Biglawyers. Are any of you happy? Was this job better than others you've had? Forum

[whysoseriousbiglaw]

This has been my experience as well. Beyond just being crazy, it's the losers that stay, for lack of a better word. The kind of people that genuinely don't have anything better to do on Friday or Saturday night. Moving commas in paperwork that no one on the business side gives a shit about is actually the most interesting thing they have going on. Some of these people haven't watched a movie or read a book in what seems like years. Drinks with friends on a regular basis? LOL no. It's fucking pathetic.

The normal but still ambitious people realize their fuckup in going law over business and try to lateral into banking or the business side ASAP. Do any of you know a JD/MBA from a decent school that took transactional biglaw (not lit) over banking or consulting? Fuck no. The normal but not so ambitious people take that inhouse job ASAP and enjoy their free time. Then you have plenty that leave law entirely. I went to a solid undergrad and know a decent number of bankers, consultants, engineers, software types, and a few in various medical fields, and none want to leave their field entirely like the lawyers. Plenty of them don't like their jobs, but very few genuinely hate their jobs like many of the lawyers I know.

For those that act annoyed at all the negativity in this thread, too fucking bad. You don't dominate all those worst job rankings with such high pay unless the job is absolute shit.

So true. A lot of unmarried oldies too - like wtf is wrong with you if you have never been married by 40? Must be a psychopath if not hideous looking. A sad part is a lot of these losers think the money is "too good to give up" - not only are they losers with no life, they also lack perspective failing to realize that the money isn't that good for where they live. They are probably, as someone else put it, slack jawed proles who don't know what good money is.

[runinthefront]

.

[zot1]

This thread is a sad, sad place.

Biglaw is a sad place.

It's not that bad. While it becomes your entire life, that's not that unreasonable considering no jobs pay you a comparable salary when you're useless with no idea of what you're doing, and most of the crazies, assholes and sketcheys in the profession get filtered out.

This is what I've never understood--yes, you get paid more in biglaw than other law jobs, but you also work more on average.

[juzam_djinn]

This thread is a sad, sad place.

Biglaw is a sad place.

It's not that bad. While it becomes your entire life, that's not that unreasonable considering no jobs pay you a comparable salary when you're useless with no idea of what you're doing, and most of the crazies, assholes and sketcheys in the profession get filtered out.

actually the opposite is true. all the normal people get weeded out because they realize it's not worth for the extra ~40k they are getting and they move on to inhouse, smaller firms, etc. so really you're left with the crazies, assholes and sketcheys in the top positions who make everyones lives miserable and so the process goes on and on. In my experience the amount of "normal" people at the top ranks is extremely small. if you find a normal senior/counsel/partner snatch on to them asap, working for them could give you a totally difference experience

This is incredibly true, the people that stay are the crazy people. And even if the people are normal, the clients are all freaking crazy people with no respect for their own or other people's lives. I am about to leave my V25 firm after a year because I honestly can't imagine doing this shit anymore.

This has been my experience as well. Beyond just being crazy, it's the losers that stay, for lack of a better word. The kind of people that genuinely don't have anything better to do on Friday or Saturday night. Moving commas in paperwork that no one on the business side gives a shit about is actually the most interesting thing they have going on. Some of these people haven't watched a movie or read a book in what seems like years. Drinks with friends on a regular basis? LOL no. It's fucking pathetic.

The normal but still ambitious people realize their fuckup in going law over business and try to lateral into banking or the business side ASAP. Do any of you know a JD/MBA from a decent school that took transactional biglaw (not lit) over banking or consulting? Fuck no. The normal but not so ambitious people take that inhouse job ASAP and enjoy their free time. Then you have plenty that leave law entirely. I went to a solid undergrad and know a decent number of bankers, consultants, engineers, software types, and a few in various medical fields, and none want to leave their field entirely like the lawyers. Plenty of them don't like their jobs, but very few genuinely hate their jobs like many of the lawyers I know.

For those that act annoyed at all the negativity in this thread, too fucking bad. You don't dominate all those worst job rankings with such high pay unless the job is absolute shit.

lol why are all these horribly negative posts done anonymously?

your post is ostensibly about biz v. law, but in reality it's about biz v. transactional law. you also have a strangely sharp axe to grind against biglaw corp...

[jkpolk]

This thread is a sad, sad place.

Biglaw is a sad place.

