What do you think an attorney does? (Question for 0Ls) Forum

[worldtraveler]

This is a serious question meant for anyone not in law school yet, because I think it could help law grads and law students give better advice on choosing law schools and career paths.

1. What kind of law do you want to do? (And if you say just general PI without further explaining then I hate you)

2. What do you think think you will do for work as an attorney? What do you think your general day is going to look like?

[rayiner]

This is a serious question meant for anyone not in law school yet, because I think it could help law grads and law students give better advice on choosing law schools and career paths.

1. What kind of law do you want to do? (And if you say just general PI without further explaining then I hate you)

2. What do you think think you will do for work as an attorney? What do you think your general day is going to look like?

Excellent.

[jenesaislaw]

This is very closely related to the LST project I'm implying here: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=227656

[Ricky-Bobby]

1. Transactional biglaw. Possibly M&A, but I also like securities and financial services. That all comes later.

2.

I was assigned to a 20-lawyer due diligence team and ended-up spending about 16-18 hours per day for three weeks reviewing corporate documents at the headquarters of CBS Records. Other than drafting closing documents, this is generally how you will spend your first couple of years at the big firm.

Pretty much this.

[rayiner]

1. Transactional biglaw. Possibly M&A, but I also like securities and financial services. That all comes later.

2.

I was assigned to a 20-lawyer due diligence team and ended-up spending about 16-18 hours per day for three weeks reviewing corporate documents at the headquarters of CBS Records. Other than drafting closing documents, this is generally how you will spend your first couple of years at the big firm.

Pretty much this.

What do you think "reviewing" means?

[thewrman]

Haven't you guys seen that "Suits" documentary series on USA Network? ...uh, that...that's basically why I want to be a lawyer

[hichvichwoh]

Haven't you guys seen that "Suits" documentary series on USA Network? ...uh, that...that's basically why I want to be a lawyer

this, except I don't want to have to wear a suit

[Pneumonia]

Litigation in Texas.

Basically just reading boring shit all day and sometimes talking to others / getting yelled at/ making binders?

[BigBlackTruck]

1) Patent prosecution.

2) I don't know the level of responsibility given to entry-level patent prosecutors. I'd expect I might be drafting patent applications, responding to office actions, reviewing applications, doing patent searches, researching on the internet--essentially a bunch of boring, mind-numbing work to understand and communicate inventions. I've read that I'll likely work a steady, intensive 10-12 hrs/day, which will be pretty consistent if I stay on top my my docket. But what do I know?

[blink]

1) JAG

2) Legal work on a potentially wide variety of topics, all as a result of issues at that particular duty station. I've heard that it mostly ends up being minor drug use/possession issues and other less exciting areas of the law, rather than rules of engagement and laws of war. Regardless, I would hope to get a good amount of trial experience and individual responsibility early on, but I've heard that depends on where you get stationed. I expect to do physical training on a daily basis, which is awesome. It's also fairly likely I'll get deployed for a stretch (6 months to a year?).

ETA: But what do I know?

[twenty]

1. What kind of law do you want to do? (And if you say just general PI without further explaining then I hate you)

Admin (lol)/labor/contract for a few particular (though eclectic) government agencies. I suspect that most first and second year attorneys at the majority of these agencies end up getting the shite internal work, though hopefully I would perform well enough to make my way up to FAR compliance work or just roll around sitting on technical evaluation panels for contract selection if I ended up in state.

Hopefully after a few years I'd have enough experience and friends to justify picking up a senior management position in the agency. At that point, I'd probably bail on law and try and fight my way into Washington/Sacramento (depending on the agency). If I play my cards right, I won't be an attorney four years after I graduate.

2. What do you think think you will do for work as an attorney? What do you think your general day is going to look like?

At best an advisory role to administration in terms of reviewing limited denial of participation requests, reviewing the OIG's shit, and in a perfect world, getting TDY'd out to an underfunded SAUSA gig on some fraud prosecution only slightly relevant to the agency I'd work for. Three days a week working from home, weekends I either get off or get overtime, and most days that I am in the office I beat rush hour on the way home.

[ph14]

The 0Ls who post here are, most likely, going to be the more knowledgeable 0Ls, and not the vast majority of 0Ls.

[rayiner]

The 0Ls who post here are, most likely, going to be the more knowledgeable 0Ls, and not the vast majority of 0Ls.

And even then, they're talking about subject matter and not work product.

