The fundamental problem with practicing lawyers Forum

[Nomo]

At first that's what I thought, but then when they start saying how miserable big law is they just say, "ugh it's just office drudgery, the hours are long, and there isn't good job security.". How naive can you get if that isn't what you expected? It is sad that that is what is considered a good outcome now but that's just how it is.

I went to LS at 25-26, worked "real jobs" and expected the drudgery, long hours, and lack of job security. What I didn't expect was exactly how they would interplay with debt hanging over your head.

I'll use my post-college roommate as an example, who did a management degree. He worked 50-60 hours a week for 50k in an entry-level business position. He didn't have a blackberry, didn't get yelled at for not checking his e-mail at midnight, rarely had weekend work, didn't have $250k of debt hanging over his head, and every unpleasant encounter with a superior didn't turn into an existential issue colored by all his debt. He worked with people who were promoted based at least partly on management ability and not simply class year, and who didn't themselves have a ton of debt hanging over their head. The level of unpleasantness created by lockstep promotion, associates who are selected for test scores and not management ability, and coworkers and supervisors who are all stressed about debt cannot be adequately explained to someone who has never experienced it.

There's nothing worse than feeling trapped and like you can't start over, much less get fired. It colors every office dispute, every constructive criticism from a supervisor, every bit of news that could lead to layoffs.

[InTheHouse]

You know, I don't think my peers actually mind the work so much. I think they just feel trapped by debt, which makes them resent their jobs more than they normally would. Its a lot easier to ignore the office a-hole when you know you can quit without facing financial ruin. I've gotten chewed out my share of times, but I stopped taking it so hard after I'd run built my pre-law level of savings. If you want to be an attorney, BigLaw w/o debt feels like a really sweet deal. Working in the DC market helps. I hate NYC.

[dwil770]

At first that's what I thought, but then when they start saying how miserable big law is they just say, "ugh it's just office drudgery, the hours are long, and there isn't good job security.". How naive can you get if that isn't what you expected? It is sad that that is what is considered a good outcome now but that's just how it is.

I went to LS at 25-26, worked "real jobs" and expected the drudgery, long hours, and lack of job security. What I didn't expect was exactly how they would interplay with debt hanging over your head.

I'll use my post-college roommate as an example, who did a management degree. He worked 50-60 hours a week for 50k in an entry-level business position. He didn't have a blackberry, didn't get yelled at for not checking his e-mail at midnight, rarely had weekend work, didn't have $250k of debt hanging over his head, and every unpleasant encounter with a superior didn't turn into an existential issue colored by all his debt. He worked with people who were promoted based at least partly on management ability and not simply class year, and who didn't themselves have a ton of debt hanging over their head. The level of unpleasantness created by lockstep promotion, associates who are selected for test scores and not management ability, and coworkers and supervisors who are all stressed about debt cannot be adequately explained to someone who has never experienced it.

Yes the debt component would absolutely complicate it, and posts that talk about that and make the debt "real" as opposed to funny money are helpful. I was considering adding personal characteristics of bosses/co-workers in biglaw as another commonly complained about thing. I think these two things vary highly from person to person. Arguably more TLS lawyer types benefit from the lockstep system and are attracted by that. And debt obviously varies from person to person. TLS has definitely made me more debt averse based on the stories.

[kaiser]

I was relatively debt averse before I started law school. And now that I'm a grad, I would have been even more debt averse. Yet at the same time, I can understand why so many prospective students don't wanna hear it. Its the perpetual cycle, isn't it? We all wish we had listened to valid advice a bit more when we had the chance.

[A. Nony Mouse]

At first that's what I thought, but then when they start saying how miserable big law is they just say, "ugh it's just office drudgery, the hours are long, and there isn't good job security.". How naive can you get if that isn't what you expected? It is sad that that is what is considered a good outcome now but that's just how it is.

Have you even read the posts talking about biglaw? That's not what people are complaining about.

I've read many posts on it and those are the most common negatives of the job itself. Have you read "the posts"? Because those things are absolutely complained about the most universally.

No, the complaints are about not having control over your schedule so that you sit all day doing nothing, then get work dumped on you at 5 that has to be done by the next morning, and that you don't know when these assignments will come in so you regularly have to cancel plans and can't predict anything - which aren't the same as long hours; and office drudgery also isn't the same as not getting substantive work, worrying about billing enough hours, fighting to get good work, getting screamed at by partners, etc. In particular, there's also the complaint about these dealing with these issues knowing you can't leave because you need to pay off the debt.

You can argue whether these really are as terrible as people say, but don't go disingenuously calling that "office drudgery" or "long hours."