It's not that bad. While it becomes your entire life, that's not that unreasonable considering no jobs pay you a comparable salary when you're useless with no idea of what you're doing, and most of the crazies, assholes and sketcheys in the profession get filtered out.

actually the opposite is true. all the normal people get weeded out because they realize it's not worth for the extra ~40k they are getting and they move on to inhouse, smaller firms, etc. so really you're left with the crazies, assholes and sketcheys in the top positions who make everyones lives miserable and so the process goes on and on. In my experience the amount of "normal" people at the top ranks is extremely small. if you find a normal senior/counsel/partner snatch on to them asap, working for them could give you a totally difference experience

This is incredibly true, the people that stay are the crazy people. And even if the people are normal, the clients are all freaking crazy people with no respect for their own or other people's lives. I am about to leave my V25 firm after a year because I honestly can't imagine doing this shit anymore.

This has been my experience as well. Beyond just being crazy, it's the losers that stay, for lack of a better word. The kind of people that genuinely don't have anything better to do on Friday or Saturday night. Moving commas in paperwork that no one on the business side gives a shit about is actually the most interesting thing they have going on. Some of these people haven't watched a movie or read a book in what seems like years. Drinks with friends on a regular basis? LOL no. It's fucking pathetic.

The normal but still ambitious people realize their fuckup in going law over business and try to lateral into banking or the business side ASAP. Do any of you know a JD/MBA from a decent school that took transactional biglaw (not lit) over banking or consulting? Fuck no. The normal but not so ambitious people take that inhouse job ASAP and enjoy their free time. Then you have plenty that leave law entirely. I went to a solid undergrad and know a decent number of bankers, consultants, engineers, software types, and a few in various medical fields, and none want to leave their field entirely like the lawyers. Plenty of them don't like their jobs, but very few genuinely hate their jobs like many of the lawyers I know.

For those that act annoyed at all the negativity in this thread, too fucking bad. You don't dominate all those worst job rankings with such high pay unless the job is absolute shit.

lol why are all these horribly negative posts done anonymously?

your post is ostensibly about biz v. law, but in reality it's about biz v. transactional law. you also have a strangely sharp axe to grind against biglaw corp...

FWIW I agree with anon on all points - i don't think he has an axe to grind

[rawrpalooza]

This thread is a sad, sad place.

Biglaw is a sad place.

It's not that bad. While it becomes your entire life, that's not that unreasonable considering no jobs pay you a comparable salary when you're useless with no idea of what you're doing, and most of the crazies, assholes and sketcheys in the profession get filtered out.

actually the opposite is true. all the normal people get weeded out because they realize it's not worth for the extra ~40k they are getting and they move on to inhouse, smaller firms, etc. so really you're left with the crazies, assholes and sketcheys in the top positions who make everyones lives miserable and so the process goes on and on. In my experience the amount of "normal" people at the top ranks is extremely small. if you find a normal senior/counsel/partner snatch on to them asap, working for them could give you a totally difference experience

This is incredibly true, the people that stay are the crazy people. And even if the people are normal, the clients are all freaking crazy people with no respect for their own or other people's lives. I am about to leave my V25 firm after a year because I honestly can't imagine doing this shit anymore.

This has been my experience as well. Beyond just being crazy, it's the losers that stay, for lack of a better word. The kind of people that genuinely don't have anything better to do on Friday or Saturday night. Moving commas in paperwork that no one on the business side gives a shit about is actually the most interesting thing they have going on. Some of these people haven't watched a movie or read a book in what seems like years. Drinks with friends on a regular basis? LOL no. It's fucking pathetic.

The normal but still ambitious people realize their fuckup in going law over business and try to lateral into banking or the business side ASAP. Do any of you know a JD/MBA from a decent school that took transactional biglaw (not lit) over banking or consulting? Fuck no. The normal but not so ambitious people take that inhouse job ASAP and enjoy their free time. Then you have plenty that leave law entirely. I went to a solid undergrad and know a decent number of bankers, consultants, engineers, software types, and a few in various medical fields, and none want to leave their field entirely like the lawyers. Plenty of them don't like their jobs, but very few genuinely hate their jobs like many of the lawyers I know.

For those that act annoyed at all the negativity in this thread, too fucking bad. You don't dominate all those worst job rankings with such high pay unless the job is absolute shit.

Not saying that your overall point is wrong, but anecdotally, this is false. Plenty of JD/MBA's, perhaps even a plurality of them, at my T14 took transactional biglaw over business-side options.

[Anonymous User]

This thread is a sad, sad place.

Biglaw is a sad place.

