Being let go from BigLaw twice! What to do? Forum

[Desert Fox]

If you want an easier lifestyle, consider tech: https://www.roberthalf.com/sites/defaul ... _guide.pdf

People with Bachelors-only credentials are easily pulling in 100k+ and working chill hours. LOL @ JD morons. WTF were we thinking?

In general this is totally correct. But Tech is about to get assfucked for its decadence the past 5-8 years. The next few years will be tough. The people who just went to a coding bootcamp to make shitty ios apps will be hit the hardest.

[DELG]

Boy I hope the wife wasn't betting on a career of biglaw salary

[jrass]

It seems obvious that her husband never even stepped foot in a big law office. 90 percent he is a Russian spy who just returned from the motherland and needs a new cover story. By any chance did your husband's "coworkers" frequently speak about the ills of capitalism and offer tips on how to prepare borscht?

[totesTheGoat]

If you want an easier lifestyle, consider tech: https://www.roberthalf.com/sites/defaul ... _guide.pdf

People with Bachelors-only credentials are easily pulling in 100k+ and working chill hours. LOL @ JD morons. WTF were we thinking?

In general this is totally correct. But Tech is about to get assfucked for its decadence the past 5-8 years. The next few years will be tough. The people who just went to a coding bootcamp to make shitty ios apps will be hit the hardest.

TLS has a weird "tech is nirvana" bias. Tech is hard in its own rights, and the "coding bootcamp to 6-figures" BS is just as much flame as "T2 to biglaw." Working in tech was great, but the only place you could work chill hours and make $100k was in Palo Alto, and that was if you didn't mind being passed over for advancement and getting laid off at the first sign of trouble.

[mvp99]

If you want an easier lifestyle, consider tech: https://www.roberthalf.com/sites/defaul ... _guide.pdf

People with Bachelors-only credentials are easily pulling in 100k+ and working chill hours. LOL @ JD morons. WTF were we thinking?

In general this is totally correct. But Tech is about to get assfucked for its decadence the past 5-8 years. The next few years will be tough. The people who just went to a coding bootcamp to make shitty ios apps will be hit the hardest.

TLS has a weird "tech is nirvana" bias. Tech is hard in its own rights, and the "coding bootcamp to 6-figures" BS is just as much flame as "T2 to biglaw." Working in tech was great, but the only place you could work chill hours and make $100k was in Palo Alto, and that was if you didn't mind being passed over for advancement and getting laid off at the first sign of trouble.

thank you. plus these bootcamps employment stats are questionable at best

[84651846190]

If you want an easier lifestyle, consider tech: https://www.roberthalf.com/sites/defaul ... _guide.pdf

People with Bachelors-only credentials are easily pulling in 100k+ and working chill hours. LOL @ JD morons. WTF were we thinking?

In general this is totally correct. But Tech is about to get assfucked for its decadence the past 5-8 years. The next few years will be tough. The people who just went to a coding bootcamp to make shitty ios apps will be hit the hardest.

TLS has a weird "tech is nirvana" bias. Tech is hard in its own rights, and the "coding bootcamp to 6-figures" BS is just as much flame as "T2 to biglaw." Working in tech was great, but the only place you could work chill hours and make $100k was in Palo Alto, and that was if you didn't mind being passed over for advancement and getting laid off at the first sign of trouble.

thank you. plus these bootcamps employment stats are questionable at best

but do they cost 300k like a law degree?

[84651846190]

If you want an easier lifestyle, consider tech: https://www.roberthalf.com/sites/defaul ... _guide.pdf

People with Bachelors-only credentials are easily pulling in 100k+ and working chill hours. LOL @ JD morons. WTF were we thinking?

In general this is totally correct. But Tech is about to get assfucked for its decadence the past 5-8 years. The next few years will be tough. The people who just went to a coding bootcamp to make shitty ios apps will be hit the hardest.

TLS has a weird "tech is nirvana" bias. Tech is hard in its own rights, and the "coding bootcamp to 6-figures" BS is just as much flame as "T2 to biglaw." Working in tech was great, but the only place you could work chill hours and make $100k was in Palo Alto, and that was if you didn't mind being passed over for advancement and getting laid off at the first sign of trouble.

