How much does physical attractiveness matter in big law? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Thankful for my tax group, where, judging by partner's/senior associate's appearances, people seemed to be valued by, you know, their actual skill as a tax lawyer. Maybe the above is true for practice groups that involve little-to-no lawyerly ability and therefore people can afford to staff their deals based on appearance, as opposed to competence.

Fellow tax lawyer here. Have noted the bolded in my personal experience.

Not a tax lawyer myself but I am struck by how dominated this board is by transactional lawyers and how their experiences of doing no real lawyer work as juniors bleeds into discussions like these. Yes, we know juniors running redlines and organizing signature pages are 100% fungible and a trained seal could do the work; that's not the case for many other groups that do actual law stuff.

[nixy]

It's just tedious, ridiculous, vapid, and fratty to choose candidates for doc review on the basis of who you want to fuck or would most want to look like. It makes you sound like a petulant boy that wears conch shell chokers and thinks liking American Psycho / Wolf of Wallstreet is a personality trait.

Imagine making an overdone American Psycho/WoW joke and thinking it's a banger

Imagine thinking this post^ doesn’t sound defensive.

[Anonymous User]

Thankful for my tax group, where, judging by partner's/senior associate's appearances, people seemed to be valued by, you know, their actual skill as a tax lawyer. Maybe the above is true for practice groups that involve little-to-no lawyerly ability and therefore people can afford to staff their deals based on appearance, as opposed to competence.

Fellow tax lawyer here. Have noted the bolded in my personal experience.

Not a tax lawyer myself but I am struck by how dominated this board is by transactional lawyers and how their experiences of doing no real lawyer work as juniors bleeds into discussions like these. Yes, we know juniors running redlines and organizing signature pages are 100% fungible and a trained seal could do the work; that's not the case for many other groups that do actual law stuff.

Does anyone sub-partner do real work though? In all the biglaw firms I've seen associates are effectively just clerks preparing documents for partners to review. The entire job could basically be done by a well trained monkey.

[Anonymous User]

Thankful for my tax group, where, judging by partner's/senior associate's appearances, people seemed to be valued by, you know, their actual skill as a tax lawyer. Maybe the above is true for practice groups that involve little-to-no lawyerly ability and therefore people can afford to staff their deals based on appearance, as opposed to competence.

Fellow tax lawyer here. Have noted the bolded in my personal experience.

Not a tax lawyer myself but I am struck by how dominated this board is by transactional lawyers and how their experiences of doing no real lawyer work as juniors bleeds into discussions like these. Yes, we know juniors running redlines and organizing signature pages are 100% fungible and a trained seal could do the work; that's not the case for many other groups that do actual law stuff.

Does anyone sub-partner do real work though? In all the biglaw firms I've seen associates are effectively just clerks preparing documents for partners to review. The entire job could basically be done by a well trained monkey.

Just stop. How many normal human beings have you actually met? Most people could not draft even the simplest of documents.

[Anonymous User]

Lol at "all associates do is draft documents". What do you think our job is.

[Anonymous User]

Lol at "all associates do is draft documents". What do you think our job is.

Partners actually, you know, make decisions. Write opinions on behalf of the firm. Expose the firm to potential legal risk. Make difficult judgment calls with the life of entire companies at risk.

Associates...well...they move around commas and change some names, and ask the partners for permission slips to talk to clients. And sometimes they event get to send emails to clients, dictated word for word by the partners.

[Anonymous User]

Lol at "all associates do is draft documents". What do you think our job is.

Partners actually, you know, make decisions. Write opinions on behalf of the firm. Expose the firm to potential legal risk. Make difficult judgment calls with the life of entire companies at risk.

Associates...well...they move around commas and change some names, and ask the partners for permission slips to talk to clients. And sometimes they event get to send emails to clients, dictated word for word by the partners.

Good example of the phenomenon outlined above—many transactional lawyers don’t understand how substantive the job of a litigation associate is, especially on the low-leverage teams common in elite lit shops. I assume tax and other specialists are similar. It’s not remotely similar to junior work in M&A.

[Anonymous User]

Lol at "all associates do is draft documents". What do you think our job is.

Partners actually, you know, make decisions. Write opinions on behalf of the firm. Expose the firm to potential legal risk. Make difficult judgment calls with the life of entire companies at risk.

Associates...well...they move around commas and change some names, and ask the partners for permission slips to talk to clients. And sometimes they event get to send emails to clients, dictated word for word by the partners.

Good example of the phenomenon outlined above—many transactional lawyers don’t understand how substantive the job of a litigation associate is, especially on the low-leverage teams common in elite lit shops. I assume tax and other specialists are similar. It’s not remotely similar to junior work in M&A.

[Anonymous User]

Lol at "all associates do is draft documents". What do you think our job is.

Partners actually, you know, make decisions. Write opinions on behalf of the firm. Expose the firm to potential legal risk. Make difficult judgment calls with the life of entire companies at risk.

Associates...well...they move around commas and change some names, and ask the partners for permission slips to talk to clients. And sometimes they event get to send emails to clients, dictated word for word by the partners.

Good example of the phenomenon outlined above—many transactional lawyers don’t understand how substantive the job of a litigation associate is, especially on the low-leverage teams common in elite lit shops. I assume tax and other specialists are similar. It’s not remotely similar to junior work in M&A.

The same litigation associates who spend 2 years doing doc review and don't even take a deposition until 4th year, and never first chair a trial?

