The fundamental problem with practicing lawyers Forum

[rayiner]

buffalo_: I don't want to invoke the "I've worked at a law firm and you haven't" card, but your analysis is wrong for reasons that would be evident to you if you had ever worked at a law firm.

Let me see if I can paint a picture (of litigation). At a given time, you might be staffed on three of four different matters. A medium-sized matter might have a senior partner, junior partner, senior associate, a couple of mid-level associates, and 3-4 junior associates. As a junior, you will spend most of your time working with the mid-levels. They will give you assignments, and they will give you feedback about your work. Those mid-levels will not have been selected for management ability. They might be say third years or fourth years, and by that point any attrition will have been voluntary. I find it unlikely that the people who stick it out past their junior years are more likely to be good managers, and in fact I think the opposite is more likely. Your performance reviews at the junior stages are about your dedication to your projects (i.e. hours) and your attention to detail. Neither skill is correlated with being a good manager.

Starting as a mid-level, there will be some selection going on in that it'll be harder for bad managers to produce good work product by just rewriting everything the juniors give them. Management ability might gate promotion a little bit as you get from mid-level to senior. however, in the list of priorities at this stage, the emphasis is still on hours, work-product, and attention to detail. The bad manager who gives juniors vague directions and then ends up billing a ton of hours redoing their work, and is a good writer, will still curry favor.

[nouseforaname123]

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.

1. The concept of reporting to a manager doesn't translate. You are serving the needs of the person that is more senior to you by providing work product. You're probably tempted to believe this is a meaningless distinction, but it isn't. The person you are working for is mostly (solely?) concerned with getting work product to his or her senior. In the vast majority of deals/cases, a junior's future development simply isn't a priority.

2. It isn't that they are ALL jerks. It's that ALL senior people are over stressed. Stressed people rarely make optimal management decisions.

3. Bad managers still produce good work product because they are a filter, and review every detail. Even if a junior produces bad work product because of bad management, the senior will correct the work product before it gets to a partner/client. Your concept of bad management resulting in bad final work product has virtually no connection with real law firm experience. Ask yourself this: how does a partner even realize a senior associate is a bad manager if the partner is mostly dealing with end work product that is filtered through the senior associate on the deal? If the end work product is good, does the partner even care that much about the rest?

[NYSprague]

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.

I have never had any work given to me two weeks in advance other than writing articles for continuing education shit. Usually I get notice of a deal when we start working on it, maybe at most I know the night before.

There is no room ever for any subpar product, there is only working until it is correct. There might be lockstep promotions but don't assume that everyone keeps their job. People get laid off and told to leave in reviews all the time. Hell, people have to leave if they fail the bar twice.

As long as my work is good, no one cares how I treat the juniors (with regard to hours and work porduct) and no one would listen to them if they complained

[kalvano]

LOL at 0L's arguing over how law firms are managed. Just....LOL.

Trying to apply general management principles to a law firm is an exercise in futility. Monkey shit fights at the zoo are more organized than most law firms. There is no management structure or training when it comes to work; "managers" in this context are simply associates who have been at the firm more than a couple of years. They have received no "management training" and often have very little in the way of people skills. Their entire goal is to pass off the shitty work that they don't want to do onto the juniors, and they usually forget to do it until the last possible second. If your "manager" is an asshole, his/her boss won't care as long as the work gets done and hours billed.

[buffalo_]

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. )

You're correct in that I have no idea how firms work. I obviously don't know seeing as I am not a lawyer yet. And I am extremely appreciative of everything Rayiner has contributed. I think I am agreeing with you on most of this though. Your comments about success being rewarded with more work is the exact point I am making. That good workers, get more responsibility, and bad workers get less. The forms of feedback in different industries are different, but the basic premise of good people being the ones you want doing the work are the same. And it's the Junior, Senior, and Midlevels that I would expect to all be faced with the same thing. You interpret your career in a very productive way, if I am working hard, and getting hard assignments and working for difficult people often, then I am doing well. It is always the people who have the highest expectations that are criticized the most. No one is getting upset if Pablo Prigioni misses a shot, but Carmelo is gonna hear it when he does.

I guess all I am trying to say is this, if the people you work with are that insufferable, then either the firm is doing something wrong, or you just aren't a good fit for their environment or the job they need you to do. It sounds like you are in a great situation and you mesh very well with your coworkers.