I worked in tech. It was a much healthier labor market than law. You'd have to be willfully blind to objective reality to think otherwise.

[jhett]

I worked in tech. It was a much healthier labor market than law. You'd have to be willfully blind to objective reality to think otherwise.

I worked in tech as well. There's a lot of variance in the job market. If you're a superstar, jobs are plentiful. If you're just run of the mill, it can be hard. I do patent pros and I've worked with a number of inventors who were fired, laid off, or had their companies fold. And a lot of them are super busy. I work at an IP boutique now, and I reckon that I work less and earn more than many of the inventors I talk with. Even when I was in biglaw, I'd probably still come out on top compared to them on hours v. pay.

[84651846190]

I worked in tech. It was a much healthier labor market than law. You'd have to be willfully blind to objective reality to think otherwise.

I worked in tech as well. There's a lot of variance in the job market. If you're a superstar, jobs are plentiful. If you're just run of the mill, it can be hard. I do patent pros and I've worked with a number of inventors who were fired, laid off, or had their companies fold. And a lot of them are super busy. I work at an IP boutique now, and I reckon that I work less and earn more than many of the inventors I talk with. Even when I was in biglaw, I'd probably still come out on top compared to them on hours v. pay.

(1) Staying in biglaw is not easy.

(2) Patent prosecution really isn't comparable to any other field of law. It's more like engineering, at least in terms of the supply/demand dynamic in the labor market.

(3) People don't have to pay an extra 300k to work a tech job for six figures. Lawyers have to pay 300k AND, outside of patent pros, they have to finish in the top in terms of law school/grades to get six figure jobs.

Also, patent pros is insanely boring. Holy shit.

[whysoseriousbiglaw]

I don't know how flame coding bootcamps are, but i think they only cost a couple thousand and last 9 weeks or so.

And if you do CS/engineering at Stanford/Berkeley/(insert other top engineering program), and even if you graduate with a 2.7 GPA, you can easily get a $100k or so starting job straight out of college in California. That's basically the average starting salary out of these programs.

[84651846190]

I don't know how flame coding bootcamps are, but i think they only cost a couple thousand and last 9 weeks or so.

And if you do CS/engineering at Stanford/Berkeley/(insert other top engineering program), and even if you graduate with a 2.7 GPA, you can easily get a $100k or so starting job straight out of college in California. That's basically the average starting salary out of these programs.

+1

[rpupkin]

And if you do CS/engineering at Stanford/Berkeley/(insert other top engineering program), and even if you graduate with a 2.7 GPA, you can easily get a $100k or so starting job straight out of college in California. That's basically the average starting salary out of these programs.

Well. Saying "just major in engineering at Stanford/Berkeley/MIT and you can get a good job with mediocre grades" is like saying "just go to Harvard/Yale/Stanford for law school and you can get a good job with mediocre grades." It's good advice as far as it goes, but not everyone can get a degree in engineering from Stanford/Berkeley/MIT.

[totesTheGoat]

I worked in tech. It was a much healthier labor market than law. You'd have to be willfully blind to objective reality to think otherwise.

Absolutely. I'm not saying that tech's labor market is as bad as law's. I'm saying that the idea that you can spend $2000 and 6 weeks learning Ruby on Rails and get dat $100k is on par with saying you can go to a T2 and get a biglaw job.

I don't know how flame coding bootcamps are, but i think they only cost a couple thousand and last 9 weeks or so.

They're not flame. They teach some decent skills, and they are churning out single purpose app/website developers. What is flame is the "JD sucks, go spend 6 weeks in a bootcamp and make biglaw money in tech" bullshit. The only place that is true is in silicon valley, where they're throwing money around like drunken sailors (and where $100k isn't all that much).

And if you do CS/engineering at Stanford/Berkeley/(insert other top engineering program), and even if you graduate with a 2.7 GPA, you can easily get a $100k or so starting job straight out of college in California. That's basically the average starting salary out of these programs.