It is very clear - in biglaw you are either a partner, or you are chattel. The massive attrition isn't an accident.

[Anonymous User]

Lol at "all associates do is draft documents". What do you think our job is.

Partners actually, you know, make decisions. Write opinions on behalf of the firm. Expose the firm to potential legal risk. Make difficult judgment calls with the life of entire companies at risk.

Associates...well...they move around commas and change some names, and ask the partners for permission slips to talk to clients. And sometimes they event get to send emails to clients, dictated word for word by the partners.

Good example of the phenomenon outlined above—many transactional lawyers don’t understand how substantive the job of a litigation associate is, especially on the low-leverage teams common in elite lit shops. I assume tax and other specialists are similar. It’s not remotely similar to junior work in M&A.

I've had biglaw transactional partners unironically tell me that tax has great good work life balance because they are only responsible for a couple of paragraphs in the entire agreement.

Transactional attorneys don't really get it at all.

[Anonymous User]

Lol at "all associates do is draft documents". What do you think our job is.

Partners actually, you know, make decisions. Write opinions on behalf of the firm. Expose the firm to potential legal risk. Make difficult judgment calls with the life of entire companies at risk.

Associates...well...they move around commas and change some names, and ask the partners for permission slips to talk to clients. And sometimes they event get to send emails to clients, dictated word for word by the partners.

Good example of the phenomenon outlined above—many transactional lawyers don’t understand how substantive the job of a litigation associate is, especially on the low-leverage teams common in elite lit shops. I assume tax and other specialists are similar. It’s not remotely similar to junior work in M&A.

The same litigation associates who spend 2 years doing doc review and don't even take a deposition until 4th year, and never first chair a trial?

It is very clear - in biglaw you are either a partner, or you are chattel. The massive attrition isn't an accident.

There are many tasks in between doc review and first-chairing a trial, and junior associates at my firm do many of them very early. One of the first big assignments I did (technically as a second year since I had a clerkship, but very early in my time as an actual lawyer) was "analyze all the case facts and write the outline for Opposing Exec's deposition." The partner edited maybe 5% of it. Then there's motions drafting, witness interviews, other stuff that juniors do that often matters a lot and - depending on the partner - can have very little oversight.

I do agree we are all chattel but lit associates (and tax, and many other non transactional associates) get substantive experience at a more junior stage

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, it's more the partners who move around the commas as they edit the drafts of briefs for which they maybe outlined some general arguments on a call and suggested some areas to research. I agree that partners drive the litigation strategy, which is difficult and involves trying to see around corners some of which might be years down the road, but I don't know a single partner that drafts any substantive portion of a brief, motion, etc., which is the lifeblood of litigation.

[LBJ's Hair]

Lol at "all associates do is draft documents". What do you think our job is.

Partners actually, you know, make decisions. Write opinions on behalf of the firm. Expose the firm to potential legal risk. Make difficult judgment calls with the life of entire companies at risk.

Associates...well...they move around commas and change some names, and ask the partners for permission slips to talk to clients. And sometimes they event get to send emails to clients, dictated word for word by the partners.

Good example of the phenomenon outlined above—many transactional lawyers don’t understand how substantive the job of a litigation associate is, especially on the low-leverage teams common in elite lit shops. I assume tax and other specialists are similar. It’s not remotely similar to junior work in M&A.

I clerked COA and am in transactional. my job is actually substantively much more challenging now than it was as a federal clerk fwiw, notwithstanding the lack of brief-writing (which I think litigators equate to "doing substantive legal work" or whatever)

[Anonymous User]

Lol at "all associates do is draft documents". What do you think our job is.

Partners actually, you know, make decisions. Write opinions on behalf of the firm. Expose the firm to potential legal risk. Make difficult judgment calls with the life of entire companies at risk.

Associates...well...they move around commas and change some names, and ask the partners for permission slips to talk to clients. And sometimes they event get to send emails to clients, dictated word for word by the partners.

Who do you think is drafting the first cut of those opinions? absolutely clueless...

[Anonymous User]

Lol at "all associates do is draft documents". What do you think our job is.

Partners actually, you know, make decisions. Write opinions on behalf of the firm. Expose the firm to potential legal risk. Make difficult judgment calls with the life of entire companies at risk.

Associates...well...they move around commas and change some names, and ask the partners for permission slips to talk to clients. And sometimes they event get to send emails to clients, dictated word for word by the partners.

Good example of the phenomenon outlined above—many transactional lawyers don’t understand how substantive the job of a litigation associate is, especially on the low-leverage teams common in elite lit shops. I assume tax and other specialists are similar. It’s not remotely similar to junior work in M&A.

The same litigation associates who spend 2 years doing doc review and don't even take a deposition until 4th year, and never first chair a trial?

It is very clear - in biglaw you are either a partner, or you are chattel. The massive attrition isn't an accident.

There are many tasks in between doc review and first-chairing a trial, and junior associates at my firm do many of them very early. One of the first big assignments I did (technically as a second year since I had a clerkship, but very early in my time as an actual lawyer) was "analyze all the case facts and write the outline for Opposing Exec's deposition." The partner edited maybe 5% of it. Then there's motions drafting, witness interviews, other stuff that juniors do that often matters a lot and - depending on the partner - can have very little oversight.

I do agree we are all chattel but lit associates (and tax, and many other non transactional associates) get substantive experience at a more junior stage