V10 Transactional Partner AMA Forum

[Anonymous User]

Just that really. Nearly 20 years experience, ‘mid-level’ of the equity (never going to be a huge rainmaker but I have strong technical skills and big clients like me). Very involved in reviewing/managing associates in our team and hiring laterals. Used to do OCI but am now sufficiently old that I can mostly get out of that. Unusually long commute today and a deal just died so open to questions.

[rokiv]

Thanks for taking questions

1. How do you evaluate juniors/mid-levels? Anything they can do early on that helps in your mind?

2. What year were you when you were told you'd make or were likely to make partner?

3. Do you still enjoy biglaw?

[Anonymous User]

Total comp? (If you don’t feel like saying, then it would be great to just know by what % it deviates from the firm’s posted PPP).

[Anonymous User]

Evaluations: first couple of years the question is “are they useful?” Meaning can they follow instructions, can they produce accurate written work (so mid-levels don’t take longer checking and correcting than they would doing it themselves), are they beginning to understand and take initiative on deal process and is their email tone appropriate. The last is a very common failing - if you can't trust someone to send an email to the other side, let alone clients, without risk of embarrassment it’s a barrier to staffing them on deals. Provided you meet these fairly low criteria you will survive the first few years. If you don’t, people won’t want to work with you so either your hours will be low or you will find yourself doing deals for the partner everyone else avoids.

Mid-levels more things come into play. As well as drafting and process competence, you need to master softer skills - things like managing your workload (not taking on too much but not being perceived as workshy either), being trusted to lead or make substantive contributions on client calls, clients liking you, learning to delegate and so on

Intellectual excellence can help people stand out at all stages but (at least for transactional lawyers) without organisational competence and good business etiquette it won’t be enough.

[Anonymous User]

I made partner at 8 years, but this was just before the financial crisis and at a different firm. It wouldn’t happen like that today. I do still mostly enjoy it, although the energy and hours bit definitely gets harder as you get older and some of the fun socialising bits have to give way to a healthier lifestyle. But I like the work - can’t imagine getting this far if you didn’t. There’s something new every day and I have a short attention span.

My current firm isnt full lockstep so comp varies. I would say I’m usually above median but slightly below mean.

[rokiv]

I made partner at 8 years, but this was just before the financial crisis and at a different firm. It wouldn’t happen like that today. I do still mostly enjoy it, although the energy and hours bit definitely gets harder as you get older and some of the fun socialising bits have to give way to a healthier lifestyle. But I like the work - can’t imagine getting this far if you didn’t. There’s something new every day and I have a short attention span.

My current firm isnt full lockstep so comp varies. I would say I’m usually above median but slightly below mean.

To follow up on that, as far as promotion, do you mind elaborating on how it would work now?

[glitched]

How many low billing years (~1400-1500) do you tolerate before firing the associate? And is that group dependent you think? Or are there other factors involved? Thanks for taking the time to do this.

[Anonymous User]

Totally firm dependent. Some firms ostensibly have a far more formal process, with production of a business plan, selling yourself across internal departments/geographies, consideration by committee and so on. Other firms take a more “smoke-filled” rooms approach. But ultimately I think a complex process is mostly window dressing. Nearly everywhere it comes down to how willing they are to share the equity with you and the politics of that decision along with a huge chunk of luck. I was in a booming practice area and had strong support of rainmaker partners in one of the firm’s most profitable offices. If I had come up for consideration the following year when the economy tanked I would never have made it. Realistically, if you are the best associate in your year, have a powerful sponsor who you can trust to back you and if clients like and value you, then you have a chance of making equity at a top firm - if you are lucky.

[Anonymous User]

I won’t sugarcoat it, it’s tougher now to justify low hours for very long with associate pay at the level it is. If the quality of the person’s work is really good, their availability and responsiveness on the deals they do is good and we are short of bodies at their level we might keep them around for a few years (although obviously no partnership chances). However, if the work is available and the person has a reputation for ‘going missing’ in the middle of deals, then they will usually get given the message before too long. Again it comes down to “are they useful?” I think students don’t really understand that this question differentiates firms from school. Yes you might be super clever but if you’re not reliable and actually working hard then we’re not going to keep paying you indefinitely as some kind of reward for having brains.

