Quitting BigLaw after less than one year Forum

[TatteredDignity]

Let's be clear, though: almost no junior associates are actually drafting briefs. That shit is reserved for more senior attorneys.

If junior biglaw lit associates don't draft briefs, what exactly do they do (aside from doc review)? I realize this is a whole different world, but at my midlaw firm in a TTT market, the hierarchy is:

juniors draft briefs and do day-to-day stuff to keep litigation moving

seniors manage the litigation at a higher level and occasionally take depos/argue motions

partners take major depos, argue major motions and try cases. But mostly bring in business.

Trying to imagine how juniors could have a more marginal role than this.

[rpupkin]

Trying to imagine how juniors could have a more marginal role than this.

Try harder. In addition to doc review, juniors draft mind-numbing discovery responses, do legal research in support of the senior associates/partners who actually write the motions, and ghostwrite "Recent Developments" articles that no one reads.

[Desert Fox]

Let's be clear, though: almost no junior associates are actually drafting briefs. That shit is reserved for more senior attorneys.

If junior biglaw lit associates don't draft briefs, what exactly do they do (aside from doc review)? I realize this is a whole different world, but at my midlaw firm in a TTT market, the hierarchy is:

juniors draft briefs and do day-to-day stuff to keep litigation moving

seniors manage the litigation at a higher level and occasionally take depos/argue motions

partners take major depos, argue major motions and try cases. But mostly bring in business.

Trying to imagine how juniors could have a more marginal role than this.

Writing memos about stuff that turns into briefs

Fact analysis

case prep

[fats provolone]

I've written parts of briefs. but no typo I made would ever get anywhere near a clerk

[84651846190]

Let's be clear, though: almost no junior associates are actually drafting briefs. That shit is reserved for more senior attorneys.

If junior biglaw lit associates don't draft briefs, what exactly do they do (aside from doc review)? I realize this is a whole different world, but at my midlaw firm in a TTT market, the hierarchy is:

juniors draft briefs and do day-to-day stuff to keep litigation moving

seniors manage the litigation at a higher level and occasionally take depos/argue motions

partners take major depos, argue major motions and try cases. But mostly bring in business.

Trying to imagine how juniors could have a more marginal role than this.

At my firm, juniors are much more likely to handle depos than draft briefs. I mean, it depends on what kind of brief we're talking about. If you're talking about an MSJ brief, hell no. The juniors don't touch that shit. If you're talking about some bullshit motion to seal brief, then yeah. The juniors have a hand in it, but LOL @ thinking that's any kind of meaningful experience or something that anyone should care about.

[kaiser]

Trying to imagine how juniors could have a more marginal role than this.

Try harder. In addition to doc review, juniors draft mind-numbing discovery responses, do legal research in support of the senior associates/partners who actually write the motions, and ghostwrite "Recent Developments" articles that no one reads.

Lets not forget making binders...

[prezidentv8]

If you're talking about an MSJ brief, hell no.

I guess this is why they say smalllaw is different. Literally fighting six MSJs this month.

[84651846190]

If you're talking about an MSJ brief, hell no.

I guess this is why they say smalllaw is different. Literally fighting six MSJs this month.

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense in biglaw. On huge biglaw cases, you might have like 50+ fact depositions that juniors might be involved in, but there's only one MSJ brief.

[TatteredDignity]

Lets not forget making binders...

Isn't that what paralegals are for?

At my firm, juniors are much more likely to handle depos than draft briefs. I mean, it depends on what kind of brief we're talking about. If you're talking about an MSJ brief, hell no. The juniors don't touch that shit. If you're talking about some bullshit motion to seal brief, then yeah. The juniors have a hand in it, but LOL @ thinking that's any kind of meaningful experience or something that anyone should care about.

yeah, I'm guessing the difference comes down to volume of cases and size. If I screw up an MSJ we lose like $300k.

[Desert Fox]

Lets not forget making binders...

Isn't that what paralegals are for?

