Biglaw associates: are any of us actually happy? Forum

[El Pollito]

Yeah, but you guys are defining 'happiness" in such a way that it can't be satisfied. If you're not a real lawyer unless you're a litigator, if you're not happy unless you're not stressed, if you're work isn't meaningful unless it involves Issues of Great Importance. In other words, it might be fair to say that litigation associates who wanted to do public interest work and have issues managing stress are not happy in biglaw. But, of course they're not! Anorexics aren't happy as offensive linemen, either.

i can tell that you are not a litigator

[dixiecupdrinking]

Yeah, but you guys are defining 'happiness" in such a way that it can't be satisfied. If you're not a real lawyer unless you're a litigator, if you're not happy unless you're not stressed, if you're work isn't meaningful unless it involves Issues of Great Importance. In other words, it might be fair to say that litigation associates who wanted to do public interest work and have issues managing stress are not happy in biglaw. But, of course they're not! Anorexics aren't happy as offensive linemen, either.

My point, originally, was much simpler. Happiness is subjective. I don't know many biglaw lawyers who would, in an unguarded, candid moment, self-identify as "happy." I think many might be proud of their work or feel like the rewards are worth the trade offs. But "happy" is not really compatible.

Now, there's an argument that "happiness," per se, is overrated, which I can get behind at least in theory, but that wasn't the question.

[Johann]

wons: here you go partner attached you will find a
b
c

partner: thanks!

wons: eyes light up seeing a new email. someone wants to talk to me. reads the thanks and jizzes pants. prints out email puts on fridge beside his A+ in biz orgs - the moment he knew hed be the best transactional lawyer the worlds known

[CFC1524]

Can anyone speak to the influence of debt load on quality of life? Obviously the less debt the better, but it seems a lot of the problems are independent of one's debt level (i.e. biglaw is miserable regardless of your student loans).

[wons]

wons: here you go partner attached you will find a
b
c

partner: thanks!

wons: eyes light up seeing a new email. someone wants to talk to me. reads the thanks and jizzes pants. prints out email puts on fridge beside his A+ in biz orgs - the moment he knew hed be the best transactional lawyer the worlds known

Friendo, when you hit your 30s and get married and shit, you're going to be a lot less worried about being uncool or not social enough.

[smaug]

I guess I'll never understand why folks are so hostile do doing the work well. Is going in-house to do your TPS reports such a delightful improvement?

If you get rid of your ironic detachment, you might actually enjoy your work and be good at it. And trust me on this - it makes the job a hell of a lot more pleasant when the folks supervising you think you're good.

where are you getting that people who are complaining are hostile to doing the work well?

Yeah to be clear, I don't care that you like your job. Good for you.

I'm laughing at your bravado over "real money at stake" and then fixating on "a couple of million bucks." Just lol.

Consider that I might have been being (falsely?) modest. I work at a big firm.

Sorry for your tiny pink balance sheets, bro.

[El Pollito]

Can anyone speak to the influence of debt load on quality of life? Obviously the less debt the better, but it seems a lot of the problems are independent of one's debt level (i.e. biglaw is miserable regardless of your student loans).

i just have it on auto deduct and don't really think about it

[OneMoreLawHopeful]

Yeah, but you guys are defining 'happiness" in such a way that it can't be satisfied. If you're not a real lawyer unless you're a litigator, if you're not happy unless you're not stressed, if you're work isn't meaningful unless it involves Issues of Great Importance. In other words, it might be fair to say that litigation associates who wanted to do public interest work and have issues managing stress are not happy in biglaw. But, of course they're not! Anorexics aren't happy as offensive linemen, either.

My point, originally, was much simpler. Happiness is subjective. I don't know many biglaw lawyers who would, in an unguarded, candid moment, self-identify as "happy." I think many might be proud of their work or feel like the rewards are worth the trade offs. But "happy" is not really compatible.

Now, there's an argument that "happiness," per se, is overrated, which I can get behind at least in theory, but that wasn't the question.

But if you're excluding "the rewards are worth the trade offs," from being "happy with your job," then what the hell are you even talking about? Every job has trade offs, and if you find a job that, in your opinion, provides you with sufficient rewards to justify the trade offs--then that sounds like happiness to me.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Yeah, but you guys are defining 'happiness" in such a way that it can't be satisfied. If you're not a real lawyer unless you're a litigator, if you're not happy unless you're not stressed, if you're work isn't meaningful unless it involves Issues of Great Importance. In other words, it might be fair to say that litigation associates who wanted to do public interest work and have issues managing stress are not happy in biglaw. But, of course they're not! Anorexics aren't happy as offensive linemen, either.