[rayiner]

I was considering adding personal characteristics of bosses/co-workers in biglaw as another commonly complained about thing. I think these two things vary highly from person to person. Arguably more TLS lawyer types benefit from the lockstep system and are attracted by that.

It may be attractive that they'd get hired based on grades and promoted in lock-step, but the end result is that they end up working under associates who were hired based on grades and promoted in lock-step. These features of big law mean that many associates are absolutely terrible managers, which is miserable for the juniors who have to work under them.

This is why QoL in big law can be such a roll of the dice. Working under a senior associate who is good at delegation, good at getting you assignments as early as they are ready, and gives feedback constructively, can make a 200-hour month a breeze. Working under one that is bad at these things can make a 150-hour month hell.

[buffalo_]

It may be attractive that they'd get hired based on grades and promoted in lock-step, but the end result is that they end up working under associates who were hired based on grades and promoted in lock-step. These features of big law mean that many associates are absolutely terrible managers, which is miserable for the juniors who have to work under them.

I think a more interesting question is why this continues. Is it because lawyers are not good with numbers and therefore not good with analytics? Because many simple employee performance metric are capable of tracking manager efficiency. Even if you don't use metrics, employee exit surveys should give details about which managers are better and also which traits make managers better. Are the HR teams of law firms still in the stone ages? It really should only be a matter of time before firms figure out that if you promote based on management skill rather than lock-step, you're going to be way more efficient. More efficient = more clients with less junior associates. More clients with less junior associates = more profits per partner.

Even if they want to keep bare-bones HR or handle most HR related matters in-house by practicing attorneys (a ton of HR stuff is dealing with legal issues and liability anyway so this makes sense), you could still just hire a consulting firm to do the work.

Either the firms are missing a huge arbitrage opportunity over other firms, or it isn't as lock-step and grade dependent as it may seem from the bottom of the pyramid.

[rayiner]

It may be attractive that they'd get hired based on grades and promoted in lock-step, but the end result is that they end up working under associates who were hired based on grades and promoted in lock-step. These features of big law mean that many associates are absolutely terrible managers, which is miserable for the juniors who have to work under them.

I think a more interesting question is why this continues. Is it because lawyers are not good with numbers and therefore not good with analytics? Because many simple employee performance metric are capable of tracking manager efficiency. Even if you don't use metrics, employee exit surveys should give details about which managers are better and also which traits make managers better. Are the HR teams of law firms still in the stone ages? It really should only be a matter of time before firms figure out that if you promote based on management skill rather than lock-step, you're going to be way more efficient. More efficient = more clients with less junior associates. More clients with less junior associates = more profits per partner.

Even if they want to keep bare-bones HR or handle most HR related matters in-house by practicing attorneys (a ton of HR stuff is dealing with legal issues and liability anyway so this makes sense), you could still just hire a consulting firm to do the work.

Either the firms are missing a huge arbitrage opportunity over other firms, or it isn't as lock-step and grade dependent as it may seem from the bottom of the pyramid.

My firm was one of the lockstep-iest lockstep firms, but my understanding is that at least within the associate ranks, lockstep is still how things are run. It's just too deeply-ingrained, culturally, and firms take no more than token measures to seek or cultivate management ability among associates.

[dwil770]

At first that's what I thought, but then when they start saying how miserable big law is they just say, "ugh it's just office drudgery, the hours are long, and there isn't good job security.". How naive can you get if that isn't what you expected? It is sad that that is what is considered a good outcome now but that's just how it is.

Have you even read the posts talking about biglaw? That's not what people are complaining about.

I've read many posts on it and those are the most common negatives of the job itself. Have you read "the posts"? Because those things are absolutely complained about the most universally.

No, the complaints are about not having control over your schedule so that you sit all day doing nothing, then get work dumped on you at 5 that has to be done by the next morning, and that you don't know when these assignments will come in so you regularly have to cancel plans and can't predict anything - which aren't the same as long hours; and office drudgery also isn't the same as not getting substantive work, worrying about billing enough hours, fighting to get good work, getting screamed at by partners, etc. In particular, there's also the complaint about these dealing with these issues knowing you can't leave because you need to pay off the debt.

You can argue whether these really are as terrible as people say, but don't go disingenuously calling that "office drudgery" or "long hours."

I think your unpredictable hours point is a slight variation of me just saying "long hours" off hand. I appreciate the difference between long hours and unpredictable hours, I should have just said "complaints about hours" to encompass both of them, but I just wrote that forum post in 15 seconds.

Also, we can quibble about what the DEEP meaning of "office drudgery" is. The point is that people complain about not getting substantive work. If I chose a couple words that you dislike for whatever reason that's fine, but I meant exactly what you talked about in your last post.

