Not making Partner Forum

[Anonymous User]

How much would an ex big law expect to make first year in house for a large/fortune 500

[fatduck]

How much would an ex big law expect to make first year in house for a large/fortune 500

$101,285.98/yr

[ResolutePear]

How much would an ex big law expect to make first year in house for a large/fortune 500

Why does this need to be an anonymous post?

[Moxie]

How much would an ex big law expect to make first year in house for a large/fortune 500

Why does this need to be an anonymous post?

Why did you need to make a post calling him out for anonymously posting? (Isn't that why there's a report button?)

Is there a "senior associate" title for associates who are not promoted to partner yet wish to stay in most cases?
And do most associates leave big law after not making partner because they do not wish to remain in big law, or are they actually "told" to leave

Some firms have "of counsel" positions, or make people non-equity partners when you're not quite good enough to be an equity partner, but you still have value to the firm.

Furthermore, why do people think your law school is relevant to whether you get fired first? Unless you're a small firm that wants to claim to have a Yale or Harvard Law grad on staff, I don't understand why you're original school makes a difference in firing. Going to HYS isn't going to make up for poor work product, and your peers from 'lesser schools' were also good enough to get hired by the firm.

[JSC4]

Sorry clicked wrong post button. Are we not allowed to go annonymous :S lol

[JSC4]

How much would an ex big law expect to make first year in house for a large/fortune 500

$101,285.98/yr

Guessing that figure isnt real

[ResolutePear]

Why did you need to make a post calling him out for anonymously posting? (Isn't that why there's a report button?)

Not dramatic enough.

[fatduck]

How much would an ex big law expect to make first year in house for a large/fortune 500

$101,285.98/yr

Guessing that figure isnt real

oh i forgot to clarify that salary is in 2008 dollars.

[HamDel]

To be honest I think law becomes a harsh world very quickly if you aren't on partner track and haven't lateraled yourself into an in house position or something else. It's not like these firms owe you anything, so even if you go to HYSCCN you can still very easily find yourself out on your ass with very little warning. It always shocks me that people on TLS seem so oblivious to the fact that literally thousands of attorneys from T-14 schools are forced out of their firms each year. There seems to be some assumption that things work out great for these people in life after biglaw, but I think the reality is that many people are booted out without much warning and wind up with very boring, mediocre legal jobs despite their fancy degrees. If you aren't on the partner track, don't count on being made of counsel either. Concentrate on developing your skill set and proactively moving onto another opportunity the second it becomes clear that you don't have a great chance of becoming a partner.

Also, Resolute Pear seems like an idiot and I don't think he's worth listening to. Anyone who has spent significant time in the private sector knows that life in a firm or a company often isn't a merit game. You learn this after you have seen highly qualified people get laid off while less hard working folks keep their jobs/get promoted. Sometimes it's merit, but often it's luck and ass kissing that carry the day. I wouldn't go indicting thousands of grads from top schools for having "poor work ethic" when some of the most selective firms in the country categorically fired huge swaths of associates purely based on the business of their practice groups.

Your failure to catch my sarcasm has proven your point. You will definitely be one of those "hard working" people who will be laid off.

Getting laid off isn't about "merit" or "ass kissing," in most cases that matter. Simply put: if you're making the company more money than what the company is paying for you, you are an asset and companies will not be quick to lay you off for no particular reason. In fact, you can be the biggest asshole and step all over people's throats, but if you're truly the golden goose, they're not going to fire you.

What you laid out, is actually what occurs in a fast food place. Keep flipping them burgers, boy.

Sorry for not catching your sarcasm, it's just so hard to tell when you are joking as you're so regularly a misinformed dickhead. Seems that this thread is no exception to that rule. Your perspective is overly simplistic - it's not that the laid off associates weren't making money for their firms, it's that the firms' clients were in a state of panic/collapse and could no longer pay for the quantity of legal services they were previously receiving. Associates billing an outrageous number of hours each year were laid off along with their slacker counterparts depending on who their clients were, simply because of macro circumstances.

I'm not the one trying to explain an industry phenomena with a couple paragraphs of text just coherent enough to pass for garbage. You sir, are no Paul Krugman.

No, I am Nouriel Roubini.

[drylo]

I'm not the one trying to explain an industry phenomena with a couple paragraphs of text just coherent enough to pass for garbage. You sir, are no Paul Krugman.

True. If it's coherent enough to pass for anything, it's not Krugman.

[JSC4]

How much would an ex big law expect to make first year in house for a large/fortune 500

so... anybody have a more serious salary range than the above post?

[fatduck]

How much would an ex big law expect to make first year in house for a large/fortune 500

so... anybody have a more serious salary range than the above post?

i won't do the work for you but there was a thread about this. the poster was an in-house counsel and answered many questions. take thee to the search.

[JSC4]

How much would an ex big law expect to make first year in house for a large/fortune 500

so... anybody have a more serious salary range than the above post?

i won't do the work for you but there was a thread about this. the poster was an in-house counsel and answered many questions. take thee to the search.

i went through that thread and he said his company paid higher than market, but didnt really talk about what market value was

[Stanford4Me]

i went through that thread and he said his company paid higher than market, but didnt really talk about what market value was

I did research on the issue a few months back because I'd like to go in-house long term, and it was hard for me to get hard numbers. I think a big thing to remember is that as you get more senior, in-house compensation includes base + bonus/options/etc. That said, that limited information I found suggested salaries in the low to mid six figures. I wish I could link it, but can't. Will update if/when I find better information.

[BarbellDreams]

Possibly the most entertaining thing about this thread is that there are plenty of 0L's beating their chest while giving "sound" advice.

[Jessep]

You sir, are no Paul Krugman.