It's not that bad. While it becomes your entire life, that's not that unreasonable considering no jobs pay you a comparable salary when you're useless with no idea of what you're doing, and most of the crazies, assholes and sketcheys in the profession get filtered out.

actually the opposite is true. all the normal people get weeded out because they realize it's not worth for the extra ~40k they are getting and they move on to inhouse, smaller firms, etc. so really you're left with the crazies, assholes and sketcheys in the top positions who make everyones lives miserable and so the process goes on and on. In my experience the amount of "normal" people at the top ranks is extremely small. if you find a normal senior/counsel/partner snatch on to them asap, working for them could give you a totally difference experience

This is incredibly true, the people that stay are the crazy people. And even if the people are normal, the clients are all freaking crazy people with no respect for their own or other people's lives. I am about to leave my V25 firm after a year because I honestly can't imagine doing this shit anymore.

This has been my experience as well. Beyond just being crazy, it's the losers that stay, for lack of a better word. The kind of people that genuinely don't have anything better to do on Friday or Saturday night. Moving commas in paperwork that no one on the business side gives a shit about is actually the most interesting thing they have going on. Some of these people haven't watched a movie or read a book in what seems like years. Drinks with friends on a regular basis? LOL no. It's fucking pathetic.

The normal but still ambitious people realize their fuckup in going law over business and try to lateral into banking or the business side ASAP. Do any of you know a JD/MBA from a decent school that took transactional biglaw (not lit) over banking or consulting? Fuck no. The normal but not so ambitious people take that inhouse job ASAP and enjoy their free time. Then you have plenty that leave law entirely. I went to a solid undergrad and know a decent number of bankers, consultants, engineers, software types, and a few in various medical fields, and none want to leave their field entirely like the lawyers. Plenty of them don't like their jobs, but very few genuinely hate their jobs like many of the lawyers I know.

For those that act annoyed at all the negativity in this thread, too fucking bad. You don't dominate all those worst job rankings with such high pay unless the job is absolute shit.

lol why are all these horribly negative posts done anonymously?

your post is ostensibly about biz v. law, but in reality it's about biz v. transactional law. you also have a strangely sharp axe to grind against biglaw corp...

I am transactional fwiw, and that's generally been clear in the posts I've made on this topic. Anecdotally, the litigators I know seem to hate big law less, so there's that. As far as why the actual lawyers posting in this thread are often anonymous, does that really confuse you?

No axe to grind, but I thought it would be helpful to give a viewpoint based on actual experience. This forum seems to be full of law students and stub years trying to justify their decisions. Don't get me wrong, that was me too at one point. As a law student and during those first few months I thought for sure law wouldn't be as bad as everyone said. Oops.

[Anonymous User]

This thread is a sad, sad place.

Biglaw is a sad place.

It's not that bad. While it becomes your entire life, that's not that unreasonable considering no jobs pay you a comparable salary when you're useless with no idea of what you're doing, and most of the crazies, assholes and sketcheys in the profession get filtered out.

actually the opposite is true. all the normal people get weeded out because they realize it's not worth for the extra ~40k they are getting and they move on to inhouse, smaller firms, etc. so really you're left with the crazies, assholes and sketcheys in the top positions who make everyones lives miserable and so the process goes on and on. In my experience the amount of "normal" people at the top ranks is extremely small. if you find a normal senior/counsel/partner snatch on to them asap, working for them could give you a totally difference experience

This is incredibly true, the people that stay are the crazy people. And even if the people are normal, the clients are all freaking crazy people with no respect for their own or other people's lives. I am about to leave my V25 firm after a year because I honestly can't imagine doing this shit anymore.

This has been my experience as well. Beyond just being crazy, it's the losers that stay, for lack of a better word. The kind of people that genuinely don't have anything better to do on Friday or Saturday night. Moving commas in paperwork that no one on the business side gives a shit about is actually the most interesting thing they have going on. Some of these people haven't watched a movie or read a book in what seems like years. Drinks with friends on a regular basis? LOL no. It's fucking pathetic.

The normal but still ambitious people realize their fuckup in going law over business and try to lateral into banking or the business side ASAP. Do any of you know a JD/MBA from a decent school that took transactional biglaw (not lit) over banking or consulting? Fuck no. The normal but not so ambitious people take that inhouse job ASAP and enjoy their free time. Then you have plenty that leave law entirely. I went to a solid undergrad and know a decent number of bankers, consultants, engineers, software types, and a few in various medical fields, and none want to leave their field entirely like the lawyers. Plenty of them don't like their jobs, but very few genuinely hate their jobs like many of the lawyers I know.