And obviously worry about enough billables/getting screamed at by partner/fighting to get good work is because of job security concerns.

Regardless, you are wrong to say that long hours (shoulda just left it at hours!), office drudgery (lack of substantive work if you prefer), and lack of job security are not HEAVILY complained about. Yet you go hard as fuck and say "That isn't what people are complaining about", when obviously people in this very thread complain about those things. Bizarre.

[buffalo_]

It may be attractive that they'd get hired based on grades and promoted in lock-step, but the end result is that they end up working under associates who were hired based on grades and promoted in lock-step. These features of big law mean that many associates are absolutely terrible managers, which is miserable for the juniors who have to work under them.

I think a more interesting question is why this continues. Is it because lawyers are not good with numbers and therefore not good with analytics? Because many simple employee performance metric are capable of tracking manager efficiency. Even if you don't use metrics, employee exit surveys should give details about which managers are better and also which traits make managers better. Are the HR teams of law firms still in the stone ages? It really should only be a matter of time before firms figure out that if you promote based on management skill rather than lock-step, you're going to be way more efficient. More efficient = more clients with less junior associates. More clients with less junior associates = more profits per partner.

Even if they want to keep bare-bones HR or handle most HR related matters in-house by practicing attorneys (a ton of HR stuff is dealing with legal issues and liability anyway so this makes sense), you could still just hire a consulting firm to do the work.

Either the firms are missing a huge arbitrage opportunity over other firms, or it isn't as lock-step and grade dependent as it may seem from the bottom of the pyramid.

My firm was one of the lockstep-iest lockstep firms, but my understanding is that at least within the associate ranks, lockstep is still how things are run. It's just too deeply-ingrained, culturally, and firms take no more than token measures to seek or cultivate management ability among associates.

How much do associates really manage people though? And at what level (how many years out) do they start really assigning people direct reports or give them the option to manage people? Lock-step raises and title promotions are fine. But it sounds like your saying, "Okay you have been here X number of years and got Y grades at Z law school X number of years ago, here are five first-year associates for you to run with."

ETA: $$$ > Culture. See every successful company ever.

[Theopliske8711]

But it sounds like your saying, "Okay you have been here X number of years and got Y grades at Z law school X number of years ago, here are five first-year associates for you to run with."

I think he means: you got X grades, and therefore you can work here; you've worked here Y long and therefore here is a Junior.

[rayiner]

At a highly leveraged NYC firm, at least in litigation, case teams will mostly be run by senior associates. The assignment coordinator will staff the case team with people in roles based on their class year. A senior associate will do most of the interactions with the partner, while midlevels will do most of the management of juniors.

[buffalo_]

But it sounds like your saying, "Okay you have been here X number of years and got Y grades at Z law school X number of years ago, here are five first-year associates for you to run with."

I think he means: you got X grades, and therefore you can work here; you've worked here Y long and therefore here is a Junior.

If it's only the years that you are there, then they are not just doing "lock-step and grades." As basically every lawyer on this board has said, they either force you out or you quit, or a small percentage stay on. That percentage that isn't forced is probably the people they think can be good managers. And the one's who quit self-select themselves out.

Both "force people out based on performance" and "there is no basis for promoting managers except lock-step and grades" cannot be true at the same time unless the decision they make to not push associates out has nothing to do with managing ability. I find this hard to believe since a good associate will be someone who can manage their time and others expectations exceptionally well, those are skills that should translate at least in part to managing other people.

Not to mention at the next level, the managers that are not managing well, probably don't get promoted to partner.

I seriously doubt that "culture" is getting in the way of all of the nations best law firms from making simple business decisions. I think it is vastly more likely that from the bottom it is hard to see them doing these evaluations explicitly.

[Theopliske8711]

If it's only the years that you are there, then they are not just doing "lock-step and grades." As basically every lawyer on this board has said, they either force you out or you quit, or a small percentage stay on. That percentage that isn't forced is probably the people they think can be good managers. And the one's who quit self-select themselves out.

I'm not quite sure that is their line of thought or their biggest concern, but I can't comment since I haven't worked at a big firm. Rayiner might be able to provide info on this.

[nouseforaname123]

But it sounds like your saying, "Okay you have been here X number of years and got Y grades at Z law school X number of years ago, here are five first-year associates for you to run with."

I think he means: you got X grades, and therefore you can work here; you've worked here Y long and therefore here is a Junior.

If it's only the years that you are there, then they are not just doing "lock-step and grades." As basically every lawyer on this board has said, they either force you out or you quit, or a small percentage stay on. That percentage that isn't forced is probably the people they think can be good managers. And the one's who quit self-select themselves out.