E.g. I worked on a headline financial services litigation. That's the subject matter. The actual work was this: digesting a 5-10 document review memo, that roughly outlined the issues (poorly and without sufficient context). Then I sat and clicked through documents in the document review software, 12 hours a day, one minute per document. Each document was an e-mail or similar business document, and I read it, and tried to categorize it into one of the two dozen or so categories outlined in the memo. Many were duplicates, and many had nothing to do with the litigation, but each one had to be read carefully. Sometimes, I did things like painstakingly redact phone numbers in thousands of documents by drawing a little box around each one in the software. Often, documents were big lists of phone numbers that weren't aligned, so you'd have to do 30-40 little boxes for each one. Often, I had to privilege code them, which means figuring out if the document was subject to attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine. All at about one document per minute.

[worldtraveler]

The 0Ls who post here are, most likely, going to be the more knowledgeable 0Ls, and not the vast majority of 0Ls.

And even then, they're talking about subject matter and not work product.

E.g. I worked on a headline financial services litigation. That's the subject matter. The actual work was this: digesting a 5-10 document review memo, that roughly outlined the issues (poorly and without sufficient context). Then I sat and clicked through documents in the document review software, 12 hours a day, one minute per document. Each document was an e-mail or similar business document, and I read it, and tried to categorize it into one of the two dozen or so categories outlined in the memo. Many were duplicates, and many had nothing to do with the litigation, but each one had to be read carefully. Sometimes, I did things like painstakingly redact phone numbers in thousands of documents by drawing a little box around each one in the software. Often, documents were big lists of phone numbers that weren't aligned, so you'd have to do 30-40 little boxes for each one. Often, I had to privilege code them, which means figuring out if the document was subject to attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine. All at about one document per minute.

Yeah this is the disconnect I was talking about. Working on financial services litigation sounds way different than looking for boxes.

[taxicab]

1. Venture Capital / Growth Equity / Private Equity

2.
VC - draft corporate governance docs, angel/seed investment agreements, cap tables, NDAs
GE - draft secondary round preferred financing docs, cap tables
PE - conduct due diligence on targets, fill in purchase agreement with collected info, manage supporting docs/agreements in big-market/LBO transactions

^(tasks for 1st-3rd year)

Avg. 12 hour day. Busier at the end of each quarter, especially Q4.

[Ricky-Bobby]

1. Transactional biglaw. Possibly M&A, but I also like securities and financial services. That all comes later.

2.

I was assigned to a 20-lawyer due diligence team and ended-up spending about 16-18 hours per day for three weeks reviewing corporate documents at the headquarters of CBS Records. Other than drafting closing documents, this is generally how you will spend your first couple of years at the big firm.

Pretty much this.

What do you think "reviewing" means?

Is it debated? I understand reviewing corporate documents means looking through them for relevant info, etc.

By quoting that I acknowledged life as a junior associate pretty much means some form of doc review, even as a transactional bro. I have no illusions of being a superstar complex cross-border master brokering global deals. I'm totally cool with being a paper monkey.

[timbs4339]

And even then, they're talking about subject matter and not work product.

This is a very key distinction. I got to "assist in a preliminary injunction hearing in an intellectual property litigation." What this meant was I kept all sixty of the the exhibits in good order, handed the exhibits to the attorneys, and then played a recording.

[JustHawkin]

I'm totally cool with being a paper monkey.

This.

In all seriousness, this is a great thread.

[NYC-WVU]

1) Patent prosecution.

2) I don't know the level of responsibility given to entry-level patent prosecutors. I'd expect I might be drafting patent applications, responding to office actions, reviewing applications, doing patent searches, researching on the internet--essentially a bunch of boring, mind-numbing work to understand and communicate inventions. I've read that I'll likely work a steady, intensive 10-12 hrs/day, which will be pretty consistent if I stay on top my my docket. But what do I know?

This is an accurate description of what you would do as a patent prosecutor. Depending on where you work, you should be semi-autonomous in your prosecution work after 1-5 years. Opinions would take longer relative to the prosecution work. FWIW, I don't think it's all that boring. It kind of feels like a game that I play everyday, but the hand I've been dealt changes. Of course, some people find it horribly boring, but I'm also the kind of person that could play chess once a day for a really long time and never get bored with it.
The only thing I'm wondering about is . . . if you only want to be a patent prosecutor, why go to law school? You can do that without going to law school.