At my firm, juniors are much more likely to handle depos than draft briefs. I mean, it depends on what kind of brief we're talking about. If you're talking about an MSJ brief, hell no. The juniors don't touch that shit. If you're talking about some bullshit motion to seal brief, then yeah. The juniors have a hand in it, but LOL @ thinking that's any kind of meaningful experience or something that anyone should care about.

yeah, I'm guessing the difference comes down to volume of cases and size. If I screw up an MSJ we lose like $300k.

I'm pretty sure the MSJ for one of my cases cost around that much in legal fees.

[TatteredDignity]

Your firm spends over 500 hours drafting an MSJ? Jeez.

[Desert Fox]

Your firm spends over 500 hours drafting an MSJ? Jeez.

I was including all the research and shit that goes into that won't be directly billed to it.

[TatteredDignity]

Your firm spends over 500 hours drafting an MSJ? Jeez.

I was including all the research and shit that goes into that won't be directly billed to it.

Yeah, I get that. Still. I knew IP is complex but wow.

[Desert Fox]

Your firm spends over 500 hours drafting an MSJ? Jeez.

I was including all the research and shit that goes into that won't be directly billed to it.

Yeah, I get that. Still. I knew IP is complex but wow.

For a regular patent case, a lot less than that. But for a trade secret case it can get messy as fuck. It's bet the company lit in a way that patent cases rarely are now.

[Anonymous User]

Lets not forget making binders...

Isn't that what paralegals are for?

At my firm, juniors are much more likely to handle depos than draft briefs. I mean, it depends on what kind of brief we're talking about. If you're talking about an MSJ brief, hell no. The juniors don't touch that shit. If you're talking about some bullshit motion to seal brief, then yeah. The juniors have a hand in it, but LOL @ thinking that's any kind of meaningful experience or something that anyone should care about.

yeah, I'm guessing the difference comes down to volume of cases and size. If I screw up an MSJ we lose like $300k.

You would think that thats what paralegals are for. But you would be wrong. Way too much attorney time goes to what is essentially administrative, secretarial type work.

[TatteredDignity]

For a regular patent case, a lot less than that. But for a trade secret case it can get messy as fuck. It's bet the company lit in a way that patent cases rarely are now.

Makes sense.

Does the partner arguing the motion have to go through a week of education about the case because they don't know anything about it?

[84651846190]

Lets not forget making binders...

Isn't that what paralegals are for?

At my firm, juniors are much more likely to handle depos than draft briefs. I mean, it depends on what kind of brief we're talking about. If you're talking about an MSJ brief, hell no. The juniors don't touch that shit. If you're talking about some bullshit motion to seal brief, then yeah. The juniors have a hand in it, but LOL @ thinking that's any kind of meaningful experience or something that anyone should care about.

yeah, I'm guessing the difference comes down to volume of cases and size. If I screw up an MSJ we lose like $300k.

You would think that thats what paralegals are for. But you would be wrong. Way too much attorney time goes to what is essentially administrative, secretarial type work.

Anybody wanna start a software company with me? Our products will automate a bunch of discovery bullshit (other than rote doc review) that should have been automated long ago: RFP/RFA/ROG responses, depo outlines, etc.

[kaiser]

Makes sense.

Does the partner arguing the motion have to go through a week of education about the case because they don't know anything about it?

I could give you a bunch of examples where a first year is told to make a binder by a partner/senior associate:

-"I'm doing an internal interview of our client's employee. Search for any docs we have on the guy, and make me a binder of the key docs."

-"Our contract review team starts in a week. Make them a binder of all relevant materials from the case."

-"We're starting to find some really good hot docs. Lets get a chronological binder going of all the key items."

Yes, sometimes its as simple as just calling up our document hosting vendor and having them just make a binder for us (ex. a binder of particular documents from our database), but oftentimes the partner/senior associate needs you to exercise a bit of discretion. And you quickly learn that you just can't trust most people to do it right (of course, if anyone else makes a mistake in the binder you hand over, that mistake is on you). So you end up doing menial administrative work simply because you only trust yourself to get it right.