Both "force people out based on performance" and "there is no basis for promoting managers except lock-step and grades" cannot be true at the same time unless the decision they make to not push associates out has nothing to do with managing ability. I find this hard to believe since a good associate will be someone who can manage their time and others expectations exceptionally well, those are skills that should translate at least in part to managing other people.

Not to mention at the next level, the managers that are not managing well, probably don't get promoted to partner.

I seriously doubt that "culture" is getting in the way of all of the nations best law firms from making simple business decisions. I think it is vastly more likely that from the bottom it is hard to see them doing these evaluations explicitly.

You're making a lot of assumptions that lead you down a winding path. What makes you think law firms are run like other businesses? What makes you think that managing well is a criteria for making partner or even enters into the evaluation?

[Nomo]

But it sounds like your saying, "Okay you have been here X number of years and got Y grades at Z law school X number of years ago, here are five first-year associates for you to run with."

I think he means: you got X grades, and therefore you can work here; you've worked here Y long and therefore here is a Junior.

If it's only the years that you are there, then they are not just doing "lock-step and grades." As basically every lawyer on this board has said, they either force you out or you quit, or a small percentage stay on. That percentage that isn't forced is probably the people they think can be good managers. And the one's who quit self-select themselves out.

Both "force people out based on performance" and "there is no basis for promoting managers except lock-step and grades" cannot be true at the same time unless the decision they make to not push associates out has nothing to do with managing ability. I find this hard to believe since a good associate will be someone who can manage their time and others expectations exceptionally well, those are skills that should translate at least in part to managing other people.

Not to mention at the next level, the managers that are not managing well, probably don't get promoted to partner.

I seriously doubt that "culture" is getting in the way of all of the nations best law firms from making simple business decisions. I think it is vastly more likely that from the bottom it is hard to see them doing these evaluations explicitly.

You're making a lot of assumptions that lead you down a winding path. What makes you think law firms are run like other businesses? What makes you think that managing well is a criteria for making partner or even enters into the evaluation?

Yes. We're talking about partnerships with over a hundred owners. And the owners all actually work in the business. Its not designed for great management.

The model feeds off rainmaking. If you can generate business you can be a partner. If you are loved by someone who brings in a ton of business you can become a partner. If you're a good-worker, a good manager, liked by everyone - but not loved, and you can't bring in business . . . you're probably not making partner. At least not equity partner.

[rayiner]

What I'm saying is that people are hired without regard for management potential, and are slotted into management roles based on class year. I don't find your argument that they select for management ability through attrition convincing. First, while there is a lot of attrition in the first 5-6 years, its mostly voluntary. This if anything selects against people who would be good managers, as it selects for the people who can most put up with the status quo. Second, involuntary attrition at that level is mostly about hours and work product. Maybe partners are selected based on management ability, but as a junior, you'll spend most of your time working with midlevels.

As for why law firms would cling to this: law firms are small companies in the grand scheme of things. Most companies with only 1,500 employees don't have highly sophisticated management either. Moreover, remember that clients are also lawyers. They grew up with this model.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Have you even read the posts talking about biglaw? That's not what people are complaining about.

I've read many posts on it and those are the most common negatives of the job itself. Have you read "the posts"? Because those things are absolutely complained about the most universally.

No, the complaints are about not having control over your schedule so that you sit all day doing nothing, then get work dumped on you at 5 that has to be done by the next morning, and that you don't know when these assignments will come in so you regularly have to cancel plans and can't predict anything - which aren't the same as long hours; and office drudgery also isn't the same as not getting substantive work, worrying about billing enough hours, fighting to get good work, getting screamed at by partners, etc. In particular, there's also the complaint about these dealing with these issues knowing you can't leave because you need to pay off the debt.

You can argue whether these really are as terrible as people say, but don't go disingenuously calling that "office drudgery" or "long hours."

I think your unpredictable hours point is a slight variation of me just saying "long hours" off hand. I appreciate the difference between long hours and unpredictable hours, I should have just said "complaints about hours" to encompass both of them, but I just wrote that forum post in 15 seconds.

Also, we can quibble about what the DEEP meaning of "office drudgery" is. The point is that people complain about not getting substantive work. If I chose a couple words that you dislike for whatever reason that's fine, but I meant exactly what you talked about in your last post.

And obviously worry about enough billables/getting screamed at by partner/fighting to get good work is because of job security concerns.

Regardless, you are wrong to say that long hours (shoulda just left it at hours!), office drudgery (lack of substantive work if you prefer), and lack of job security are not HEAVILY complained about. Yet you go hard as fuck and say "That isn't what people are complaining about", when obviously people in this very thread complain about those things. Bizarre.

