1st year corp. associates: Share your stories Forum

[nixy]

I agree that biglaw's attitude to people's time sucks, but it really isn't common to get President's Day off (once you're out of high school), and no one ever gets Valentine's Day off (plenty of people don't even celebrate it). It totally sucks to be pulled in on a weekend and/or evening and to have to do an all-nighter, and if you have plans for Valentine's Day evening that sucks even more, but I think it's just part of a general disrespect for any personal life/boundaries and inability to make personal plans (which is obviously really unpleasant) more than that Valentine's Day or President's Day are particularly egregious.

[Sackboy]

I agree that biglaw's attitude to people's time sucks, but it really isn't common to get President's Day off (once you're out of high school), and no one ever gets Valentine's Day off (plenty of people don't even celebrate it). It totally sucks to be pulled in on a weekend and/or evening and to have to do an all-nighter, and if you have plans for Valentine's Day evening that sucks even more, but I think it's just part of a general disrespect for any personal life/boundaries and inability to make personal plans (which is obviously really unpleasant) more than that Valentine's Day or President's Day are particularly egregious.

Yeah, +1. I will say, though. If I'm not going to have these days off, tell us that our professional staff won't be working but that we don't have it off. I rather be told that than "it's a firm holiday" with the implicit message being "but not for you." That's more of a petty annoyance, though. You really shouldn't expect to have those days off.

[Anonymous User]

On track to bill 80 hours this week.

[jotarokujo]

the lack of training seems to be the most devastating thing. this may not have driven many people to corporate, but one of the upsides of corporate is it's easier to go in house. correct me if I'm wrong but that seems more difficult if there's no actual training.

[Anonymous User]

Not a first year - but in response to the complaints about training, and in case helpful, I didn’t figure out till a few years in (probably too late) that training is something you need to seek and handle for yourself, in addition to any formal sessions (many of which are abstract and may not make sense if you‘ve never encountered the subject of discussion).

Read documents even if you aren’t producing them yourself, run blacklines and figure out why changes were made (and if you can’t, make notes of what you don’t know). Then try to make time (eventually) to talk to and ask mid-levels or seniors who seem kind and with whom you have a good equation. (They do exist, even if they don’t always have time.) For the other interstices, there are PLI and ABA.

I’ve also found it helpful to keep running notes regarding different types of documents with points that I’ve picked up (together with references to forms/precedents, and copied and pasted clauses).

The biggest switch in corporate law is knowing what you don’t know - not knowing everything, but having a sense of which questions to ask, and how to get answers without bugging people/letting it affect your reputation. Steps above might help, although of course there’s no substitute for doing stuff. (Partners don’t know everything, though they often seem like they do. They’ve just figured out how to figure it out.)

Being busy sucks, but if you keep your wits about you you can use it as an opportunity to touch a lot of documents and get broadly familiar with a lot of the things you need to do in your practice area.

In the meantime - and especially as a first year - being polite, enthusiastic, accurate, avoiding typos and making sure you take comments properly, presenting your correspondence well, and delivering on time (ideally 30 mins in advance of a deadline) will win you a lot of points.

It’s not always this terrible, I promise, but I am sorry that we’re all getting so crushed without the ability to communicate live as one might normally do. Keeping an eye on your bank balance helps. Knowing that decent clients are grateful - even if your partners and seniors don’t communicate this as much as they should - may help more.

[nixy]

the lack of training seems to be the most devastating thing. this may not have driven many people to corporate, but one of the upsides of corporate is it's easier to go in house. correct me if I'm wrong but that seems more difficult if there's no actual training.

I would think your value to in-house would be the experience you get doing the job rather than formal training, right? I get that right now new people feel like they're drinking from a fire hose and don't really get why they're doing what they're doing, but I don't think that's entirely specific to covid (even if covid makes it harder to pick up information) and if they stick around long enough to be competitive for in-house jobs they'll have the understanding they need. Doing formal training in a slow period without getting actual work isn't going to prepare someone any better to go in-house than just doing lots of work.