For those that act annoyed at all the negativity in this thread, too fucking bad. You don't dominate all those worst job rankings with such high pay unless the job is absolute shit.

Not saying that your overall point is wrong, but anecdotally, this is false. Plenty of JD/MBA's, perhaps even a plurality of them, at my T14 took transactional biglaw over business-side options.

NYC transactional over banking or consulting after doing summers in both? I stand corrected then. I could see taking law for lit or to avoid NYC, but otherwise wow.

[Tls2016]

I was happy in biglaw but I was a workaholic striver. I lived for prestige and my school and my job was my identity.

I grew up in the city. I think that helped a lot because I have lifelong friends and family here. I feel it's more difficult for people who come to the city without a support system that can work around biglaw hours. It's hard to create a social life when you work all the time.

I also had no debt so I could save money easily.

I left after being seriously ill for a while, having to be on disability, which my firm supported but inevitably sidelined my career, and finally realizing there is much more to life than work and money.

If you are a workaholic striver, feel validated by the prestige of your firm and the deals you work on, and don't need much sleep to function, you will probably like biglaw.

It's still not worth the debt though. I would never have gone deeply into debt for law even though it worked out for me. There are other options in NYC to make money other than biglaw.

[juzam_djinn]

Use of anon doesn't surprise me at all. I just don't agree with it. Few people have posting histories that clearly indicate which firm they are at. Fewer people will have employers or coworkers who actually take the time to go through and identify the individual. Why so worried?

TBH, I do agree with most of what you say. It just makes intuitive sense. If you went to law school not b/c you were interested in "lawyering" in the sense that the general public views lawyers (i.e. Go to court, write briefs, argue,), but rather b/c you wanted to be an important professional and make $, then it seems obvious that there's a great chance you will end up choosing transactional law (since all the litigation-focus in school will turn you away from lit), hate it, and start envying the business side of things. Of course, that's not to say all corp lawyers end up hating it. I know people who stumbled into it and end up relatively enjoying it. It's just that common sense suggests very few people go to law school b/c they hope to one day work on a merger or an IPO in a legal capacity.

IMO, there's really no point in reiterating it. This line of thinking has been beaten to death on this board. It's really not a reflection on the legal profession, but on the expectations of many people who enter it. But offering views that "correct" these misguided expectations doesn't accomplish much. There's already way more than enough negativity out there to scare off prospective law students who don't have the right reasons for going to LS. Additional negativity is just negativity for negativity's sake. But I guess, if the goal is to complain, then by all means go for it

[whysoseriousbiglaw]

I was happy in biglaw but I was a workaholic striver. I lived for prestige and my school and my job was my identity.

I grew up in the city. I think that helped a lot because I have lifelong friends and family here. I feel it's more difficult for people who come to the city without a support system that can work around biglaw hours. It's hard to create a social life when you work all the time.

I also had no debt so I could save money easily.

I left after being seriously ill for a while, having to be on disability, which my firm supported but inevitably sidelined my career, and finally realizing there is much more to life than work and money.

If you are a workaholic striver, feel validated by the prestige of your firm and the deals you work on, and don't need much sleep to function, you will probably like biglaw.

It's still not worth the debt though. I would never have gone deeply into debt for law even though it worked out for me. There are other options in NYC to make money other than biglaw.

What do you do now? Are you still in the law?

My friend also took medical leave in biglaw and by the time he/she came back, they more or less stopped staffing him/her...

[Tls2016]

I was happy in biglaw but I was a workaholic striver. I lived for prestige and my school and my job was my identity.

I grew up in the city. I think that helped a lot because I have lifelong friends and family here. I feel it's more difficult for people who come to the city without a support system that can work around biglaw hours. It's hard to create a social life when you work all the time.

I also had no debt so I could save money easily.

I left after being seriously ill for a while, having to be on disability, which my firm supported but inevitably sidelined my career, and finally realizing there is much more to life than work and money.

If you are a workaholic striver, feel validated by the prestige of your firm and the deals you work on, and don't need much sleep to function, you will probably like biglaw.

It's still not worth the debt though. I would never have gone deeply into debt for law even though it worked out for me. There are other options in NYC to make money other than biglaw.

What do you do now? Are you still in the law?

My friend also took medical leave in biglaw and by the time he/she came back, they more or less stopped staffing him/her...

I'm still figuring out my next career. I do work a couple days a week in some stuff related to environmental conservation and preservation.And I have a pro bono job working with victims of human trafficking. But I'm not interested in practicing immigration law as anything more than pro bono. It's not that interesting and the cases are depressing.