My point, originally, was much simpler. Happiness is subjective. I don't know many biglaw lawyers who would, in an unguarded, candid moment, self-identify as "happy." I think many might be proud of their work or feel like the rewards are worth the trade offs. But "happy" is not really compatible.

Now, there's an argument that "happiness," per se, is overrated, which I can get behind at least in theory, but that wasn't the question.

But if you're excluding "the rewards are worth the trade offs," from being "happy with your job," then what the hell are you even talking about? Every job has trade offs, and if you find a job that, in your opinion, provides you with sufficient rewards to justify the trade offs--then that sounds like happiness to me.

If you genuinely can't see the difference between "I rationally understand the benefits of this unpleasant thing outweigh the drawbacks" and "I feel happy" then, best of luck to you.

[Anonymous User]

What is happiness

[Anonymous User]

.

[5ky]

i take an immense amount of pride in being good at my job and trying to have a reputation for doing a good job. and i even like what i do on a fundamental level and like who i work with.

but the work (nyc transactional) is (a) way too stressful, (b) way too unpredictable for planning/life and (c) way too plentiful, to say i really enjoy my job.

if you can get past a/b/c, then i don't find it hard to believe at all that people could enjoy it. it's just a really hard thing to get past.

[Anonymous User]

Thank you for the honesty BigLaw associates and taking the time out of your busy days to post on TLS. I'm not 100% sure about bigLaw and would love to do PiPs work and thanks to LARP it seems doable.

[sopranorleone]

What is happiness

As Don Draper said, just a moment before you want more happiness.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yeah, but you guys are defining 'happiness" in such a way that it can't be satisfied. If you're not a real lawyer unless you're a litigator, if you're not happy unless you're not stressed, if you're work isn't meaningful unless it involves Issues of Great Importance. In other words, it might be fair to say that litigation associates who wanted to do public interest work and have issues managing stress are not happy in biglaw. But, of course they're not! Anorexics aren't happy as offensive linemen, either.

No one here has said anything like that. Some people have brought up not liking the degree of stress (not that they can't be happy unless they're not stressed at all), and some people have brought up wanting to feel like their work is meaningful to them (not that they wanted to do public interest work), and litigators have brought up that only litigators are real lawyers, because - well, actually, they're right about that.

To the extent you're saying there are some people who just aren't ever going to be happy in biglaw, and it's not because biglaw is terrible but because it's a mismatch with their interests/personality, of course that's true. But I don't think that's the only thing going on with people not liking biglaw - the conditions a lot of people describe are objectively pretty unpleasant to a lot of people. Clearly to others they're not, and that's great.

[OneMoreLawHopeful]

Yeah, but you guys are defining 'happiness" in such a way that it can't be satisfied. If you're not a real lawyer unless you're a litigator, if you're not happy unless you're not stressed, if you're work isn't meaningful unless it involves Issues of Great Importance. In other words, it might be fair to say that litigation associates who wanted to do public interest work and have issues managing stress are not happy in biglaw. But, of course they're not! Anorexics aren't happy as offensive linemen, either.

No one here has said anything like that. Some people have brought up not liking the degree of stress (not that they can't be happy unless they're not stressed at all), and some people have brought up wanting to feel like their work is meaningful to them (not that they wanted to do public interest work), and litigators have brought up that only litigators are real lawyers, because - well, actually, they're right about that.

To the extent you're saying there are some people who just aren't ever going to be happy in biglaw, and it's not because biglaw is terrible but because it's a mismatch with their interests/personality, of course that's true. But I don't think that's the only thing going on with people not liking biglaw - the conditions a lot of people describe are objectively pretty unpleasant to a lot of people. Clearly to others they're not, and that's great.

Do you have DF set to foe or something?

Like I get that DF's posts aren't meant to be taken really seriously, but I'm pretty sure DF has said 100% of the stuff wons is talking about.

[A. Nony Mouse]

The "meaningful" thing was going to the OP of this thread - I don't think I've ever seen DF complain about needing his work to have meaning. He's probably called his work meaningless, but that's not the same thing and given how much he shits on PI whenever possible, I don't think he cares. And the lit thing is clearly a lit/corp rivalry and not actually a serious complaint about biglaw, especially when the person making that comment is a litigator.

Besides, if he's not serious why on earth does it matter that he's said these things?