[Anonymous User]

Re: the Valentines post above: Just jumping in to point out that (pre-covid times) at my V5, I was on a deal team as a midlevel with a first year and a partner. We were trying to make a Feb 15 pre-market filing for a major deal and there was still a shitload of work to be done, and we figured the first year understood what that meant. But at 8pm we call her and she's not in her office. So, fine, whatever. Partner calls her and she ends up coming in at like 9pm clearly tipsy from wine (it being Valentines Day). She proceeds to spend the entire all nighter (the partner had this annoying "we must all be together in the conference room at all times for these things" ethos) making several comments about "Man, I hope the client appreciates the fact that working through midnight on freaking Valentines Day is also just asking for divorces. Is that why lawyers are all divorced? I don't want to be divorced." I found it hilarious, partner found it not so and refused to staff her on future deals. She got a horrible reputation in the group and lateraled to a different group in a different firm. She enjoys her new situation much more and whenever we speak she always mentions how ridiculous it is that lawyers at the V5 "didn't even treat Valentines Day like a holiday!"

Valentine's day anon from above. I mean I get it, we are paid to be available, yada yada. It was a sunday night, the day before a federal holiday. Seems like it would be easy to push back on a client asking for an all nighter that night, considering the timing. Just shows the culture of this industry is fucked. No wonder why people in big law seem to have twisted and mostly symbolic "relationships". Could never be married doing corporate law, and would tell anyone i cared about to avoid corporate lawyers (while they're at a firm) as well. Funniest thing about being a lawyer: as cool as partners may act, they got there by being the biggest servile bitch to their clients. Guess the big house or whatever helps them avoid feeling as emasculated.

The more senior you get, the more you realize that asking the client to push timing on a deal because of fake holidays is not a tenable position. If your v5 asks to push timing, another v5 won't. Just the way this business works. And that's because your client is similarly working over the fake holiday -- when you're more junior, it's the partner asking you to be around and work on paper, when you're more senior, it's the client texting you, calling you, etc., they're keeping the same hours.

July 4, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (if you're observant), Easter (again, if you're observant) are all safe 99% of the time. If you have a deal closing 12/26 or something, there will be massive pressure to be done on 12/23 and then you'll have to review a funds flow or something on 12/25.

Christmas Eve, Memorial Day, Labor Day, all mostly safe. Deal-dependent but in my experience, having done this for a while now, is that unless a deal has actual deadlines to meet 12/26-12/31, you won't work on 12/24. Same for the most part with Memorial and Labor Day.

Anything else is fair game.

[NoLongerALurker]

Re: the Valentines post above: Just jumping in to point out that (pre-covid times) at my V5, I was on a deal team as a midlevel with a first year and a partner. We were trying to make a Feb 15 pre-market filing for a major deal and there was still a shitload of work to be done, and we figured the first year understood what that meant. But at 8pm we call her and she's not in her office. So, fine, whatever. Partner calls her and she ends up coming in at like 9pm clearly tipsy from wine (it being Valentines Day). She proceeds to spend the entire all nighter (the partner had this annoying "we must all be together in the conference room at all times for these things" ethos) making several comments about "Man, I hope the client appreciates the fact that working through midnight on freaking Valentines Day is also just asking for divorces. Is that why lawyers are all divorced? I don't want to be divorced." I found it hilarious, partner found it not so and refused to staff her on future deals. She got a horrible reputation in the group and lateraled to a different group in a different firm. She enjoys her new situation much more and whenever we speak she always mentions how ridiculous it is that lawyers at the V5 "didn't even treat Valentines Day like a holiday!"

Valentine's day anon from above. I mean I get it, we are paid to be available, yada yada. It was a sunday night, the day before a federal holiday. Seems like it would be easy to push back on a client asking for an all nighter that night, considering the timing. Just shows the culture of this industry is fucked. No wonder why people in big law seem to have twisted and mostly symbolic "relationships". Could never be married doing corporate law, and would tell anyone i cared about to avoid corporate lawyers (while they're at a firm) as well. Funniest thing about being a lawyer: as cool as partners may act, they got there by being the biggest servile bitch to their clients. Guess the big house or whatever helps them avoid feeling as emasculated.

The more senior you get, the more you realize that asking the client to push timing on a deal because of fake holidays is not a tenable position. If your v5 asks to push timing, another v5 won't. Just the way this business works. And that's because your client is similarly working over the fake holiday -- when you're more junior, it's the partner asking you to be around and work on paper, when you're more senior, it's the client texting you, calling you, etc., they're keeping the same hours.