Luckily I have money saved while I figure it out. I left without a sure plan other than the part time job, but as I'm not interested in pursuing corporate law I don't think that will hurt me. I'm not interested in in house. I have a few other ideas that I'm going to be pursuing in the spring. Once I knew my career in biglaw was dead because I had been gone too long,I decided that I was done in corporate.

[Anonymous User]

I was happy in biglaw but I was a workaholic striver. I lived for prestige and my school and my job was my identity.

I grew up in the city. I think that helped a lot because I have lifelong friends and family here. I feel it's more difficult for people who come to the city without a support system that can work around biglaw hours. It's hard to create a social life when you work all the time.

I also had no debt so I could save money easily.

I left after being seriously ill for a while, having to be on disability, which my firm supported but inevitably sidelined my career, and finally realizing there is much more to life than work and money.

If you are a workaholic striver, feel validated by the prestige of your firm and the deals you work on, and don't need much sleep to function, you will probably like biglaw.

It's still not worth the debt though. I would never have gone deeply into debt for law even though it worked out for me. There are other options in NYC to make money other than biglaw.

What do you do now? Are you still in the law?

My friend also took medical leave in biglaw and by the time he/she came back, they more or less stopped staffing him/her...

I'm still figuring out my next career. I do work a couple days a week in some stuff related to environmental conservation and preservation.And I have a pro bono job working with victims of human trafficking. But I'm not interested in practicing immigration law as anything more than pro bono. It's not that interesting and the cases are depressing.

Luckily I have money saved while I figure it out. I left without a sure plan other than the part time job, but as I'm not interested in pursuing corporate law I don't think that will hurt me. I'm not interested in in house. I have a few other ideas that I'm going to be pursuing in the spring. Once I knew my career in biglaw was dead because I had been gone too long,I decided that I was done in corporate.

Did the work ever get better in corporate? The on your feet time pressure stuff at closing is cool, but the rest of it is very boring.

[Anonymous User]

It seems like most of the conversation on this thread is about transactional work in BigLaw. I was wondering if the same negative experience awaits those looking at BigLaw from a purely Litigation focus.

If anyone on here in BL can shed light on any differences (if there are) between the two experiences that would be appreciated.

[Tls2016]

I liked being in on the structuring of deals and I liked negotiating. I liked getting deals closed. But I am one of the few people who was happy in biglaw so I am not the best person to ask. I don't know if it gets better for most people, in my experience the vast majority of people leave as soon as they can afford to or find something else. The composition of your class will change drastically as time goes by.

[El Pollito]

It seems like most of the conversation on this thread is about transactional work in BigLaw. I was wondering if the same negative experience awaits those looking at BigLaw from a purely Litigation focus.

If anyone on here in BL can shed light on any differences (if there are) between the two experiences that would be appreciated.

Litigation is also awful and repetitive and you have no exit options.

[patentlitigatrix]

It seems like most of the conversation on this thread is about transactional work in BigLaw. I was wondering if the same negative experience awaits those looking at BigLaw from a purely Litigation focus.

If anyone on here in BL can shed light on any differences (if there are) between the two experiences that would be appreciated.

Litigation is also awful and repetitive and you have no exit options.

I love being a litigator at a large law firm. Folks who leave my firm from litigation seem to get great in-house jobs.

[juzam_djinn]

It seems like most of the conversation on this thread is about transactional work in BigLaw. I was wondering if the same negative experience awaits those looking at BigLaw from a purely Litigation focus.

If anyone on here in BL can shed light on any differences (if there are) between the two experiences that would be appreciated.

Litigation is also awful and repetitive and you have no exit options.

how repetitive are we talking? I definitely have no basis to disagree; just wondering if it's really the monotony that makes biglaw lit bad.

the associates I've talked to all say that they wish they could get some doc review on their hands so that they can "give their brains some rest" from the substantive stuff. It does sound like constant pressure to turn in great written work (long memos that go to client, briefs/motions, etc.) would be worse than boredom...care to shed some light on this perspective?

[Anonymous User]

I think there may be some difference in monotony of lit work at lets say, Sullivan & Cromwell as a third-year vs. Boies or W&C, no?