[TatteredDignity]

Makes sense.

Does the partner arguing the motion have to go through a week of education about the case because they don't know anything about it?

I could give you a bunch of examples where a first year is told to make a binder by a partner/senior associate:

-"I'm doing an internal interview of our client's employee. Search for any docs we have on the guy, and make me a binder of the key docs."

-"Our contract review team starts in a week. Make them a binder of all relevant materials from the case."

-"We're starting to find some really good hot docs. Lets get a chronological binder going of all the key items."

Yes, sometimes its as simple as just calling up our document hosting vendor and having them just make a binder for us (ex. a binder of particular documents from our database), but oftentimes the partner/senior associate needs you to exercise a bit of discretion. And you quickly learn that you just can't trust most people to do it right (of course, if anyone else makes a mistake in the binder you hand over, that mistake is on you). So you end up doing menial administrative work simply because you only trust yourself to get it right.

Yuck.

[prezidentv8]

I could give you a bunch of examples where a first year is told to make a binder by a partner/senior associate:

-"I'm doing an internal interview of our client's employee. Search for any docs we have on the guy, and make me a binder of the key docs."

-"Our contract review team starts in a week. Make them a binder of all relevant materials from the case."

-"We're starting to find some really good hot docs. Lets get a chronological binder going of all the key items."

To which I say:

Wow, these are unusually specific requests.

[kaiser]

I could give you a bunch of examples where a first year is told to make a binder by a partner/senior associate:

-"I'm doing an internal interview of our client's employee. Search for any docs we have on the guy, and make me a binder of the key docs."

-"Our contract review team starts in a week. Make them a binder of all relevant materials from the case."

-"We're starting to find some really good hot docs. Lets get a chronological binder going of all the key items."

To which I say:

Wow, these are unusually specific requests.

Yeah, specific, but pretty representative examples in the biglaw environment. All the discreet instances add up to the point where I say to myself "damn, I make a lot of binders"

[Johann]

Trial is a basically a client will pay any expense excuse so let's just have everyone do 12-18 of billables a day. If you can't find anything to do you can just look over the exhibits for the tenth time to make sure they are right. Juniors do the most admin tasks there are because ther client will pay it.

[mmelittlechicken]

I could give you a bunch of examples where a first year is told to make a binder by a partner/senior associate:

-"I'm doing an internal interview of our client's employee. Search for any docs we have on the guy, and make me a binder of the key docs."

-"Our contract review team starts in a week. Make them a binder of all relevant materials from the case."

-"We're starting to find some really good hot docs. Lets get a chronological binder going of all the key items."

To which I say:

Wow, these are unusually specific requests.

Not really.

[fats provolone]

Lets not forget making binders...

Isn't that what paralegals are for?

At my firm, juniors are much more likely to handle depos than draft briefs. I mean, it depends on what kind of brief we're talking about. If you're talking about an MSJ brief, hell no. The juniors don't touch that shit. If you're talking about some bullshit motion to seal brief, then yeah. The juniors have a hand in it, but LOL @ thinking that's any kind of meaningful experience or something that anyone should care about.

yeah, I'm guessing the difference comes down to volume of cases and size. If I screw up an MSJ we lose like $300k.

You would think that thats what paralegals are for. But you would be wrong. Way too much attorney time goes to what is essentially administrative, secretarial type work.

Anybody wanna start a software company with me? Our products will automate a bunch of discovery bullshit (other than rote doc review) that should have been automated long ago: RFP/RFA/ROG responses, depo outlines, etc.

I'm way ahead of you with gotomeetandconfer.com

[prezidentv8]

I could give you a bunch of examples where a first year is told to make a binder by a partner/senior associate:

-"I'm doing an internal interview of our client's employee. Search for any docs we have on the guy, and make me a binder of the key docs."

-"Our contract review team starts in a week. Make them a binder of all relevant materials from the case."

-"We're starting to find some really good hot docs. Lets get a chronological binder going of all the key items."

To which I say:

Wow, these are unusually specific requests.

Not really.