There are really only 3 schools where a 2.7 will get you $100k, (Stanford, Caltech, and MIT) and that's primarily because they place so disproportionately in SV and Seattle. Even so, you're not going to be getting many raises. There are very few developers making a quarter million.

[Anonymous User]

I worked in tech. It was a much healthier labor market than law. You'd have to be willfully blind to objective reality to think otherwise.

Absolutely. I'm not saying that tech's labor market is as bad as law's. I'm saying that the idea that you can spend $2000 and 6 weeks learning Ruby on Rails and get dat $100k is on par with saying you can go to a T2 and get a biglaw job.

I don't know how flame coding bootcamps are, but i think they only cost a couple thousand and last 9 weeks or so.

They're not flame. They teach some decent skills, and they are churning out single purpose app/website developers. What is flame is the "JD sucks, go spend 6 weeks in a bootcamp and make biglaw money in tech" bullshit. The only place that is true is in silicon valley, where they're throwing money around like drunken sailors (and where $100k isn't all that much).

And if you do CS/engineering at Stanford/Berkeley/(insert other top engineering program), and even if you graduate with a 2.7 GPA, you can easily get a $100k or so starting job straight out of college in California. That's basically the average starting salary out of these programs.

There are really only 3 schools where a 2.7 will get you $100k, (Stanford, Caltech, and MIT) and that's primarily because they place so disproportionately in SV and Seattle. Even so, you're not going to be getting many raises. There are very few developers making a quarter million.

Berkeley Class of 2014 EECS major - Average starting salary is $105k. Berkeley EECS curves to a 2.7.

https://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/departmen ... tics.shtml

[whysoseriousbiglaw]

I worked in tech. It was a much healthier labor market than law. You'd have to be willfully blind to objective reality to think otherwise.

Absolutely. I'm not saying that tech's labor market is as bad as law's. I'm saying that the idea that you can spend $2000 and 6 weeks learning Ruby on Rails and get dat $100k is on par with saying you can go to a T2 and get a biglaw job.

I don't know how flame coding bootcamps are, but i think they only cost a couple thousand and last 9 weeks or so.

They're not flame. They teach some decent skills, and they are churning out single purpose app/website developers. What is flame is the "JD sucks, go spend 6 weeks in a bootcamp and make biglaw money in tech" bullshit. The only place that is true is in silicon valley, where they're throwing money around like drunken sailors (and where $100k isn't all that much).

And if you do CS/engineering at Stanford/Berkeley/(insert other top engineering program), and even if you graduate with a 2.7 GPA, you can easily get a $100k or so starting job straight out of college in California. That's basically the average starting salary out of these programs.

There are really only 3 schools where a 2.7 will get you $100k, (Stanford, Caltech, and MIT) and that's primarily because they place so disproportionately in SV and Seattle. Even so, you're not going to be getting many raises. There are very few developers making a quarter million.

Berkeley Class of 2014 EECS major - Average starting salary is $105k. Berkeley EECS curves to a 2.7 (B minus).

https://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/departmen ... tics.shtml

Sorry - accidental anon. This is me. I'm extrapolating, but I know Berkeley EECS' curves and I know the starting average salary, so I can take a guess. Lots of the top engineering programs have starting average salaries around $100k. I wouldn't be surprised if schools like Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Michigan, etc. have similar salary placement.

I went to one of these schools, and pretty much of all my friends make junior to midlevel biglaw salaries with better hours. And most of the programmers started out making around $100k, and I graduated a while back, with just an undergrad degree.

Law is just a terrible, shitty profession in comparison. You go from working long, terrible hours for relatively shit pay compared to 3 years extra schooling + tuition then maybe you make it to in house where you get paid slightly less and maybe, but not granted, work fewer hours OR you just burn out of law like many of my colleagues have already.

if you have other options (like programming), going to law school is just stupid.

[mvp99]

I worked in tech. It was a much healthier labor market than law. You'd have to be willfully blind to objective reality to think otherwise.

Absolutely. I'm not saying that tech's labor market is as bad as law's. I'm saying that the idea that you can spend $2000 and 6 weeks learning Ruby on Rails and get dat $100k is on par with saying you can go to a T2 and get a biglaw job.