Well, if you don't see any difference between how I described things and how you described things, you might be surprised when it comes time to work as a first-year associate.

[buffalo_]

What I'm saying is that people are hired without regard for management potential, and are slotted into management roles based on class year. I don't find your argument that they select for management ability through attrition convincing. First, while there is a lot of attrition in the first 5-6 years, its mostly voluntary. This if anything selects against people who would be good managers, as it selects for the people who can most put up with the status quo. Second, involuntary attrition at that level is mostly about hours and work product. Maybe partners are selected based on management ability, but as a junior, you'll spend most of your time working with midlevels.

As for why law firms would cling to this: law firms are small companies in the grand scheme of things. Most companies with only 1,500 employees don't have highly sophisticated management either. Moreover, remember that clients are also lawyers. They grew up with this model.

It is true that they are relatively small companies, but 1,500 employees is still a lot of people to not have sound management structure. I think the frequency of voluntary attrition may explain this partially.

If the voluntary turnover is really so high, then there is simply no way at all for them to find good managers because they have all left! And I think the involuntary attrition argument makes total sense. Managerial skills are very hard to gauge until someone actually manages people. If the person is a pain to work with, it's probably because their manager is putting pressure on them. And that is probably happening because they don't know how to get the most out of their direct reports (see Chain of Screaming from HIMYM). So the ones that don't make partner are almost certainly the ones who can't get the most out of their team and are therefore bad managers and thus are not invited to stay on with the firm.

Furthermore, it makes very little sense to hire a first year based on their managerial skills since a) they have no experience or training with which to demonstrate these skills yet and b) they won't be managing anyone for several years. Their primary function is to be an individual contributor. So they hire them for that skill.

If the good managers are voluntarily leaving the firm, then if they lateral to a new firm it would make sense to screen those candidates for managerial skills since they would be hired as mid-levels, which you say is where the issue is. So I suspect that mid-levels are probably a mix of great individual contributors and laterals who are good at contributing but demonstrate management potential. Why would firms hire laterals if they don't have good management potential/managerial skills? They could pay less for first years to do the individual contributor level stuff.

Basically I think the pyramid makes sense, but since a JD is a big shiny expensive degree, all BigLaw graduates think that they should have a chance to manage other employees. But the truth is this doesn't look much different to me than any other industry. You have a big slew of individual contributors. The good ones move up, but often you bring someone in from the outside to manage them. Maybe firms are slightly more insular, and promote more from within, but if anything that should be a perk of a firm (having upward mobility with little fear of Mr. Outside hire getting chosen over you), not a detriment because their managers are unskilled at managing. Especially since management skills are pretty difficult to demonstrate until you have actually managed someone.

[nouseforaname123]

What I'm saying is that people are hired without regard for management potential, and are slotted into management roles based on class year. I don't find your argument that they select for management ability through attrition convincing. First, while there is a lot of attrition in the first 5-6 years, its mostly voluntary. This if anything selects against people who would be good managers, as it selects for the people who can most put up with the status quo. Second, involuntary attrition at that level is mostly about hours and work product. Maybe partners are selected based on management ability, but as a junior, you'll spend most of your time working with midlevels.

As for why law firms would cling to this: law firms are small companies in the grand scheme of things. Most companies with only 1,500 employees don't have highly sophisticated management either. Moreover, remember that clients are also lawyers. They grew up with this model.

It is true that they are relatively small companies, but 1,500 employees is still a lot of people to not have sound management structure. I think the frequency of voluntary attrition may explain this partially.

If the voluntary turnover is really so high, then there is simply no way at all for them to find good managers because they have all left! And I think the involuntary attrition argument makes total sense. Managerial skills are very hard to gauge until someone actually manages people. If the person is a pain to work with, it's probably because their manager is putting pressure on them. And that is probably happening because they don't know how to get the most out of their direct reports (see Chain of Screaming from HIMYM). So the ones that don't make partner are almost certainly the ones who can't get the most out of their team and are therefore bad managers and thus are not invited to stay on with the firm.

Furthermore, it makes very little sense to hire a first year based on their managerial skills since a) they have no experience or training with which to demonstrate these skills yet and b) they won't be managing anyone for several years. Their primary function is to be an individual contributor. So they hire them for that skill.

If the good managers are voluntarily leaving the firm, then if they lateral to a new firm it would make sense to screen those candidates for managerial skills since they would be hired as mid-levels, which you say is where the issue is. So I suspect that mid-levels are probably a mix of great individual contributors and laterals who are good at contributing but demonstrate management potential. Why would firms hire laterals if they don't have good management potential/managerial skills? They could pay less for first years to do the individual contributor level stuff.