[jkpolk]

I think there may be some difference in monotony of lit work at lets say, Sullivan & Cromwell as a third-year vs. Boies or W&C, no?

lol'd hard

[Anonymous User]

I think there may be some difference in monotony of lit work at lets say, Sullivan & Cromwell as a third-year vs. Boies or W&C, no?

lol'd hard

I know they're all doing mainly the same work and staffed on a high # of the same cases as co-counsel, but I'd expect there to be more opportunity for smaller, "grab bag" or "one-off" cases at the latter. Genuinely interested in the answer/truth

[juzam_djinn]

I think there may be some difference in monotony of lit work at lets say, Sullivan & Cromwell as a third-year vs. Boies or W&C, no?

lol'd hard

why the lol? again, not arguing, just trying to hear some details to shed some light on the work

[whysoseriousbiglaw]

I was happy in biglaw but I was a workaholic striver. I lived for prestige and my school and my job was my identity.

I grew up in the city. I think that helped a lot because I have lifelong friends and family here. I feel it's more difficult for people who come to the city without a support system that can work around biglaw hours. It's hard to create a social life when you work all the time.

I also had no debt so I could save money easily.

I left after being seriously ill for a while, having to be on disability, which my firm supported but inevitably sidelined my career, and finally realizing there is much more to life than work and money.

If you are a workaholic striver, feel validated by the prestige of your firm and the deals you work on, and don't need much sleep to function, you will probably like biglaw.

It's still not worth the debt though. I would never have gone deeply into debt for law even though it worked out for me. There are other options in NYC to make money other than biglaw.

What do you do now? Are you still in the law?

My friend also took medical leave in biglaw and by the time he/she came back, they more or less stopped staffing him/her...

I'm still figuring out my next career. I do work a couple days a week in some stuff related to environmental conservation and preservation.And I have a pro bono job working with victims of human trafficking. But I'm not interested in practicing immigration law as anything more than pro bono. It's not that interesting and the cases are depressing.

Luckily I have money saved while I figure it out. I left without a sure plan other than the part time job, but as I'm not interested in pursuing corporate law I don't think that will hurt me. I'm not interested in in house. I have a few other ideas that I'm going to be pursuing in the spring. Once I knew my career in biglaw was dead because I had been gone too long,I decided that I was done in corporate.

So maybe non profit work of some type? I'm still in biglaw but wonder on a daily basis what I want to do with my life. I think there's a lot of us like that.

A bunch at my firm have left with no job...and then a year later end up back in law in some other capacity.

[zot1]

I was happy in biglaw but I was a workaholic striver. I lived for prestige and my school and my job was my identity.

I grew up in the city. I think that helped a lot because I have lifelong friends and family here. I feel it's more difficult for people who come to the city without a support system that can work around biglaw hours. It's hard to create a social life when you work all the time.

I also had no debt so I could save money easily.

I left after being seriously ill for a while, having to be on disability, which my firm supported but inevitably sidelined my career, and finally realizing there is much more to life than work and money.

If you are a workaholic striver, feel validated by the prestige of your firm and the deals you work on, and don't need much sleep to function, you will probably like biglaw.

It's still not worth the debt though. I would never have gone deeply into debt for law even though it worked out for me. There are other options in NYC to make money other than biglaw.

What do you do now? Are you still in the law?

My friend also took medical leave in biglaw and by the time he/she came back, they more or less stopped staffing him/her...

I'm still figuring out my next career. I do work a couple days a week in some stuff related to environmental conservation and preservation.And I have a pro bono job working with victims of human trafficking. But I'm not interested in practicing immigration law as anything more than pro bono. It's not that interesting and the cases are depressing.

Luckily I have money saved while I figure it out. I left without a sure plan other than the part time job, but as I'm not interested in pursuing corporate law I don't think that will hurt me. I'm not interested in in house. I have a few other ideas that I'm going to be pursuing in the spring. Once I knew my career in biglaw was dead because I had been gone too long,I decided that I was done in corporate.

So maybe non profit work of some type? I'm still in biglaw but wonder on a daily basis what I want to do with my life. I think there's a lot of us like that.

A bunch at my firm have left with no job...and then a year later end up back in law in some other capacity.

Government.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a third-year litigation associate at a V10, and although my first year was really rough, and I was close to quitting, I'm starting to love it. I've constantly gotten lots of responsibility, including assignments that are more typical for people 2-3 years more senior than I am, and I'm starting to get noticed by partners and senior associates. I love the work that I do (not in a substantive way, because who gives a shit about securities or M&A litigation), and I'm toying with the idea of staying on and gunning for partner. The one negative--and it's a big one--is that the hours are brutal, and I'm not sure I have the additional years of this in me, especially if I want any semblance of a life outside the office (which I have only on an intermittent basis as it is).