[NYSprague]

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. )

You're correct in that I have no idea how firms work. I obviously don't know seeing as I am not a lawyer yet. And I am extremely appreciative of everything Rayiner has contributed. I think I am agreeing with you on most of this though. Your comments about success being rewarded with more work is the exact point I am making. That good workers, get more responsibility, and bad workers get less. The forms of feedback in different industries are different, but the basic premise of good people being the ones you want doing the work are the same. And it's the Junior, Senior, and Midlevels that I would expect to all be faced with the same thing. You interpret your career in a very productive way, if I am working hard, and getting hard assignments and working for difficult people often, then I am doing well. It is always the people who have the highest expectations that are criticized the most. No one is getting upset if Pablo Prigioni misses a shot, but Carmelo is gonna hear it when he does.

I guess all I am trying to say is this, if the people you work with are that insufferable, then either the firm is doing something wrong, or you just aren't a good fit for their environment or the job they need you to do. It sounds like you are in a great situation and you mesh very well with your coworkers.

Well, I think I would be insufferable to the juniors because I have no regard for their time. Also, if I didn't convey how exhausting this schedule is, how people who are very hardworking burn out and can't take it, I went wrong somewhere.

Edit: If you think having clients calling you about their documents while you are waiting for an ER doctor to tell you how your sister is doing after a bike accident is acceptable, then maybe biglaw is right for you. I tried to pick extreme examples, I am sure I could come up with more but I thought that should suffice.

[burtsbees]

Thanks for the responses to the OP and for this lively debate. I tried my hand at a little instigation and it seems to have worked.

So, for someone committing to attend Stanford next year, what advice is there to minimize the drudgery/misery that all you practicing attorneys are warning about? Is there a path you envisioned, within the law, that you think would have made you happy? Or at least not miserable?

I went to undergrad for free, so my parents have some savings to chip in. Throw in generous need based grants from the school and some scholarships earned for grad school while in undergrad, I'll graduate with around $60k in debt. Yes, I know I'm lucky and many would kill to be in my position.

Are there ANY firms in major markets that aren't sweatshops? How about Cooley or MOFO in SF, or W&C in DC?

[lecsa]

So, for someone committing to attend Stanford next year, what advice is there to minimize the drudgery/misery that all you practicing attorneys are warning about? Is there a path you envisioned, within the law, that you think would have made you happy? Or at least not miserable?

?

Don't go to a firm. A lot of low paying jobs like prosecutor also require long hours but the work is supposedly more interesting.

[Nelson]

Are there ANY firms in major markets that aren't sweatshops?... or W&C in DC?

LOL. Firm most prized by law review gunners? Of course it's a sweatshop.

What 0Ls don't seem to understand is that biglaw makes its money from billing hours. Those big PPP numbers come from giving everyone up and down the hierarchy as much work as can possibly get done and then a little more. It doesn't matter how nice the partner and the senior associates are as people, if everyone has more fucking work than they can possibly handle and it's all on a deadline, then everyone in the chain is going to be miserable a decent amount of the time.

[Nelson]

So, for someone committing to attend Stanford next year, what advice is there to minimize the drudgery/misery that all you practicing attorneys are warning about? Is there a path you envisioned, within the law, that you think would have made you happy? Or at least not miserable?

?

Don't go to a firm. A lot of low paying jobs like prosecutor also require long hours but the work is supposedly more interesting.

Yeah because getting handed a caseload of a few hundred possession cases and then pleading them out is really interesting stuff.

[lecsa]

So, for someone committing to attend Stanford next year, what advice is there to minimize the drudgery/misery that all you practicing attorneys are warning about? Is there a path you envisioned, within the law, that you think would have made you happy? Or at least not miserable?

?

Don't go to a firm. A lot of low paying jobs like prosecutor also require long hours but the work is supposedly more interesting.

Yeah because getting handed a caseload of a few hundred possession cases and then pleading them out is really interesting stuff.

More interesting than biglaw, yes.

If you want my honest advice don't go to law school period. Most practice areas suck and the ones that suck less pay less than the average office job. Its also not prestigious anymore considering how easy it is to get in these days, even to the top 14.

[IAFG]

Thanks for the responses to the OP and for this lively debate. I tried my hand at a little instigation and it seems to have worked.

So, for someone committing to attend Stanford next year, what advice is there to minimize the drudgery/misery that all you practicing attorneys are warning about? Is there a path you envisioned, within the law, that you think would have made you happy? Or at least not miserable?

I went to undergrad for free, so my parents have some savings to chip in. Throw in generous need based grants from the school and some scholarships earned for grad school while in undergrad, I'll graduate with around $60k in debt. Yes, I know I'm lucky and many would kill to be in my position.