[wons]

Yeah, but you guys are defining 'happiness" in such a way that it can't be satisfied. If you're not a real lawyer unless you're a litigator, if you're not happy unless you're not stressed, if you're work isn't meaningful unless it involves Issues of Great Importance. In other words, it might be fair to say that litigation associates who wanted to do public interest work and have issues managing stress are not happy in biglaw. But, of course they're not! Anorexics aren't happy as offensive linemen, either.

No one here has said anything like that. Some people have brought up not liking the degree of stress (not that they can't be happy unless they're not stressed at all), and some people have brought up wanting to feel like their work is meaningful to them (not that they wanted to do public interest work), and litigators have brought up that only litigators are real lawyers, because - well, actually, they're right about that.

To the extent you're saying there are some people who just aren't ever going to be happy in biglaw, and it's not because biglaw is terrible but because it's a mismatch with their interests/personality, of course that's true. But I don't think that's the only thing going on with people not liking biglaw - the conditions a lot of people describe are objectively pretty unpleasant to a lot of people. Clearly to others they're not, and that's great.

First, posters in this very thread have said the things I'm responding to. I'm not creating strawmen. Second, what I'm really saying is that there are people who are never going to be happy working, and biglaw is a bad match for them because it fills your life with more work than other jobs do. Do people really think working for a boss is better than being at a firm, where you are effectively a quasi-independent contractor for a bunch of different partners so that no single direct report can kill your career based on whim? Do people really believe that work at a corporation is more "meaningful" than working at a firm? If folks are stressed about getting yelled at by a partner, how are they going to handle it when they are 40 and if their boss looks at them sideways, they could get fired and its not just your ambitions that are imperiled, it's your family's quality of life?

Don't get me wrong, working at a big firm as its disadvantages. But it has huge advantages that y'all just seem to ignore. Your co-workers are smart and interesting; if you're not a total introvert, you'll end up with some lifelong friends from your firm job. You get paid a ton - an absolutely shitload - of money, and maybe you don't find investment grade financings meaningful but you have to be pretty stone cold not to find it 'meaningful' (whatever that means) to give your family a nice place to live and financial security. You're basically your own boss - you get your work done, no one gives much of a shit about HOW you get your work done. Your work is rarely boring and, more importantly, gets less boring as you get more senior, unlike pretty much everything else you do where more experience turns things into rote monotony.

From my point of view, I get paid an obscene amount of money to do the kind of stuff that I did for free when I was in school. I show up to work when I want to show up; if I feel like going to the gym at 4, I do it (though I keep my BB with me when I'm there. We're not communists here). If I get tired of the job, there are recruiters banging down the door for other opportunities. If I don't, I have a reasonable expectation of making more money than I every dreamed of. And truth be told, I worked between college and law school, and there were way more toxic personalities at the places I worked, just as much stress, and a hell of a lot less money at the end of the day.

So yeah, I'm pretty fucking happy. Is it the kind of happy I feel when the Giants win the superbowl? No. But as jobs go, biglaw is pretty fucking fantastic.

[A. Nony Mouse]

First, posters in this very thread have said the things I'm responding to. I'm not creating strawmen. Second, what I'm really saying is that there are people who are never going to be happy working, and biglaw is a bad match for them because it fills your life with more work than other jobs do. Do people really think working for a boss is better than being at a firm, where you are effectively a quasi-independent contractor for a bunch of different partners so that no single direct report can kill your career based on whim? Do people really believe that work at a corporation is more "meaningful" than working at a firm? If folks are stressed about getting yelled at by a partner, how are they going to handle it when they are 40 and if their boss looks at them sideways, they could get fired and its not just your ambitions that are imperiled, it's your family's quality of life?

No one person has said all those things, which is what you implied when you lumped them together as litigator/PI wanna be/doesn't like stress and talked about one definition of happiness. Different people have each said different parts of that, but that's just different people valuing different things, not everyone who doesn't like biglaw creating a self-defeating definition of happiness.

And I don't agree that "well other jobs are just as bad if not worse so really people just have a problem with working, not with biglaw." I actually think that's a bullshit response. There are a zillion other kinds of jobs out there. Some people probably would rather work for a boss than a bunch of different partners, if it was a good boss and the partners suck. WRT to meaningful work, it's not like the only alternatives are a corporation or a firm, even if you're only looking at law. There are jobs in the universe where no one yells at you at all, and you make it sound like people not in law firms have way less job security than those in law firms, which doesn't make any sense to me - you can get fired anywhere, but barring specific writing on the wall, no one spends their day worrying about getting fired. Where you get the idea that everywhere else you work, more experience turns things into rote monotony, I have no idea - lots of fields allow for more responsibility and more learning as you advance.