Basically I think the pyramid makes sense, but since a JD is a big shiny expensive degree, all BigLaw graduates think that they should have a chance to manage other employees. But the truth is this doesn't look much different to me than any other industry. You have a big slew of individual contributors. The good ones move up, but often you bring someone in from the outside to manage them. Maybe firms are slightly more insular, and promote more from within, but if anything that should be a perk of a firm (having upward mobility with little fear of Mr. Outside hire getting chosen over you), not a detriment because their managers are unskilled at managing. Especially since management skills are pretty difficult to demonstrate until you have actually managed someone.

Again, your assumptions are biting in you in the ass.

Managing others in a law firm/attorney context is nothing like managing others in most other industries. I managed teams of up to 8 college graduates in a white collar service industry for a F100 before law school. Team and direct report concepts--as you seem to be using them--simply don't translate over to the law firm context.

[buffalo_]

Managing others in a law firm/attorney context is nothing like managing others in most other industries. I managed teams of up to 8 college graduates in a white collar service industry for a F100 before law school. Team and direct report concepts--as you seem to be using them--simply don't translate over to the law firm context.

Great. So then why is satisfaction with management one of the main gripes of working in BigLaw? If managers don't have a team of direct reports, then you don't have a singular manager. So are they ALL just atrocious?

I understand that law firms work more on a pool system, where a pool of employees can jump on various projects. But this means that you (as an individual) will not have to deal with a bad manager all of the time, only when you are working with them. Unless they're all terrible, in which case I wonder how all of these terrible people can get enough work product from the group of people on the project to be successful.

I do not think the assumption that good manager = good product from team is far fetched at all. Regardless of if their is a static team or not, if you have bad managers you will get a bad product from those managers, and eventually you won't give that person responsibilities where they need to manage groups of people in the future. As an individual contributor, I get that it can be frustrating to have to report to multiple people at once since you have no static manager, but you also are not going to be stuck working for the one horrible boss all the time. You will get periods where you will work with people you like more.

The only way I can see that I am wrong about this is if ALL of the people that you might have to report to are just jerks. And if you think that, then you probably selected a firm that was a bad cultural fit for you. When everyone thinks one way and you think the other, it doesn't make you wrong, but it means you're going to stick out and that is probably not a good thing. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

[NYC-WVU]

It may be attractive that they'd get hired based on grades and promoted in lock-step, but the end result is that they end up working under associates who were hired based on grades and promoted in lock-step. These features of big law mean that many associates are absolutely terrible managers, which is miserable for the juniors who have to work under them.

I think a more interesting question is why this continues. Is it because lawyers are not good with numbers and therefore not good with analytics? Because many simple employee performance metric are capable of tracking manager efficiency. Even if you don't use metrics, employee exit surveys should give details about which managers are better and also which traits make managers better. Are the HR teams of law firms still in the stone ages? It really should only be a matter of time before firms figure out that if you promote based on management skill rather than lock-step, you're going to be way more efficient. More efficient = more clients with less junior associates. More clients with less junior associates = more profits per partner.

Even if they want to keep bare-bones HR or handle most HR related matters in-house by practicing attorneys (a ton of HR stuff is dealing with legal issues and liability anyway so this makes sense), you could still just hire a consulting firm to do the work.

Either the firms are missing a huge arbitrage opportunity over other firms, or it isn't as lock-step and grade dependent as it may seem from the bottom of the pyramid.

As others have pointed out. The management/manager analysis doesn't translate well. The bolded text above nicely illustrates why this business-world management thinking doesn't necessarily apply to law firms. What kind of "simple employee performance metric" would be able to evaluate the difference between my ability to bill six hours on one task from 1-7pm because it was assigned to me two weeks ago and is due next Thursday, vs. my billing six hours from 8pm-2am because it was assigned to me at 7:30 and is needed by my superior before she boards a plane at 7:30 am? Particularly, when I'm not entering the time of day that I am billing. Furthermore, if the partner who put the squeeze on me was able to impress the client that she went to visit enough to send us that big litigation we're gunning for, and the more reasonable partner wasn't, who's worth more to the firm anyway?
Law firms don't produce widgets.

[dwil770]

I've read many posts on it and those are the most common negatives of the job itself. Have you read "the posts"? Because those things are absolutely complained about the most universally.

No, the complaints are about not having control over your schedule so that you sit all day doing nothing, then get work dumped on you at 5 that has to be done by the next morning, and that you don't know when these assignments will come in so you regularly have to cancel plans and can't predict anything - which aren't the same as long hours; and office drudgery also isn't the same as not getting substantive work, worrying about billing enough hours, fighting to get good work, getting screamed at by partners, etc. In particular, there's also the complaint about these dealing with these issues knowing you can't leave because you need to pay off the debt.