At my firm we are quite decisive about using appraisals for this purpose but we offer a very soft landing in terms of severance and office/website time without any expectations of billing. I should emphasise though that it’s still a very very small minority of associates that this will ever happen to provided that the firm is profitable and healthy.

[glitched]

I won’t sugarcoat it, it’s tougher now to justify low hours for very long with associate pay at the level it is. If the quality of the person’s work is really good, their availability and responsiveness on the deals they do is good and we are short of bodies at their level we might keep them around for a few years (although obviously no partnership chances). However, if the work is available and the person has a reputation for ‘going missing’ in the middle of deals, then they will usually get given the message before too long. Again it comes down to “are they useful?” I think students don’t really understand that this question differentiates firms from school. Yes you might be super clever but if you’re not reliable and actually working hard then we’re not going to keep paying you indefinitely as some kind of reward for having brains.

At my firm we are quite decisive about using appraisals for this purpose but we offer a very soft landing in terms of severance and office/website time without any expectations of billing. I should emphasise though that it’s still a very very small minority of associates that this will ever happen to provided that the firm is profitable and healthy.

Thanks for this. That's what I figured. It's tough because we lost a major client last year, and everyone in the group is slow. I get work when I ask for it, but we just don't have enough. I take on a lot of pro bono because of that but even then, it's tough to fill the hours. I almost want to find another firm because I'm losing out on experience that I need, but I love my firm and the people I work with so I wouldn't want to risk losing that. I don't know. It's tough and scary.

[Anonymous User]

Sorry glitches, that is tough. The dynamic is a bit different if the whole group is slow. That’s where you will be in competition with others if there is a decision to downsize the team, so you need to be super-enthusiastic, aggressively seek out what work there is and produce a great quality work product. In reality I have never seen pro bono help an associate in this situation, unless it is a pro bono version of the billable work the group does so that it helps develop skills (this is unusual for transactional lawyers but may be the case for some litigators).

Unless you can see that the partners in your group have a plan/the drive to improve dealflow I would at least be putting feelers out with recruiters. Better to do that before you are in a rush.

[totesTheGoat]

Have you ever seriously entertained the notion of going in-house? If so, what made you stay at the firm?

[Anonymous User]

I decided in-house wasn’t for me after a couple of secondments as an associate. I like being in an environment where law is the actual business rather than the feeling of being a support function. Also I would miss the variation deal to deal - there’s my short attention span again. I’m not someone who values really getting to know a business well, I like having to learn new stuff quickly all the time.

[Anonymous User]

I decided in-house wasn’t for me after a couple of secondments as an associate. I like being in an environment where law is the actual business rather than the feeling of being a support function. Also I would miss the variation deal to deal - there’s my short attention span again. I’m not someone who values really getting to know a business well, I like having to learn new stuff quickly all the time.

Appreciate you taking questions! When I was in biglaw before going in-house (M&A/Securities), I used to always think I would just do it for like 10 years, save enough $ and do whatever I wanted. Is the "deal to deal" variation interesting enough to give up your time? I honestly never thought that partners actually enjoyed the work (I always thought it was really tedious to paper a deal), but that they just kept upping their lifestyle so they needed the 7 figure paycheck.

Are your hours much more reasonable now that you are a partner? Understanding that you make 7 figures a year or close to it, so you probably don't "need" the money, what makes you keep going?

[NoBladesNoBows]

Thanks a lot for this, I wish there were better resources available to juniors as to what makes a good associate.

Would you mind expanding on the email tone and business etiquette a bit, maybe more specifically would you mind sharing a few particularly common mistakes? Thankfully I have some corporate work experience from before law school where I had to learn a lot about business etiquette the hard way, and I feel much better about it now. Still, I frequently obsess over any emails I send to superiors and triple check them out of fear that something will come off poorly. Particularly I can find partners very hard to read even in-person, and never know for sure if I'm approaching them the right way.

Thanks again!

