Making time for a spouse/S.O. and biglaw? Forum

[ScottRiqui]

In biglaw (secondary market), how common are days that go until 8/9pm or later? I'm asking because my wife's workday starts pretty early, meaning that she's out the door by 6:30am, and needs to be going to bed by 10pm. If I'm consistently not getting home until 9/10pm, that means about an hour a day or less when we'll both be home and awake at the same time.

Are the long nights infrequent enough that it's not a big deal? Or does your S.O. work in a job where the hours are closer to yours? Or do you just not see them very much?

[mr.hands]

In biglaw (secondary market), how common are days that go until 8/9pm or later? I'm asking because my wife's workday starts pretty early, meaning that she's out the door by 6:30am, and needs to be going to bed by 10pm. If I'm consistently not getting home until 9/10pm, that means about an hour a day or less when we'll both be home and awake at the same time.

Are the long nights infrequent enough that it's not a big deal? Or does your S.O. work in a job where the hours are closer to yours? Or do you just not see them very much?

I'm also interested in this.

[arklaw13]

I think a lot of it depends on the specific field you're in and the firm. If you do corporate/transactional work, then you work on the timetable of the deal. If something comes up at 6pm that needs done before 8am the next day, then you're going to get stuck doing it. Litigation (so they say) has a more predictable schedule, although the hours are just as long. A lot of it is based on the target of billable hours you're trying to get. On the lower end of big law (1800-2000 hours) you can probably get out of the door by 7 or earlier most days if you pick up the slack on a couple Saturdays (provided your workflow allows this, if not, enjoy late weeknights). On the upper end (2300+) you can probably expect many weeks of working very late during the week in addition to lots of hours on the weekends. It's really not that different from other high-stress jobs that require a lot of hours, like investment banking and big accounting.

There used to be a pdf file on Yale's server that was called "the truth about the billable hour" or something like that. It was pretty enlightening. It seems that it has been taken down.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/biglaw-r ... ships.html

The above link is a good read as well.

edit: I'm a 0L, so take this with a grain of salt. Just reposting general TLS wisdom.

[09042014]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgSJUzYCGtc

[scifiguy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgSJUzYCGtc

This was interesting (in that the video seemed like bad acting when I watched it).

Do you happen to know of anymore of these types of videos from other firms?

[guano]

In biglaw (secondary market), how common are days that go until 8/9pm or later? I'm asking because my wife's workday starts pretty early, meaning that she's out the door by 6:30am, and needs to be going to bed by 10pm. If I'm consistently not getting home until 9/10pm, that means about an hour a day or less when we'll both be home and awake at the same time.

Are the long nights infrequent enough that it's not a big deal? Or does your S.O. work in a job where the hours are closer to yours? Or do you just not see them very much?

It partly depends on the partner/practice group. You could luck out with a partner who comes in early and prefers to leave early, or you could get stuck with a partner who stays late and needs you to stick around with him