July 4, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (if you're observant), Easter (again, if you're observant) are all safe 99% of the time. If you have a deal closing 12/26 or something, there will be massive pressure to be done on 12/23 and then you'll have to review a funds flow or something on 12/25.

Christmas Eve, Memorial Day, Labor Day, all mostly safe. Deal-dependent but in my experience, having done this for a while now, is that unless a deal has actual deadlines to meet 12/26-12/31, you won't work on 12/24. Same for the most part with Memorial and Labor Day.

Anything else is fair game.

I agree with this entirely, with the caveat that the number of times I've had deals with actual deadlines 12/26-12/31 in the past 5 years has been....well...every single year.

[avenuem]

What firms are you all at that aren't training their first years?

Firms with a large amount of work.

Cool, so it's safe to say that I'll have the same experience since I am a 2L summering at a v10. Can't wait!

If by "I am a 2L summering at a v10" you mean you'll summer in 2021 (what a weird, present-progressive statement when it isn't even summer), then that's not necessarily true. Being a summer doesn't always insultate a person from associates who will treat you like a first-year associate and make you work hard and around the clock, including weekends and during social events you're expected to attend. But being a summer does mean there's a limit to how much will be thrown at you, especially at a V10, and that you will attend many trainings.

If by "I am a 2L summering at a v10" you mean "I am a [former] 2L [who] summer[ed] at a v10" then, yes, as a first-year you can expect to be crushed too. Less insultation, less social events, still plenty of formal training.

[daedalus2309]

What firms are you all at that aren't training their first years?

Firms with a large amount of work.

Cool, so it's safe to say that I'll have the same experience since I am a 2L summering at a v10. Can't wait!

If by "I am a 2L summering at a v10" you mean you'll summer in 2021 (what a weird, present-progressive statement when it isn't even summer), then that's not necessarily true. Being a summer doesn't always insultate a person from associates who will treat you like a first-year associate and make you work hard and around the clock, including weekends and during social events you're expected to attend. But being a summer does mean there's a limit to how much will be thrown at you, especially at a V10, and that you will attend many trainings.

If by "I am a 2L summering at a v10" you mean "I am a [former] 2L [who] summer[ed] at a v10" then, yes, as a first-year you can expect to be crushed too. Less insultation, less social events, still plenty of formal training.

A post at midnight by a partner track stub-year

[Anonymous User]

Formal training for juniors is largely not helpful, IMO, at least on the corporate side. You get better from lots of hours and a partner or senior associate teaching you on the fly.

I don’t think it’s really helpful until you’re a senior associate and you are filling in knowledge gaps and refining skills.

[Anonymous User]

A different anonymous replier. Everyone is crushed, no one has no time to teach, and everyone expects you to figure it out. Keeping pace with stages of a deal/what is happening is difficult because we’re assigned one urgent task after another and don’t have time to think about why we’re doing a task or it’s purpose in the deal, so learning is on pause until it calms down.

[vine][/vine]

Anon because I have posts that could reveal my identity and don’t want to get caught complaining. But YES!!! No one tells us what to do, we have no time to get feedback until it’s too late, and I’m doing work I feel seriously unprepared to do. Being treated like a third year. No one has explained anything to me, and everyone gets annoyed when I ask too many questions or mess up.

[Anonymous User]

Corporate first year here. Have been absolutely crushed since the end of December. Lowest points were billing 95 hours one week and having to run a closing entirely on my own without ever even helping out on a closing before. A lot of these issues seem to just be the result of everyone getting absolutely crushed though at top firms. Mid levels have gone MIA at points because they just don't even have time to respond to questions. It seems that first years who "get it" have often been "promoted" on deals to handling a lot of deal management and other tasks that would otherwise be the responsibility of mid-levels but in most cases we probably barely understand what's even happening and are just learning everything completely on the fly.

However, I still think the hardest part has been getting used to being on call at all times, which I knew would be the case, but it just takes some getting used to knowing you can't even sleep in on a weekend because you might have an email at 9am asking you to get something out urgently. I'm hoping that once I get more senior I'll have more semblance of a life because I'll have a little more say on when items get done, but maybe I'm just being naively optimistic.