That is one of the nicest things you can say about a person. Just sayin

[Stanford4Me]

Kind of related: http://abovethelaw.com/2011/03/inside-s ... laterally/

[pkt63]

Does anyone have a recommendation on a sort of primer or something for corporate law? Like all about equity partners vs. non, what of counsels exactly are and stuff like that? I have been able to glean a lot of this in life and on these threads, but there's nothing like reading some accepted general knowledge. For instance, I get a feeling through this thread that Of Counsel is kinda second rate or something, which I never understood before. (If no recommendation, did you all just learn this through law school or family members in law or something?)

[Stanford4Me]

Does anyone have a recommendation on a sort of primer or something for corporate law? Like all about equity partners vs. non, what of counsels exactly are and stuff like that? I have been able to glean a lot of this in life and on these threads, but there's nothing like reading some accepted general knowledge. (If no recommendation, did you all just learn this through law school or family members in law or something?)

Most of what I know I learned from TLS/talking with other students. There is a thread here that talks about "Of Counsel" and what not, and what that entails. Equity v. non is pretty self explanatory, though I don't know what determines what kind of partner you'll be (though I can guess). A lot of it is just self research, I think.

[Stringer Bell]

Getting laid off isn't about "merit" or "ass kissing," in most cases that matter. Simply put: if you're making the company more money than what the company is paying for you, you are an asset and companies will not be quick to lay you off for no particular reason. In fact, you can be the biggest asshole and step all over people's throats, but if you're truly the golden goose, they're not going to fire you.

What you laid out, is actually what occurs in a fast food place. Keep flipping them burgers, boy.

In a way this is somewhat accurate but the simplicity you try to state it with is really wrong. If you are in a sales type of position, then yes it's easy to say the company makes X dollars based on the Net Income my sales add and I cost Y. X is alot bigger than Y so you can't fire me.

But if you are in any sort of position servicing accounts, doing analytical work, doing back office work or are in management, that shit is way more subjective and far from a meritocracy.

[drylo]

Does anyone have a recommendation on a sort of primer or something for corporate law? Like all about equity partners vs. non, what of counsels exactly are and stuff like that? I have been able to glean a lot of this in life and on these threads, but there's nothing like reading some accepted general knowledge. (If no recommendation, did you all just learn this through law school or family members in law or something?)

Most of what I know I learned from TLS/talking with other students. There is a thread here that talks about "Of Counsel" and what not, and what that entails. Equity v. non is pretty self explanatory, though I don't know what determines what kind of partner you'll be (though I can guess). A lot of it is just self research, I think.

The difficulty with this question is that I don't think there is a general industry practice regarding of counsel and non-equity partners. To the extent that there is an "industry standard," it is inconsistent enough that you really just need to ask about this in interviews (not sure you should ask about "of counsel," but you should ask about partnership and how, if at all, non-equity partners fit in).

[ResolutePear]

Getting laid off isn't about "merit" or "ass kissing," in most cases that matter. Simply put: if you're making the company more money than what the company is paying for you, you are an asset and companies will not be quick to lay you off for no particular reason. In fact, you can be the biggest asshole and step all over people's throats, but if you're truly the golden goose, they're not going to fire you.

What you laid out, is actually what occurs in a fast food place. Keep flipping them burgers, boy.

In a way this is somewhat accurate but the simplicity you try to state it with is really wrong. If you are in a sales type of position, then yes it's easy to say the company makes X dollars based on the Net Income my sales add and I cost Y. X is alot bigger than Y so you can't fire me.

But if you are in any sort of position servicing accounts, doing analytical work, doing back office work or are in management, that shit is way more subjective and far from a meritocracy.

I tried to keep it simple because in a corporate structure, you can tie almost anything to "sales."

Especially in management. In most cases, the work done in management will reverberate to the 'sales people,' even if it's across departments.

For instance, lets say you were a hiring manager and through the channels you advertise jobs in ultimately results in a net profit for the company through the hire of qualified and competent people.

Or, lets take a manager who oversees the engineering department - does the efficiency you work your people with produce a particular net-gain or net-loss?

Try to spin it however you want - but if you're a gainfully employed lawyer, you're selling service and all those other things you listed are just ways to get the job done. Even a CEO is not immune to this, and he's the Godzilla "manager"!

[EdmundBurke23]

My guess is that even if a person doesn't make partner, it's still possible to start a solo practice? You could technically save a bulk of your associate salaries just in case this happens, right? I'm assuming that a senior associate has at least one or two clients that he can steal from the law firm when leaving with a severence package.

Starting my own shingle sounds really exciting, although difficult and stressful at the same time;;

[ArthurDigbySellers]

i'll give you one anecdotal data point:

a friend of mine went from CCN to a V10 firm and lateraled to a smaller lit boutique after 4-5 years there. it's been apparent for a couple years that he won't make partner at his new firm, and every six months or so they basically ask him when he's planning on leaving, and he says i dunno why don't you fire me? anyway, he still works there.

That's really shitty.

Not really. They are letting him know that he doesn't have a future there, so that he can find his own landing spot on his own terms. Would you rather they told him, "everything's fine, good work!" right up until they tell him he's not making partner and he needs to clean out his office?

Does seem like a good situation. They're basically telling him that the axe is going to come eventually, and that he might as well use the firm's resources to find a new job while he still can. Easier to get a job when you have a job and all that.

[ArthurDigbySellers]

I'm assuming that a senior associate has at least one or two clients that he can steal from the law firm when leaving with a severence package.

I don't know if it's common practice in BigLaw (like in many other industries) to have non-compete clauses in employee contracts that would put a nail in that sort of thing. But I don't know--if you've been trained in a specific niche, what the fuck else ya gonna do?