And I agree, there are a lot of advantages about working at a big firm (though being your own boss is not really one I've heard people bring up unless you make it to partner, which everyone always describes as a laughable goal due to its difficulty). I'm certainly not telling you you shouldn't be enjoying it, and it's great that you do. I do think a lot of the problem is that law school is terrible prep for working and that top firms tend to hire out of law schools who have an awful lot of students who've spent their lives collecting brass rings and don't really know what it is that they would find satisfying in a job, and biglaw is the path of least resistance and has a great salary, so they do biglaw and end up miserable, and no, that's not the fault of biglaw. It's just that these kinds of arguments often turn into the pro-biglaw crowd saying that the anti-crowd just doesn't like working, period, which I think is a crappy straw man answer. Other people don't value the things you value. That doesn't mean they're never going to be happy working.

[wons]

No one person has said all those things, which is what you implied when you lumped them together as litigator/PI wanna be/doesn't like stress and talked about one definition of happiness. Different people have each said different parts of that, but that's just different people valuing different things, not everyone who doesn't like biglaw creating a self-defeating definition of happiness.

And I don't agree that "well other jobs are just as bad if not worse so really people just have a problem with working, not with biglaw." I actually think that's a bullshit response. There are a zillion other kinds of jobs out there. Some people probably would rather work for a boss than a bunch of different partners, if it was a good boss and the partners suck. WRT to meaningful work, it's not like the only alternatives are a corporation or a firm, even if you're only looking at law. There are jobs in the universe where no one yells at you at all, and you make it sound like people not in law firms have way less job security than those in law firms, which doesn't make any sense to me - you can get fired anywhere, but barring specific writing on the wall, no one spends their day worrying about getting fired. Where you get the idea that everywhere else you work, more experience turns things into rote monotony, I have no idea - lots of fields allow for more responsibility and more learning as you advance.

And I agree, there are a lot of advantages about working at a big firm (though being your own boss is not really one I've heard people bring up unless you make it to partner, which everyone always describes as a laughable goal due to its difficulty). I'm certainly not telling you you shouldn't be enjoying it, and it's great that you do. I do think a lot of the problem is that law school is terrible prep for working and that top firms tend to hire out of law schools who have an awful lot of students who've spent their lives collecting brass rings and don't really know what it is that they would find satisfying in a job, and biglaw is the path of least resistance and has a great salary, so they do biglaw and end up miserable, and no, that's not the fault of biglaw. It's just that these kinds of arguments often turn into the pro-biglaw crowd saying that the anti-crowd just doesn't like working, period, which I think is a crappy straw man answer. Other people don't value the things you value. That doesn't mean they're never going to be happy working.

First, the notion that making partner is a "laughable" goal is just untrue. At a top NYC firm, transactional associate . . . I'd guess they have a 50/50 shot of being an equity partner at a big law firm if they want to be a partner, which of course is a big if. You have to remember that a big chunk of voluntary attrition is truly voluntary - women retiring young to have kids, folks getting the in-house job of their dreams. And a big chunk of the partnership at biglaw firms throughout the country started at the usual names in NY. It's of course very, very hard to start at Cravath and make partner at Cravath, but Cravath is not the only law partnership in the country.

If you find a job that pays remotely as well as biglaw that has materially less stress / hours, then awesome. My experience has been that those jobs are rare indeed. More likely, you step down into your sinecure, stress goes down, hours go down, pay goes down. So whether or not biglaw is for you isn't a question of whether some jobs are better on a per-minute basis than others, but a question you need to find out for yourself about how many minutes of work you want to do in a given day. If folks here think that working 55 hour weeks at the voting rights center for $50K is a "better" job for a 45 year old to have in any sort of objective way, then there's not really a discussion to be had - it's different, and it may be better for some personalities, but it's not objectively better. And the premise of this thread has been really, that biglaw jobs are objectively worse than other options.

I fully agree that the biggest problem with biglaw jobs is that it throws folks into the deep end, and many of those folks have de minimis professional experience before they go to law school. I guess by the time you're posting in this forum, that ship has sailed, but I think my pre-LS work experience helped me immensely in succeeding in a firm environment, and I'd urge anyone thinking about law school to take a few years off to do nothing more than learn how to work in a professional setting, which is a heck of a lot more difficult than it seems from outside.