[Anonymous User]

I decided in-house wasn’t for me after a couple of secondments as an associate. I like being in an environment where law is the actual business rather than the feeling of being a support function. Also I would miss the variation deal to deal - there’s my short attention span again. I’m not someone who values really getting to know a business well, I like having to learn new stuff quickly all the time.

Appreciate you taking questions! When I was in biglaw before going in-house (M&A/Securities), I used to always think I would just do it for like 10 years, save enough $ and do whatever I wanted. Is the "deal to deal" variation interesting enough to give up your time? I honestly never thought that partners actually enjoyed the work (I always thought it was really tedious to paper a deal), but that they just kept upping their lifestyle so they needed the 7 figure paycheck.

Are your hours much more reasonable now that you are a partner? Understanding that you make 7 figures a year or close to it, so you probably don't "need" the money, what makes you keep going?

My hours are just as long as they ever were but I fill them with different things. I have junior partners or senior associates to do most of the routine papering. I spend far more time on deal structuring, heads of terms, early stage calls on commercial terms, trouble-shooting when tricky points come up and working with regular clients between deals answering their questions on possible opportunities. I still read all the main docs though, from my deals and others, so I know exactly what is going on the market - partners must do that these days to be effective. But I’m usually reviewing markups (love the iPad Pro for commenting on docs wherever I am - sure my associates hate me for that) rather than drafting myself. I try to delegate what I can and spend and all my time on the difficult bits of deals - luckily for me they are usually the most interesting bits.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks a lot for this, I wish there were better resources available to juniors as to what makes a good associate.

Would you mind expanding on the email tone and business etiquette a bit, maybe more specifically would you mind sharing a few particularly common mistakes? Thankfully I have some corporate work experience from before law school where I had to learn a lot about business etiquette the hard way, and I feel much better about it now. Still, I frequently obsess over any emails I send to superiors and triple check them out of fear that something will come off poorly. Particularly I can find partners very hard to read even in-person, and never know for sure if I'm approaching them the right way.

Thanks again!

This is a really tricky one to master. You will (hopefully) be copied on lots of email chains on deals so you should pay close attention and take your cue from those. A few points to watch:
- Use the same greetings/signoffs that everyone else uses.
- ‘Register’ is difficult for juniors and they can often be too formal but I’d rather that than too informal if you are unsure.
- Clear and succinct is essential so proofread and proofread again to take out any unnecessary verbiage. Think about what each word means and what it adds to the message. Bullet points/lists/headings in longer emails are a good idea.
- DO NOT write emails which come across as angry or sarcastic, no matter how much the other side (or your internal colleagues in another team) are winding you up. It’s hugely unprofessional and people will think you are weird and/or an asshole. Resist the temptation to score points even if you think you are right and they are wrong - we are all wrong sometimes and it will come back to bite you. If you feel your temper rising send the email to yourself first or to another associate who is a friend. Really think about whether it comes across as professional.

[glitched]

Thanks a lot for this, I wish there were better resources available to juniors as to what makes a good associate.

Would you mind expanding on the email tone and business etiquette a bit, maybe more specifically would you mind sharing a few particularly common mistakes? Thankfully I have some corporate work experience from before law school where I had to learn a lot about business etiquette the hard way, and I feel much better about it now. Still, I frequently obsess over any emails I send to superiors and triple check them out of fear that something will come off poorly. Particularly I can find partners very hard to read even in-person, and never know for sure if I'm approaching them the right way.

Thanks again!

This is a really tricky one to master. You will (hopefully) be copied on lots of email chains on deals so you should pay close attention and take your cue from those. A few points to watch:
- Use the same greetings/signoffs that everyone else uses.
- ‘Register’ is difficult for juniors and they can often be too formal but I’d rather that than too informal if you are unsure.
- Clear and succinct is essential so proofread and proofread again to take out any unnecessary verbiage. Think about what each word means and what it adds to the message. Bullet points/lists/headings in longer emails are a good idea.
- DO NOT write emails which come across as angry or sarcastic, no matter how much the other side (or your internal colleagues in another team) are winding you up. It’s hugely unprofessional and people will think you are weird and/or an asshole. Resist the temptation to score points even if you think you are right and they are wrong - we are all wrong sometimes and it will come back to bite you. If you feel your temper rising send the email to yourself first or to another associate who is a friend. Really think about whether it comes across as professional.

