Does big law litigation develop actual litigation skills? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I am a c/o 2020 litigation associate in a very small, very busy outpost of a firm that's otherwise very big and very hierarchical i.e. not Susman, etc. I am getting significant litigation experience -- running M&Cs, taking multiple depositions, drafting MTDs etc from scratch. Part of it is the specific culture of my office, but part of it is just that we're currently understaffed. I am billing over 200 every month and am burning out. I would personally prefer to sacrifice some of this early litigation experience

Getting that intense litigation experience is valuable and good, no question. But there's a bigger problem lurking beneath it all: a civil litigator is not a trial lawyer. Without going to trial at least a few times, it's difficult to properly conceptualize exactly why you're engaged in all of your various pre-trial litigation strategies. If you're not nervously thinking about what the closing argument in this massive case you're handling would look like, you're handling even the earliest and easiest depositions in the case differently than an experienced trial lawyer would.

Like I said, the busy pre-trial litigation stuff is still valuable, so take it if offered and get good at it. The actual trial training is impossible for almost all non-geezer lawyers these days. But, if trials are what get you excited, and how you want to make yourself stand out as you develop your legal career, you probably can't get it in the private sector (except criminal defense).

[Lacepiece23]

I am a c/o 2020 litigation associate in a very small, very busy outpost of a firm that's otherwise very big and very hierarchical i.e. not Susman, etc. I am getting significant litigation experience -- running M&Cs, taking multiple depositions, drafting MTDs etc from scratch. Part of it is the specific culture of my office, but part of it is just that we're currently understaffed. I am billing over 200 every month and am burning out. I would personally prefer to sacrifice some of this early litigation experience

Getting that intense litigation experience is valuable and good, no question. But there's a bigger problem lurking beneath it all: a civil litigator is not a trial lawyer. Without going to trial at least a few times, it's difficult to properly conceptualize exactly why you're engaged in all of your various pre-trial litigation strategies. If you're not nervously thinking about what the closing argument in this massive case you're handling would look like, you're handling even the earliest and easiest depositions in the case differently than an experienced trial lawyer would.

Like I said, the busy pre-trial litigation stuff is still valuable, so take it if offered and get good at it. The actual trial training is impossible for almost all non-geezer lawyers these days. But, if trials are what get you excited, and how you want to make yourself stand out as you develop your legal career, you probably can't get it in the private sector (except criminal defense).

You could always become a plaintiffs lawyer. I have two trials lined up in a period of four months apart.