You can argue whether these really are as terrible as people say, but don't go disingenuously calling that "office drudgery" or "long hours."

I think your unpredictable hours point is a slight variation of me just saying "long hours" off hand. I appreciate the difference between long hours and unpredictable hours, I should have just said "complaints about hours" to encompass both of them, but I just wrote that forum post in 15 seconds.

Also, we can quibble about what the DEEP meaning of "office drudgery" is. The point is that people complain about not getting substantive work. If I chose a couple words that you dislike for whatever reason that's fine, but I meant exactly what you talked about in your last post.

And obviously worry about enough billables/getting screamed at by partner/fighting to get good work is because of job security concerns.

Regardless, you are wrong to say that long hours (shoulda just left it at hours!), office drudgery (lack of substantive work if you prefer), and lack of job security are not HEAVILY complained about. Yet you go hard as fuck and say "That isn't what people are complaining about", when obviously people in this very thread complain about those things. Bizarre.

Well, if you don't see any difference between how I described things and how you described things, you might be surprised when it comes time to work as a first-year associate.

Well we can bicker about what one means by "office drudgery" all day, but you claim that people do not complain about long hours, office drudgery, or job insecurity when obviously people do so on TLS all the time and you can either deal with that or not. If you have just been trolling me, congrats I bit.

[buffalo_]

It may be attractive that they'd get hired based on grades and promoted in lock-step, but the end result is that they end up working under associates who were hired based on grades and promoted in lock-step. These features of big law mean that many associates are absolutely terrible managers, which is miserable for the juniors who have to work under them.

I think a more interesting question is why this continues. Is it because lawyers are not good with numbers and therefore not good with analytics? Because many simple employee performance metric are capable of tracking manager efficiency. Even if you don't use metrics, employee exit surveys should give details about which managers are better and also which traits make managers better. Are the HR teams of law firms still in the stone ages? It really should only be a matter of time before firms figure out that if you promote based on management skill rather than lock-step, you're going to be way more efficient. More efficient = more clients with less junior associates. More clients with less junior associates = more profits per partner.

Even if they want to keep bare-bones HR or handle most HR related matters in-house by practicing attorneys (a ton of HR stuff is dealing with legal issues and liability anyway so this makes sense), you could still just hire a consulting firm to do the work.

Either the firms are missing a huge arbitrage opportunity over other firms, or it isn't as lock-step and grade dependent as it may seem from the bottom of the pyramid.

As others have pointed out. The management/manager analysis doesn't translate well. The bolded text above nicely illustrates why this business-world management thinking doesn't necessarily apply to law firms. What kind of "simple employee performance metric" would be able to evaluate the difference between my ability to bill six hours on one task from 1-7pm because it was assigned to me two weeks ago and is due next Thursday, vs. my billing six hours from 8pm-2am because it was assigned to me at 7:30 and is needed by my superior before she boards a plane at 7:30 am? Particularly, when I'm not entering the time of day that I am billing. Furthermore, if the partner who put the squeeze on me was able to impress the client that she went to visit enough to send us that big litigation we're gunning for, and the more reasonable partner wasn't, who's worth more to the firm anyway?
Law firms don't produce widgets.

Haha, but I kind of think they do. Their widgets are just different. But I think you misunderstand. The metrics would be to show how your manager performs, not you. You already have your metric, billable hours. Perhaps adding something that tracked what those hours are would be a way to track whether your managers are giving you assignments in a timely matter.

How does this translate to your superiors being evaluated? Well I would imagine you probably could do a much better job on the former assignment than the latter. And your ability to do a good job affects theirs. So, the product you produce in 6 hours two weeks before it's due is almost certain to be of higher quality and much less likely to contain errors than the project done in the 12 hours just prior to it being needed. And think of it like this, if they latter project had been given to you two weeks in advance, would you have done it in six hours, or did you squeeze eight hours worth of work into six because you needed to get it done? I know in my professional experience, tight deadlines ALWAYS lead to more mistakes because people cram projects that should take longer (with adequate quality control) into tighter time frames by sacrificing quality control.

So your superior who constantly gives you last minute stuff is almost certainly performing worse in the eyes of their superior than the one that is giving you adequate time to complete your tasks. And I would assume, billing hours for a project is good right? So if they assign you something last minute, and you squeeze and eight hour job into six to meet a deadline, that project will net the firm less than if you were given it in advance. This may not have been the result in this specific example, but in the long run it is likely unsustainable to produce a subpar product and expect consistently better outcomes.

