Susman Godfrey Hours? Culture? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Staying in biglaw is also uncertain though, the attrition is good evidence of that. Top business schools are probably more the chasing comp move than law school, not to say that law school is far off

Some data for median starting salary and bonuses: https://poetsandquants.com/2023/01/25/m ... d-bonuses/

At top schools median starting salaries in the range of $145k to $160k, with a signing bonus of about $30k.

The department of education has *mean* starting salaries for law schools (which probably are reasonably close to the median since there's no long right tail -- if anything the median might be above the mean here): https://www.spiveyconsulting.com/blog-p ... graduates/

Closer to $160-180k.

Hard data on long-term outcomes is obviously a lot harder (and you start to need to factor in compensating differentials). Certainly if you're comparing biglaw and consulting, biglaw comes out ahead. I know partners in both, and the money for a v10 biglaw partner is an integer multiple of an MBB partner.

Business school these days is not for winners.

interesting info. Starting salaries seem comparable but business school is 1 year less tuition and 1 year more of working. that's like a 200k startup difference. Biglaw partnership is definitely lucrative but that is not the median outcome.

Again not saying law gets totally washed by business but business is a measurable amount more efficient

[Anonymous User]

Can someone give insight into how much Susman requires/wants associates to bill?
Workload?

I've heard they offer a lot of experience, but as someone coming off a clerkship with very little REAL legal training, do they actually *teach* you how to practice?

Senior SG associate. There's no requirement or desire, though the median tends to be around 2,700 hours. If you're much lower than that you'll likely get staffed to another case--not because the firm has some sort of expectation, but rather because associates are the scarcest commodity and there is always a backlog of cases needing them.

As others have noted, there is very little formal training. We're a firm where people learn by doing, and that's the kind of associate the firm tends to attract--i.e. very entrepreneurial, confident, go-getter types. Of course, that doesn't mean training is non-existent. Every associate is assigned an associate and a partner mentor (and eventually has the option for two partner mentors), and the mentors frequently give feedback not just on how to navigate the firm, but also on substantive tasks. And pretty much all of the associates and partners alike are happy to sit down and go over work product to give you pointers on how to improve.

Thanks for answering.
This may be impossible to answer, but do most folks generally stay?
Or is it similar to biglaw in that a lot of folks get run out/burn out/hate it?

Same SG associate. I'd say that most stay, but it can vary from class to class. More than half of the class that I started with is still around and the vast majority of those that left did so on their own terms.

[Anonymous User]

Hello. Law student here. Could somebody from Susman Godfrey equate how the billable hours actually translate to working hours. Obviously, they are not going to be 1 to 1. But what does a typical day of billable hours look like in terms of arriving in office, leaving the office and work over weekends, if you get my meaning.

Thank you in advance!

[Anonymous User]

Hello. Law student here. Could somebody from Susman Godfrey equate how the billable hours actually translate to working hours. Obviously, they are not going to be 1 to 1. But what does a typical day of billable hours look like in terms of arriving in office, leaving the office and work over weekends, if you get my meaning.

Thank you in advance!

Same SG associate that has responded to many questions on this thread. You're correct that the hours are not one-to-one. But with the way that we staff and work up cases, our billing efficiency tends to be much higher than what you'd expect at your typical big law firm or even at our competitor firms. No two days are alike, but let's say that I'm in the office for twelve hours in any given day. I'd probably say i'm billing anywhere between ten to eleven of those hours (and it's likely toward the higher end).

A couple of additional points: Our national practice means frequent travel, which, while requiring time away from home, also adds to billable hours and makes the workload more sustainable.

And finally, we go to trial far more often than most firms. Trial periods inevitably mean intense billing, but they also create natural ebbs and flows that help balance the workload over the course of the year.

[Anonymous User]

Thank you for the information! And do you work a lot of hours most weekends?

[Anonymous User]

Thank you for the information! And do you work a lot of hours most weekends?

I actually have pretty good work-life balance most weekends. As associates, we have considerable autonomy in managing our cases and scheduling our work hours, as long as everything gets done well and on time. I personally prefer to focus my energy during the weekdays so I can recharge on weekends – and the firm respects that approach.

That said, some weekend work is part of the job. Outside of particularly intense periods, I typically spend about 2-3 hours per weekend catching up on cases. And there are certainly busier seasons, like when we're preparing for trial or working under tight briefing deadlines, where more substantial weekend work becomes necessary.

The key is that the firm supports associates in finding a sustainable rhythm that works for them, which I've really come to appreciate – despite the otherwise high billable hours.