[Anonymous User]

[deleted]

[Anonymous User]

Corporate first year here. Have been absolutely crushed since the end of December. Lowest points were billing 95 hours one week and having to run a closing entirely on my own without ever even helping out on a closing before. A lot of these issues seem to just be the result of everyone getting absolutely crushed though at top firms. Mid levels have gone MIA at points because they just don't even have time to respond to questions. It seems that first years who "get it" have often been "promoted" on deals to handling a lot of deal management and other tasks that would otherwise be the responsibility of mid-levels but in most cases we probably barely understand what's even happening and are just learning everything completely on the fly.

However, I still think the hardest part has been getting used to being on call at all times, which I knew would be the case, but it just takes some getting used to knowing you can't even sleep in on a weekend because you might have an email at 9am asking you to get something out urgently. I'm hoping that once I get more senior I'll have more semblance of a life because I'll have a little more say on when items get done, but maybe I'm just being naively optimistic.

On the last point, no you don’t need to worry about sleeping in on the weekends (unless you have reason to believe something will come up then). It’s really important to draw self boundaries with this job...because no one else is drawing them for you. That’s how the job gets better

[Anonymous User]

Corporate first year here. Have been absolutely crushed since the end of December. Lowest points were billing 95 hours one week and having to run a closing entirely on my own without ever even helping out on a closing before. A lot of these issues seem to just be the result of everyone getting absolutely crushed though at top firms. Mid levels have gone MIA at points because they just don't even have time to respond to questions. It seems that first years who "get it" have often been "promoted" on deals to handling a lot of deal management and other tasks that would otherwise be the responsibility of mid-levels but in most cases we probably barely understand what's even happening and are just learning everything completely on the fly.

However, I still think the hardest part has been getting used to being on call at all times, which I knew would be the case, but it just takes some getting used to knowing you can't even sleep in on a weekend because you might have an email at 9am asking you to get something out urgently. I'm hoping that once I get more senior I'll have more semblance of a life because I'll have a little more say on when items get done, but maybe I'm just being naively optimistic.

unless you had some form of notice or it's a time any associate would reasonably expect to have to turn something fast (like near a launch/pricing/signing/closing/etc.), you can sleep in a bit before turning something that came out of the blue on a Saturday at 9am (unless the partner or client is the psycho type where even that's unacceptable, in which case get out of that situation if you can)

the person probably just wanted to get it out before enjoying their Saturday/weekend. they're not gonna review it at 930 or 10am. don't hold yourself to an unreasonable standard unless someone above you is demanding it.

[Anonymous User]

Christmas Eve, Memorial Day, Labor Day, all mostly safe. Deal-dependent but in my experience, having done this for a while now, is that unless a deal has actual deadlines to meet 12/26-12/31, you won't work on 12/24. Same for the most part with Memorial and Labor Day.

Christmas Eve isn't even a holiday at my firm

[Anonymous User]

Christmas Eve, Memorial Day, Labor Day, all mostly safe. Deal-dependent but in my experience, having done this for a while now, is that unless a deal has actual deadlines to meet 12/26-12/31, you won't work on 12/24. Same for the most part with Memorial and Labor Day.

Christmas Eve isn't even a holiday at my firm

It’s not a federal holiday either. I know when I was clerking the chief judge usually closed the court and gave everyone the day off, but it was absolutely discretionary. Most people I know don’t officially get Christmas Eve off (lots just take it off as vacation). I don’t think the post you’re replying to means it’s a firm holiday, just that most people can take it off without issue (though obviously if you have something closing on Dec 26 or the like that’s not going to be the case).

[Anonymous User]

Christmas Eve, Memorial Day, Labor Day, all mostly safe. Deal-dependent but in my experience, having done this for a while now, is that unless a deal has actual deadlines to meet 12/26-12/31, you won't work on 12/24. Same for the most part with Memorial and Labor Day.

Christmas Eve isn't even a holiday at my firm

It’s not a federal holiday either. I know when I was clerking the chief judge usually closed the court and gave everyone the day off, but it was absolutely discretionary. Most people I know don’t officially get Christmas Eve off (lots just take it off as vacation). I don’t think the post you’re replying to means it’s a firm holiday, just that most people can take it off without issue (though obviously if you have something closing on Dec 26 or the like that’s not going to be the case).

Makes sense. Unfortunately the holidays seem to be a super busy time in my practice group, and only Christmas day is really safe.

[toast and bananas]

To all the first years posting in this thread, I wish I could say it gets better, but it doesn't. It gets worse. That said, it's also somehow better because midlevel+ work is infinitely better than junior work, even though your time is demanded even more as a midlevel/senior associate.