I don't know how flame coding bootcamps are, but i think they only cost a couple thousand and last 9 weeks or so.

They're not flame. They teach some decent skills, and they are churning out single purpose app/website developers. What is flame is the "JD sucks, go spend 6 weeks in a bootcamp and make biglaw money in tech" bullshit. The only place that is true is in silicon valley, where they're throwing money around like drunken sailors (and where $100k isn't all that much).

And if you do CS/engineering at Stanford/Berkeley/(insert other top engineering program), and even if you graduate with a 2.7 GPA, you can easily get a $100k or so starting job straight out of college in California. That's basically the average starting salary out of these programs.

There are really only 3 schools where a 2.7 will get you $100k, (Stanford, Caltech, and MIT) and that's primarily because they place so disproportionately in SV and Seattle. Even so, you're not going to be getting many raises. There are very few developers making a quarter million.

Berkeley Class of 2014 EECS major - Average starting salary is $105k. Berkeley EECS curves to a 2.7 (B minus).

https://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/departmen ... tics.shtml

Sorry - accidental anon. This is me. I'm extrapolating, but I know Berkeley EECS' curves and I know the starting average salary, so I can take a guess. Lots of the top engineering programs have starting average salaries around $100k. I wouldn't be surprised if schools like Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Michigan, etc. have similar salary placement.

I went to one of these schools, and pretty much of all my friends make junior to midlevel biglaw salaries with better hours. And most of the programmers started out making around $100k, and I graduated a while back, with just an undergrad degree.

Law is just a terrible, shitty profession in comparison. You go from working long, terrible hours for relatively shit pay compared to 3 years extra schooling + tuition then maybe you make it to in house where you get paid slightly less and maybe, but not granted, work fewer hours OR you just burn out of law like many of my colleagues have already.

if you have other options (like programming), going to law school is just stupid.

mid career 160-200k? nice.. mind sharing some specifics?

[Anonymous User]

Just to clarify, yes of course I have asked my husband - we have spoken multiple countless times about it. He knows I posted this and I just wanted to see what other peoples opinions were in the event that maybe it could shed some light on this seemingly weird situation.

He hasn't seen his individual reviews just a conglomerate review that they delivered orally - he said he wasn't sure if they would even give the individual ones but is going to ask.

I do get a sense, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that these big law firms not only require great attention to detail/hard work but perhaps some serious political saviness but I don't know what the distribution is. From a technical perspective here are some of the things he said he was criticized for "not marking up the document enough for the terms of the deal", when discussing working capital adjustments with the partner making a mistake on the direction the element to cause the calculation to go in. He said he was told he needed to spend more time marking up documents but he was having trouble managing all the emails and being on calls constantly. Then another instance there was a client that complained that his negotiation over the phone of a the indemnification provisions of a supply agreement (which was a non-m&a document that he didn't have experience with) that his thought process was scattered.

They said in his review that he was excellent with clients in general, had good deal management skills, but that overall the technical skills were lacking. I just overall don't know how big of mistakes these are (since this is totally not my field) and whether people are cut so easily like this for these mistakes. And if they are, how easy is it to correct these mistakes and find a new job.

[cowgirl_bebop]

What was the reason why he was let go from his first firm? Also because of "technical mistakes"?

I think it this point it doesn't matter how common it is for an attorney to be let go for technical mistakes or if the issue is that he couldn't hang with the office politics. Maybe he was just not good enough. Maybe he hadn't managed to curry enough favor with the right people to keep his job even with his mistakes. Either way the fact remains that he was let go, and unless he was fired illegally, there is nothing to be done about it. If the issue is critical errors, all that is to be done is to take the feedback he's gotten from both places and do whatever is within his power to not make those same mistakes. If it is more of a "overall he's just not good enough to hack it here", then he might try to switch to something else where his weaknesses aren't so much of a dealbreaker. The more senior you are, the more likely it is that you will be pushed out even if you are doing a relatively okay job, because unless the firm sees you making partner or counsel they aren't going to keep you.

[kalvano]

1) Technical mistakes are just mistakes. Clients paying $350+ an hour for your time don't want mistakes of any kind. If he can't not make mistakes, there are plenty of attorneys who can do the job without making mistakes. They also expect you to be on top of things when negotiating on their behalf.