Are there ANY firms in major markets that aren't sweatshops? How about Cooley or MOFO in SF, or W&C in DC?

My non-prestigious regional biglaw gig suffers from very few of the issues brought up ITT. The hours are not insane, it's not in NYC with NYC taxes and rent, it's very low leverage so midlevels can only be so awful. But you won't come to work here because prestige.

[jbagelboy]

Are there ANY firms in major markets that aren't sweatshops? How about Cooley or MOFO in SF, or W&C in DC?

You just mentioned a few of the more competitive firms out there.. you're not headed in the right direction. This whole thread seems more geared towards prestige chasing and alpha-ing out the competition. In which case yes, W&C in DC is a perfect fit for you.

[bk1]

Dueling threads, lol.

[rad lulz]

Thanks for the responses to the OP and for this lively debate. I tried my hand at a little instigation and it seems to have worked.

So, for someone committing to attend Stanford next year, what advice is there to minimize the drudgery/misery that all you practicing attorneys are warning about? Is there a path you envisioned, within the law, that you think would have made you happy? Or at least not miserable?

I went to undergrad for free, so my parents have some savings to chip in. Throw in generous need based grants from the school and some scholarships earned for grad school while in undergrad, I'll graduate with around $60k in debt. Yes, I know I'm lucky and many would kill to be in my position.

Are there ANY firms in major markets that aren't sweatshops? How about Cooley or MOFO in SF, or W&C in DC?

Lol those firms didn't achieve nationwide renown by having sane hours and being uncompetitive

You're head is moving in the exact wrong direction

[IAFG]

Also, how DARE you complain about practicing lawyers. When I was a 0L, there was only the occasional lost JDUer to tell us how much doc review sucks. You younguns have no idea how good you have it.

[twenty]

Can we just have a hard and fast rule right now that 0Ls (yes, myself included) are not allowed to openly speculate on the material differences between specific biglaw firms, especially when it's apparently misunderstood regurgitation of whatever vault/TLS employment spits out?

[ggocat]

Also, how DARE you complain about practicing lawyers. When I was a 0L, there was only the occasional lost JDUer to tell us how much doc review sucks. You younguns have no idea how good you have it.

Irony is those guys got insta-banned for starting threads like ray's.

[IAFG]

Also, how DARE you complain about practicing lawyers. When I was a 0L, there was only the occasional lost JDUer to tell us how much doc review sucks. You younguns have no idea how good you have it.

Irony is those guys got insta-banned for starting threads like ray's.

Yeah I remember that. I never agreed with that mod position, but those were weird times.

[A. Nony Mouse]

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.

My point is just that by using the language you're using (especially "long hours") you're characterizing the complaints in such a way as to cast the complainers as lazy slackers. To me there is a big difference between long hours and lack of control over hours, and drudgery versus stress (I'll grant that some of the issues are with job security, but it's specifically job security in the face of immense debt rather than job security in a vacuum). So you seem determined to minimize the issues associates are identifying, is all, and I just wanted to point that out.

(Also, I made it through law school and am officially a lawyer, god help the state that licensed me, and arguing over the meaning of specific language is one of those things lawyers do.)

[IAFG]

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.

I guessed you missed the story about the tyrannical midlevel who would avoid using the toilet to keep billing? And remember, the only reason we know that is that the TM in question was bragging about it. Think about an environment where that's a thing.

[rad lulz]

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.

I guessed you missed the story about the tyrannical midlevel who would avoid using the toilet to keep billing? And remember, the only reason we know that is that the TM in question was bragging about it. Think about an environment where that's a thing.

Sometimes I bring reading into the bathroom so I can eke out a .2

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

Does the size of the practice group matter in big law? I am considering litigation and also tax (which is a practice group of less than 20 at my firm.

[NYC-WVU]

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.

I guessed you missed the story about the tyrannical midlevel who would avoid using the toilet to keep billing? And remember, the only reason we know that is that the TM in question was bragging about it. Think about an environment where that's a thing.

Sometimes I bring reading into the bathroom so I can eke out a .2

That's when you're supposed to be "strategizing." No material needed. (In all honesty, I probably do my most valuable work/analysis when I am getting ready in the morning, but I don't bill for this time.)

[09042014]

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.

One huge reason management isn't a huge factor is the flat ownership structure. Like 20% of the employees are equity partners. And they are basically running their own business within the firm. They bring in cases, staff cases, and then run them without any oversight by the firm. A 1000 person firm is really only a 5-20 person company for an associate.