[handsonthewheel]

Maybe this comes down to two things:

(1) Are you happy spending more of your life thinking about work, at work or stressed about work; and

(2) If you are generally not ok spending that much of your life on work, is the work you're doing meaningful enough that you are otherwise driven to do so?

For the latter, I imagine that most of us do not find biglaw work to arouse a burning passion. Sure, the work can be engaging and complex, but not always and much of it is not something that will really reach down into your chest and make your heart pound.

As to the former, I think that seems to be the real difference with the posters. Some people seem to not take issue with the expectations of the job.

I, for one, like to exercise, have relationships, have hobbies, and time to ponder and explore. I will sacrifice some of that, surely. But when I look to my job, I have to ask myself what I am really sacrificing this for. For me I can't look to (1) and find that.

[OneMoreLawHopeful]

The "meaningful" thing was going to the OP of this thread - I don't think I've ever seen DF complain about needing his work to have meaning. He's probably called his work meaningless, but that's not the same thing and given how much he shits on PI whenever possible, I don't think he cares. And the lit thing is clearly a lit/corp rivalry and not actually a serious complaint about biglaw, especially when the person making that comment is a litigator.

Besides, if he's not serious why on earth does it matter that he's said these things?

Because infrequent posters not privy to DF's lounge behavior have no reason to think that DF trolls at the level he does. Wons posting history indicates that he's clearly not a mega poster which makes it more than a little defensive on your part to take him to task just for taking DF's posts at face value.

And I say defensive be cause your whole polemic about "there are other jobs of there" clearly missed the point of what wons was saying to a degree that suggests you have some unrelated axe to grind.

[rpupkin]

And I say defensive be cause your whole polemic about "there are other jobs of there" clearly missed the point of what wons was saying to a degree that suggests you have some unrelated axe to grind.

Here's what wons wrote:

Second, what I'm really saying is that there are people who are never going to be happy working, and biglaw is a bad match for them because it fills your life with more work than other jobs do. Do people really think working for a boss is better than being at a firm, where you are effectively a quasi-independent contractor for a bunch of different partners so that no single direct report can kill your career based on whim? Do people really believe that work at a corporation is more "meaningful" than working at a firm? If folks are stressed about getting yelled at by a partner, how are they going to handle it when they are 40 and if their boss looks at them sideways, they could get fired and its not just your ambitions that are imperiled, it's your family's quality of life?

I read this paragraph the same way Nony did. I guess I also "clearly missed the point," as you put it. For the record, I don't have an axe to grind with you, wons, Desert Fox, or anyone else. You're all just anonymous internet trolls to me.

[OneMoreLawHopeful]

Second, what I'm really saying is that there are people who are never going to be happy working, and biglaw is a bad match for them because it fills your life with more work than other jobs do. Do people really think working for a boss is better than being at a firm, where you are effectively a quasi-independent contractor for a bunch of different partners so that no single direct report can kill your career based on whim? Do people really believe that work at a corporation is more "meaningful" than working at a firm? If folks are stressed about getting yelled at by a partner, how are they going to handle it when they are 40 and if their boss looks at them sideways, they could get fired and its not just your ambitions that are imperiled, it's your family's quality of life?

I read this paragraph the same way Nony did. I guess I also "clearly missed the point," as you put it. For the record, I don't have an axe to grind with you, wons, Desert Fox, or anyone else. You're all just anonymous internet trolls to me.

The point that Nony is missing is the implied financial security of biglaw (which was discussed upthread). Without that context Nony moves the goal posts by looking at jobs that are unlikely to provide the same financial benefits (e.g. jobs not working for a firm and/or corporation), and then seems to chide wons for failing to consider those options.

[kcdc1]

Maybe you don't find investment grade financings meaningful but you have to be pretty stone cold not to find it 'meaningful' (whatever that means) to give your family a nice place to live and financial security.

I think this quote captures a lot of the disconnect in the thread. Working a ton on projects of questionable social value in exchange for piles of money feels very different when you're 28 and single than when you're 35, married, and have kids. When you're single (or at least when I was single), you're working to promote your own happiness. It's not enough for the rewards of work to outweigh the sacrifices -- you don't enjoy how you're spending the majority of your time. Maybe you can justify sticking around for a few more years under some sort of delayed happiness logic, but you can't consider yourself happy.

With a family, the analysis changes. You're earning enough money for your family to live exactly as they want to live. It no longer matters whether your work is "meaningful" because the money itself is meaningful. Now the question is whether the money is worth the hours and stress.