Why Biglaw? Forum

[bk1]

It's a law school message board, what other types of problems are we supposed to have?

touche.

[A. Nony Mouse]

More sick of people who've never worked as biglaw associates calling current biglaw associates whiners or special snowflakes, actually.

This, though I do understand why people are apt to respond with "#firstworldproblems."

Yeah, that's fair. (But also El Pollito)

[Blindmelon]

You say that now, but what you count as "work" time in the lab is different than work time at a bigfirm. I used to work 50-60 hours a work in my old job, but this is way, way worse. Start taking your hours and back out every minute you aren't actually engaged in work. All bathroom time, getting a cup of water, quick banter with coworker, lunch, any meetings that go over general info and not specific to a certain project, any time spent dealing with IT issues, time spent learning something you should already know, and your 50 hour week turns into a 70 hour week and you only get 50 hours of credit (which will drive you mad). Also factor in that PhD work is intelectually engaging, much of biglaw work is mundane and boring making focus harder (and therefore billing hours harder). Plus the stress of messing up something small and mundane (which you will) makes it that much worse.

Is anyone else getting sick of the biglaw sob story?

Its not a sob story at all - I make a stupid amount of money. People just need to know what they are getting into. Thinking "I'm used to working long hours, biglaw will not be a big deal!" is just misguided. This message board worships biglaw, so its important for people to know that working hard to get into law school, and working hard to get a bigfirm job, just to work hard is not always the best life path. Also knowing you're always a few misteps away from a layoff and a prolonged period of unemployment is disheartening (what do you do after biglaw litigation? Beg for a federal job you won't get or make 30k/year as an ADA, thats what).