[Jchance]

1) Patent prosecution.

2) I don't know the level of responsibility given to entry-level patent prosecutors. I'd expect I might be drafting patent applications, responding to office actions, reviewing applications, doing patent searches, researching on the internet--essentially a bunch of boring, mind-numbing work to understand and communicate inventions. I've read that I'll likely work a steady, intensive 10-12 hrs/day, which will be pretty consistent if I stay on top my my docket. But what do I know?

The majority of your first-year will be responding to Office Actions. You may be drafting a provisional patent application once in a while.

[dwil770]

The 0Ls who post here are, most likely, going to be the more knowledgeable 0Ls, and not the vast majority of 0Ls.

And even then, they're talking about subject matter and not work product.

E.g. I worked on a headline financial services litigation. That's the subject matter. The actual work was this: digesting a 5-10 document review memo, that roughly outlined the issues (poorly and without sufficient context). Then I sat and clicked through documents in the document review software, 12 hours a day, one minute per document. Each document was an e-mail or similar business document, and I read it, and tried to categorize it into one of the two dozen or so categories outlined in the memo. Many were duplicates, and many had nothing to do with the litigation, but each one had to be read carefully. Sometimes, I did things like painstakingly redact phone numbers in thousands of documents by drawing a little box around each one in the software. Often, documents were big lists of phone numbers that weren't aligned, so you'd have to do 30-40 little boxes for each one. Often, I had to privilege code them, which means figuring out if the document was subject to attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine. All at about one document per minute.

Is this much worse than another full time job you've had? Or is this your only reference? I appreciate the honest look into life as a lawyer.

[anyriotgirl]

And even then, they're talking about subject matter and not work product.

This is a very key distinction. I got to "assist in a preliminary injunction hearing in an intellectual property litigation." What this meant was I kept all sixty of the the exhibits in good order, handed the exhibits to the attorneys, and then played a recording.

this sounds like some of the work I do at my job now as a paralegal. I don't really get why firms are willing to pay the premium for a person with a JD when they could have some 22 year old do it for a fraction of the price. If I had to guess, I would say that the point is so you can observe the hearing and learn and and still bill for it. Am I on track with that?

[checkers]

1) Patent prosecution.

2) I don't know the level of responsibility given to entry-level patent prosecutors. I'd expect I might be drafting patent applications, responding to office actions, reviewing applications, doing patent searches, researching on the internet--essentially a bunch of boring, mind-numbing work to understand and communicate inventions. I've read that I'll likely work a steady, intensive 10-12 hrs/day, which will be pretty consistent if I stay on top my my docket. But what do I know?

The majority of your first-year will be responding to Office Actions. You may be drafting a provisional patent application once in a while.

(response from 2L clerking at boutique patent pros. firm)

Patent searches is lined through. Should I take this to mean that you typically won't be doing prior art searches? Is that above/below the level of a 1st year associate?

[Jchance]

Patent searches is lined through. Should I take this to mean that you typically won't be doing prior art searches? Is that above/below the level of a 1st year associate?

Paralegals do prior art searches and PDF-save them in the respective folder.

Junior Associates draft Office Actions' responses, senior Associates review them+redline before submitting them. Thats how a patent boutique streamlines their process to ensure quality. I imagine at BigLaw Pros., a junior associate may not have someone to review their work.

[hcrimson2014]

And even then, they're talking about subject matter and not work product.

This is a very key distinction. I got to "assist in a preliminary injunction hearing in an intellectual property litigation." What this meant was I kept all sixty of the the exhibits in good order, handed the exhibits to the attorneys, and then played a recording.

this sounds like some of the work I do at my job now as a paralegal. I don't really get why firms are willing to pay the premium for a person with a JD when they could have some 22 year old do it for a fraction of the price. If I had to guess, I would say that the point is so you can observe the hearing and learn and and still bill for it. Am I on track with that?

Clients are billed much much higher if their cases are processed by an actual lawyer or a team of lawyers even if most of the work is delegated to paralegals. Firms won't be able to justify their exorbitant costs if they tell clients that their cases are handled by 22 year-olds without even a bachelor's degree no matter how competent they maybe. The entire high end service industry (not just law) relies on two things, prestige and connections and paralegals have neither. Do you really think a Classics student from Princeton provides such salient advices worthy of the pay he gets from Bain or Mckinsey?