When I first started, I started all my emails, even internally, with "Dear Ms. XX." I got a call from a partner jokingly telling me that the only time we call someone "Ms. XX" is when were sending an email to opposing counsel and we're pissed off. Pretty hilarious.

[NoBladesNoBows]

Thanks a lot for this, I wish there were better resources available to juniors as to what makes a good associate.

Would you mind expanding on the email tone and business etiquette a bit, maybe more specifically would you mind sharing a few particularly common mistakes? Thankfully I have some corporate work experience from before law school where I had to learn a lot about business etiquette the hard way, and I feel much better about it now. Still, I frequently obsess over any emails I send to superiors and triple check them out of fear that something will come off poorly. Particularly I can find partners very hard to read even in-person, and never know for sure if I'm approaching them the right way.

Thanks again!

This is a really tricky one to master. You will (hopefully) be copied on lots of email chains on deals so you should pay close attention and take your cue from those. A few points to watch:
- Use the same greetings/signoffs that everyone else uses.
- ‘Register’ is difficult for juniors and they can often be too formal but I’d rather that than too informal if you are unsure.
- Clear and succinct is essential so proofread and proofread again to take out any unnecessary verbiage. Think about what each word means and what it adds to the message. Bullet points/lists/headings in longer emails are a good idea.
- DO NOT write emails which come across as angry or sarcastic, no matter how much the other side (or your internal colleagues in another team) are winding you up. It’s hugely unprofessional and people will think you are weird and/or an asshole. Resist the temptation to score points even if you think you are right and they are wrong - we are all wrong sometimes and it will come back to bite you. If you feel your temper rising send the email to yourself first or to another associate who is a friend. Really think about whether it comes across as professional.

Thank you!

[MaxMcMann]

I made partner at 8 years, but this was just before the financial crisis and at a different firm. It wouldn’t happen like that today. I do still mostly enjoy it, although the energy and hours bit definitely gets harder as you get older and some of the fun socialising bits have to give way to a healthier lifestyle. But I like the work - can’t imagine getting this far if you didn’t. There’s something new every day and I have a short attention span.

My current firm isnt full lockstep so comp varies. I would say I’m usually above median but slightly below mean.

This is interesting - I always thought litigation had more variety due to the different nature. What makes you say your short attention span is better for corporate work? How would you characterize the variety you encounter? Is dealing with different industries (if that's what you do, otherwise "different companies" or other relevant metric) interesting in the sense that you learn how different entities operate in the context of similar rules?

Curious about this part.

[Anonymous User]

I hope you don't take my questions the wrong way, I'm just curious as to why someone would continue to work at top transactional firm as a partner after they've already made millions. Do you legitimately enjoy the work? As someone with a short-attention span also, being a corporate lawyer seems like the worst career choice I could have made. Little details matter too much, you read long, boring documents, have long, boring calls. My mind wanders around and takes me forever to get things done because the work is just tedious and boring. Also, having clients hit me up and having to work on weekends (and dropping things at a moments notice to do said work) are the worst part about the job and I've noticed that partners get it even worse than associates at times. Just really wondering what keeps you going? I worked at a V10 transactional practice and I didn't understand why my bosses stayed on after making so much money .... why not move to a smaller firm with better QOL? Why not move in-house into a high up legal position?

[Anonymous User]

How did you evaluate potential associates at OCI?

[2020throwaway]

Just that really. Nearly 20 years experience, ‘mid-level’ of the equity (never going to be a huge rainmaker but I have strong technical skills and big clients like me). Very involved in reviewing/managing associates in our team and hiring laterals. Used to do OCI but am now sufficiently old that I can mostly get out of that. Unusually long commute today and a deal just died so open to questions.

Are you able to share an insight into V10 hiring? Particularly i'm at a t14 school with mediocre grades but real interest in a particular corp practice. How can this play out in hiring? Just make sure to bring the interest into callbacks? Can it help in getting 1st round interviews at V10 firms when you did not receive a screener through lottery?

Mind pming?