I really think firms ARE looking at stuff like this, and it's just hard to see when you don't have a seat at the table. If these things were never a consideration the partners would be sacrificing so much money to keep sub-par employees around. The only exception is if the tight-deadline superior somehow brings in tons of new business. That's money for partners and trumps and efficiency issue.

ETA: And in the end, if she impressed the client, and you did the work. Then maybe that means she is doing a good job. Just because it inconvenienced you, doesn't mean it wasn't the right call to make to assign it to you on her part. AND do you think that her success with the client reflects anything other than stellar about you? She remember you came through for her in a tight spot. She is going to cut you more slack if you mess up in the future because your a proven commodity, not some guy who screwed up the only time she needed something. She is going to give you more interesting and challenging products because she knows you can produce. And she is going to go to bat for you come bonus/promotion time.

[NYSprague]

Managing others in a law firm/attorney context is nothing like managing others in most other industries. I managed teams of up to 8 college graduates in a white collar service industry for a F100 before law school. Team and direct report concepts--as you seem to be using them--simply don't translate over to the law firm context.

Great. So then why is satisfaction with management one of the main gripes of working in BigLaw? If managers don't have a team of direct reports, then you don't have a singular manager. So are they ALL just atrocious?

I understand that law firms work more on a pool system, where a pool of employees can jump on various projects. But this means that you (as an individual) will not have to deal with a bad manager all of the time, only when you are working with them. Unless they're all terrible, in which case I wonder how all of these terrible people can get enough work product from the group of people on the project to be successful.

I do not think the assumption that good manager = good product from team is far fetched at all. Regardless of if their is a static team or not, if you have bad managers you will get a bad product from those managers, and eventually you won't give that person responsibilities where they need to manage groups of people in the future. As an individual contributor, I get that it can be frustrating to have to report to multiple people at once since you have no static manager, but you also are not going to be stuck working for the one horrible boss all the time. You will get periods where you will work with people you like more.

The only way I can see that I am wrong about this is if ALL of the people that you might have to report to are just jerks. And if you think that, then you probably selected a firm that was a bad cultural fit for you. When everyone thinks one way and you think the other, it doesn't make you wrong, but it means you're going to stick out and that is probably not a good thing. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

You have no idea what you are talking about and you are making yourself look like an idiot.
Law firms have no interest in training associates to manage or be managers. Just getting the work done on time is all that matters.

I have worked at a big law firm in New York and internationally. I have 6 years in with about 2 off for disability reasons. No one has ever mentioned management to me.There is no training for management, no reward for good management. No one cares as long as the work gets done, and no one really gives a shit about the juniors anyway. There is no such thing as direct reports, each deal is staffed differently. When I was in NYC I worked with many different partners both in corporate and in reorg. Staffing changes all the time.

The other problem with "management" is that the lawyers are usually the last priority. So the lawyers' get the client's last call of the day before they leave, so that the work will be done by the morning when the clients get back in the office. And if I am on several deals, the juniors are going to have to wait until I am ready to give them comments or review their stuff. They in turn are my lowest priority because their work usually isn't that crucial until it is. There is no point in trying to do things in advance, because they always change.

I just don't know how to begin to explain how wrong your thinking and your arguments are.

Regarding the hours, if you need sleep on a regular basis, don't go into biglaw. The unpredictability of the hours is what kills your life, the only days I could ever be sure I didn't have to work were Mother's Day and Christmas. I have had work sent to me on vacation, I got a call when I had to be in the ER with my sister, I have been called while running out to get a haircut. I have worked 3 days straight with an hour or two of sleep at most. I have cancelled more events that I have made, some of them were firm events or firm tickets that I couldn't use.

I am very lucky because I have no debt and I am basically a workaholic. I feel lucky because I like the people I work with but we all work all the time. People burn out like crazy in this environment. The work eats people up and firms know and expect that. No one really cares if you leave for another job. The firm model is based on people burning out and leaving. It is part of the entire plan.

The lockstep thing is real, everyone gets promoted. What is left out is that the best people get more and more work. If you work quickly, are smart and get along with everyone, your reward is more work. Finishing something early, just means you get more work. Being able to work with difficult people means you get assigned to the difficult people all the time. The smartest thing to do is to just try to get by, but with stealth layoffs, that isn't a foolproof plan.

I don't know what to tell you, you just have no sense of how biglaw works, yet you keep arguing as if you do.

(I had another account here that I froze because I was going overseas and I want to not post here, but I am back for the holiday again and so I checked in. I was a little surprised to see Rayiner's posts because I remember arguing with him about biglaw salary and debt repayment back in the day. He is a smart dude and has good advice, I would listen to him about NYC biglaw if I were an 0L. )