2) If you can't keep up with a high volume of emails and juggle calls, you're not going to make it in most law firms.

[Tls2016]

Just to clarify, yes of course I have asked my husband - we have spoken multiple countless times about it. He knows I posted this and I just wanted to see what other peoples opinions were in the event that maybe it could shed some light on this seemingly weird situation.

He hasn't seen his individual reviews just a conglomerate review that they delivered orally - he said he wasn't sure if they would even give the individual ones but is going to ask.

I do get a sense, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that these big law firms not only require great attention to detail/hard work but perhaps some serious political saviness but I don't know what the distribution is. From a technical perspective here are some of the things he said he was criticized for "not marking up the document enough for the terms of the deal", when discussing working capital adjustments with the partner making a mistake on the direction the element to cause the calculation to go in. He said he was told he needed to spend more time marking up documents but he was having trouble managing all the emails and being on calls constantly. Then another instance there was a client that complained that his negotiation over the phone of a the indemnification provisions of a supply agreement (which was a non-m&a document that he didn't have experience with) that his thought process was scattered.

They said in his review that he was excellent with clients in general, had good deal management skills, but that overall the technical skills were lacking. I just overall don't know how big of mistakes these are (since this is totally not my field) and whether people are cut so easily like this for these mistakes. And if they are, how easy is it to correct these mistakes and find a new job.

Your job as a corporate attorney is to draft the documents correctly, efficiently and without errors. These are big mistakes. It may be that he just sees them as minor things that can be corrected in the next draft. But that isn't the case.
Maybe if he learns how to be organized and keep track of things he can improve.
Politics are specific to firms but it doesn't sound like he had that issue. I don't know what asking for individual evaluations will accomplish (and I doubt he will get them.) It sounds like he got clear feedback. Like I said, he may have minimized comments he got on errors in his drafts. He should have been correcting and not repeating his errors.

[Anonymous User]

How do people typically adapt and improve on these levels so they can survive/do well at law firms? It doesn't seem like there is any education or on the job training so whAt do people typically do?

How does one on a practical level get better at document modification and handling a blackberry that goes off every three seconds w emails and telephone calls w the demands of deadlines?

[Tls2016]

OP: can you explain why you see this as a weird situation? I'm not sure what more we can say. I am sorry your husband lost his job. Not everyone is cut out for the insanity of biglaw.

[totesTheGoat]

Sorry - accidental anon. This is me. I'm extrapolating, but I know Berkeley EECS' curves and I know the starting average salary, so I can take a guess. Lots of the top engineering programs have starting average salaries around $100k. I wouldn't be surprised if schools like Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Michigan, etc. have similar salary placement.

US News Graduate Rankings (2014)
Computer Engineering Graduate Program: 1
Computer Science Graduate Program: 1
Systems: 1
Theory: 1
Programming Languages: 2
Artificial Intelligence: 4
Electrical/Electronic/Communications Engineering Graduate Program: 3
US News Undergraduate Rankings (2014)
Electrical/Electronics/Communications Undergraduate Program: 3
Computer Science Undergraduate Program: 4
Colleges of Engineering : 3

Distance from Berkeley to Palo Alto (silicon valley), 40 miles.

So I left Berkeley off my list... It's obvious why a top 3 EECS program that is located within a 45 minute drive of silicon valley is pulling above average salaries.

Michigan (#6 UG EE program): $83k-ish
GA Tech (#4 UG EE program): $84k-ish
Illinois (#5 UG EE program): $85k-ish
UT (#8): $72k
Purdue(#9) $70k-ish

[whysoseriousbiglaw]

I worked in tech. It was a much healthier labor market than law. You'd have to be willfully blind to objective reality to think otherwise.

Absolutely. I'm not saying that tech's labor market is as bad as law's. I'm saying that the idea that you can spend $2000 and 6 weeks learning Ruby on Rails and get dat $100k is on par with saying you can go to a T2 and get a biglaw job.

I don't know how flame coding bootcamps are, but i think they only cost a couple thousand and last 9 weeks or so.