Sincerely, a very sad midlevel with 550 hours in 2021

[UnassumingUsername]

Not a first year - but in response to the complaints about training, and in case helpful, I didn’t figure out till a few years in (probably too late) that training is something you need to seek and handle for yourself, in addition to any formal sessions (many of which are abstract and may not make sense if you‘ve never encountered the subject of discussion).

Read documents even if you aren’t producing them yourself, run blacklines and figure out why changes were made (and if you can’t, make notes of what you don’t know). Then try to make time (eventually) to talk to and ask mid-levels or seniors who seem kind and with whom you have a good equation. (They do exist, even if they don’t always have time.) For the other interstices, there are PLI and ABA.

I’ve also found it helpful to keep running notes regarding different types of documents with points that I’ve picked up (together with references to forms/precedents, and copied and pasted clauses).

The biggest switch in corporate law is knowing what you don’t know - not knowing everything, but having a sense of which questions to ask, and how to get answers without bugging people/letting it affect your reputation. Steps above might help, although of course there’s no substitute for doing stuff. (Partners don’t know everything, though they often seem like they do. They’ve just figured out how to figure it out.)

Being busy sucks, but if you keep your wits about you you can use it as an opportunity to touch a lot of documents and get broadly familiar with a lot of the things you need to do in your practice area.

In the meantime - and especially as a first year - being polite, enthusiastic, accurate, avoiding typos and making sure you take comments properly, presenting your correspondence well, and delivering on time (ideally 30 mins in advance of a deadline) will win you a lot of points.

It’s not always this terrible, I promise, but I am sorry that we’re all getting so crushed without the ability to communicate live as one might normally do. Keeping an eye on your bank balance helps. Knowing that decent clients are grateful - even if your partners and seniors don’t communicate this as much as they should - may help more.

This kind of thinking is outdated and harmful. The effort it takes to formalize training programs and implementing training is miniscule compared to the dividends resulting from training associates. Not training associates--especially if they do not seek it out--shackles associates to a firm so that they have no substantive knowledge of the law, all while furthering inequality.

The only helpful comment you made is keeping a list of precedents.

[lolwutpar]

To all the first years posting in this thread, I wish I could say it gets better, but it doesn't. It gets worse. That said, it's also somehow better because midlevel+ work is infinitely better than junior work, even though your time is demanded even more as a midlevel/senior associate.

Sincerely, a very sad midlevel with 550 hours in 2021

There is something to be said about either knowing what you're doing or, if you don't, not stressing about it anymore. I think years 3-5 or 6 are probably the "sweet spot" of not being anxious or confused about not knowing anything. But, on the flip side, the greater responsibility just means you end up working "more" - even if on an hours basis it doesn't seem that way, slogging through 200 hours of diligence is a lot less mentally draining than drafting deal docs and running deals.

But also, 550 hours in two months? JFC dude.

[Anonymous User]

Working with a senior associate now who is a nightmare. Will call me on my phone with no warning and get mad at me for not picking up. Unreasonable about when things are due. Overly nitpicky about minor things in assignments and wont give me any interesting or high impact work despite the fact that I have asked for it. Complained about them to a partner so hopefully they will treat me better or get fired.

[Anonymous User]

This kind of thinking is outdated and harmful. The effort it takes to formalize training programs and implementing training is miniscule compared to the dividends resulting from training associates. Not training associates--especially if they do not seek it out--shackles associates to a firm so that they have no substantive knowledge of the law, all while furthering inequality.

The only helpful comment you made is keeping a list of precedents.

So, do you mean actual formal training sessions with an instructor kind of thing? Or just an individual more senior person (associate or partner) actually explaining to an associate how to do whatever assignment it is they've just given the associate to do, and why they're doing it? How much of the former actually takes place in biglaw firms and what kinds of things does it cover? It's hard for me to think that people don't learn substantive knowledge of the law through actually doing the work that they have to do.

[TUwave]

Working with a senior associate now who is a nightmare. Will call me on my phone with no warning and get mad at me for not picking up. Unreasonable about when things are due. Overly nitpicky about minor things in assignments and wont give me any interesting or high impact work despite the fact that I have asked for it. Complained about them to a partner so hopefully they will treat me better or get fired.

Well done.