nothing in between. With that said, not really sure why it was anon.

tbf it is sorta like that

not completely but those are the big magnets even later

I think that is more of an entry level fork in the road. It becomes far less bimodal when talking about second legal jobs.

Winners of the 40 join the losers of teh 160 (almost all of us) at a nice solid 100-200k jerb.

The losers of 40k stop practicing and the winners of 160k make patherner.

[los blancos]

I'm ~7 months in and I think about quitting every day. And I work a lot less than most here do.

Winners of the 40 join the losers of teh 160 (almost all of us) at a nice solid 100-200k jerb.

I feel like this is optimistic but I'll take some optimism right now.

[smallfirmassociate]

Anon is absolutely right. Its not just 40k or 160k and nothing in between. With that said, not really sure why it was anon.

That anon was me. Yeah, not reason that should have been anon. Sometimes I just click anon by default.

Cool. I agree with the general sentiment that a person doesn't HAVE to choose either 40k or 160k, but I point to the later poster who mentioned the bimodal distribution. The problem is that there isn't much efficiency in between 40k and 160k. You can work for 40k - 80k at a firm, but you might work 80%+ of the hours of the guy making $165k (plus bonuses). It's not like there are even a small, noticeable cadre of jobs advertising 65k at 40 hours per week out there for people to accept instead of biglaw.

Its those marginal hours that often make biglaw so bad. I've always said that I'd take half the salary for something like 25% less hours and stress. I would never say 50% less pay for 50% less hours/stress. I can take most of it. But its that last bit of stress that makes things really boil over and make life difficult.

Yeah, but half of biglaw pay is more than almost all small- and mid-law firms pay starting associates. Cost of living adjusted, I made barely more than half of biglaw pay when I started at a small firm working 40 - 50 hours per week. In talking to my peers, I realize that I basically got a unicorn job and worked fewer hours for better pay than pretty much all of them minus biglaw folks. I have a friend who is at a small/mid-sized firm that is pretty well respected in his area who just hit his fourth year at the firm, sixth year out of law school, and just now hit biglaw pay after adjustment for CoL. Throw in time-value of money, interest rates, etc. and it's a tough sell to pass up the big bucks.

That all being said, I can't fathom that there is any way that going biglaw would have given me a happier and healthier career to-date, but I can see the draw when not everyone has a good alternative.

[AVBucks4239]

Better than being poor though, amirite?

Nah. I think everyone on here would classify me as poor ($150k debt, $50k salary) but I don't think I'd ever lateral to Big Law (if the opportunity presented itself). No amount of money/intellectual stimulation/connections are worth the hell being discussed in this thread. Give me my sanity, my social life, and my health (and my debt for 8-10 years) any day.

To each their own, though. I respect the hell out of my friends grinding it out in Big Law and know their sacrifices will (hopefully) eventually pay off. Just not for me.

ETA: secretary paged me after I burst out laughing at DF's pic. Well done.

You have your head on straight. Its not worth it. And here I was wondering whether I can jump from biglaw salary to about 60K salary with my 55K in debt. If you can believe that firmly in what you just said given 150K debt and 50K salary, then it really says something.

I'll be candid--I'm in a unique spot to be able to make this work. My GF's godfather owns our apartment building and charges us a ridiculously low $450 for rent (so my share is $225). I also paid off my car a long time ago (a beautiful 2008 Ford Focus). And I don't have kids.

Thus, I'm netting about $2,600 per month and my fixed costs (minus student loans) is somewhere around $850-$900 per month. I put $400 towards saving for a house and $1,000 towards my loans every month and have around $200-300 to spare each month. That's a decent social budget in my low-COL suburb.

But ya, things are bit tight now, and I'd be full of shit if I didn't say that it sucks having over 1/3 of my net income go towards my loans, but if I invest in myself, things will eventually even out in the long term, as somewhat described in the above-post.

[jhett]

Does anyone have an opinion about sticking it out in biglaw not necessarily for the money but for the name recognition for moving in-house?

I recently moved from biglaw to an IP boutique, and the pay/hour balance is pretty sweet (roughly 3/4 salary for 3/4 the hours of biglaw). However, the boutique is small and it not really known to anyone who is not currently a client of ours. I ultimately want to go in-house. I've been checking out some Linked-in profiles of in-house IP counsel and they predominately come straight from large firms. Plus the people who have left my boutique in the past seem to mostly move to other small firms, not to big firms or in-house. Am I crazy to think that I may want to move back to biglaw at some point in order to go in-house, or should I make it work from where I am now?

Oddly, I kind of miss the name recognition of my previous biglaw firm... even though it wasn't really something I thought about while I was there. I didn't miss the hours though.

[BiglawAssociate]

Another long ass week at work. Sooooooo glad I don't have kids. Not sure I could do this job with kids.