They're not flame. They teach some decent skills, and they are churning out single purpose app/website developers. What is flame is the "JD sucks, go spend 6 weeks in a bootcamp and make biglaw money in tech" bullshit. The only place that is true is in silicon valley, where they're throwing money around like drunken sailors (and where $100k isn't all that much).

And if you do CS/engineering at Stanford/Berkeley/(insert other top engineering program), and even if you graduate with a 2.7 GPA, you can easily get a $100k or so starting job straight out of college in California. That's basically the average starting salary out of these programs.

There are really only 3 schools where a 2.7 will get you $100k, (Stanford, Caltech, and MIT) and that's primarily because they place so disproportionately in SV and Seattle. Even so, you're not going to be getting many raises. There are very few developers making a quarter million.

Berkeley Class of 2014 EECS major - Average starting salary is $105k. Berkeley EECS curves to a 2.7 (B minus).

https://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/departmen ... tics.shtml

Sorry - accidental anon. This is me. I'm extrapolating, but I know Berkeley EECS' curves and I know the starting average salary, so I can take a guess. Lots of the top engineering programs have starting average salaries around $100k. I wouldn't be surprised if schools like Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Michigan, etc. have similar salary placement.

I went to one of these schools, and pretty much of all my friends make junior to midlevel biglaw salaries with better hours. And most of the programmers started out making around $100k, and I graduated a while back, with just an undergrad degree.

Law is just a terrible, shitty profession in comparison. You go from working long, terrible hours for relatively shit pay compared to 3 years extra schooling + tuition then maybe you make it to in house where you get paid slightly less and maybe, but not granted, work fewer hours OR you just burn out of law like many of my colleagues have already.

if you have other options (like programming), going to law school is just stupid.

mid career 160-200k? nice.. mind sharing some specifics?

A bunch working for google, amazon, facebook, start ups, etc. Some of them sold their start ups to big companies for $$$. I went to a California school (Stanford/Caltech/Berkeley) so obviously placement is better out of those in California

[whysoseriousbiglaw]

Sorry - accidental anon. This is me. I'm extrapolating, but I know Berkeley EECS' curves and I know the starting average salary, so I can take a guess. Lots of the top engineering programs have starting average salaries around $100k. I wouldn't be surprised if schools like Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Michigan, etc. have similar salary placement.

US News Graduate Rankings (2014)
Computer Engineering Graduate Program: 1
Computer Science Graduate Program: 1
Systems: 1
Theory: 1
Programming Languages: 2
Artificial Intelligence: 4
Electrical/Electronic/Communications Engineering Graduate Program: 3
US News Undergraduate Rankings (2014)
Electrical/Electronics/Communications Undergraduate Program: 3
Computer Science Undergraduate Program: 4
Colleges of Engineering : 3

Distance from Berkeley to Palo Alto (silicon valley), 40 miles.

So I left Berkeley off my list... It's obvious why a top 3 EECS program that is located within a 45 minute drive of silicon valley is pulling above average salaries.

Michigan (#6 UG EE program): $83k-ish
GA Tech (#4 UG EE program): $84k-ish
Illinois (#5 UG EE program): $85k-ish
UT (#8): $72k
Purdue(#9) $70k-ish

Looking at the regional salary, it looks like they can pull on average 90k or so out/close to 100k starting if they move to the West Coast from those schools....doesn't really go against anything I said (aka you can make around 100k or so starting in California straight out of a top engineering program). Yes, COL is much, much higher in California too, so making 85k in the Midwest or South or whatever is pretty damn good.

If you're working biglaw you're probably working longer hours than programmers, plus you have 3 years of law school + tuition expenses and opportunity cost. A lot of people who go to the top engineering schools graduate with little to no student loan debt. Not to mention making 200k or whatever in NYC is like making 60k in flyover.

Anyway, I don't know why you're even arguing with us practicing attorneys about the practice of law and the money, etc. If you have an engineering background, you should at least give it a try before you quit and flee to law. Some people just don't like engineering - that's fine, but I also know engineers who have quit law to go back to engineering because they found law a lot worse.