Managing a Relationship in Big Law Forum

[Anonymous User]

It would be useful if folks telling horror stories would also name their market. I summered in a secondary market after 1L and the place was a ghost town on weekends and after 6:30 PM during the week. I bet many of the most negative poasters here probably went to NYC out of desperation or insanity.

I've made several negative posts here and live in a not-megasized western city that most people would peg as being chillax and laid back. As horrific as my experience at law firms has been, I'd probably shoot myself at a NYC firm. God knows how those poor bastards do it but I guess the higher salaries delude them to an even greater degree that it's worth it.

[Anonymous User]

This is fucking bullshit. As long as your SO understands the requirements, things will work out. There are plenty of people who have succesful relationships.

The problem is that most people are not understanding of the life. If you have an SO who expects you to always be home for dinner, you're fucked. If you gave an SO who understands when you cancel attending your son's little league game or your daughter's dance recital half an hour before it's time, because that's what keeps the kids in private school and mommy in Louis Vuitton, then you're less likely to have problems

+1. Underrated post. Life is full of trade offs. If your SO can't accept that, you'll have trouble no matter what.

I do think these things are easier outside NYC, no matter what industry you're in, just because you don't have to bust your ass to have the trappings of what most people consider a normal middle-class life (owning a home a reasonable commute away from work, decent schools for the kids, etc.; you basically have to be rich to do this even in convenient parts of NJ/Long Island/Westchester). In NYC you're competing for this shit with people who are all working 70 hour weeks for biglaw-esque jobs and driving prices up.

ETA: if you're just in your 20s and unmarried/no kids though, then I really don't see how it's so hard as long as you're on the same page with your SO that this is a period where getting your career going, paying down debt, etc. is a priority.

I'd be curious to know how old you guys are and how long your marriages have lasted, assuming you're even married. Long, healthy relationships are difficult to maintain without spending regular quality time with each other year after year. It's not about having an "understanding SO." Your SO might be the most patient person on earth who puts up with all your biglaw-related bullshit for several years. At the end of that process, there WILL be irreversible damage to your relationship even if you're not divorced. There should be no deluding yourselves about that. The price must be paid, and everyone must pay it. There's no escaping this anymore than there is escaping the law of gravity.

[guano]

I'm mid thirties. I have friends who've successfully combined that kind of life with a good marriage for decades

[thewaves]

This whole thread is depressing. Everything from the demands of Biglaw to the advice of finding a SO who will put up with it. Are any of you guys in love or are are you just settling for whatever will constitute a running relationship while "living the Biglaw dream"?

[brotherdarkness]

.

[Blessedassurance]

lol...just lol

[Anonymous User]

If there are $100K legal jobs with decent work/life balance I think everyone on here would like to hear about them. Please share.

Not really. There are gigs that pay market in some markets where you get to have a life, but try telling people there's more to life than v5 vs. v32 vs. v63, and that the world really doesn't revolve around New York.

[dixiecupdrinking]

This is fucking bullshit. As long as your SO understands the requirements, things will work out. There are plenty of people who have succesful relationships.

The problem is that most people are not understanding of the life. If you have an SO who expects you to always be home for dinner, you're fucked. If you gave an SO who understands when you cancel attending your son's little league game or your daughter's dance recital half an hour before it's time, because that's what keeps the kids in private school and mommy in Louis Vuitton, then you're less likely to have problems

+1. Underrated post. Life is full of trade offs. If your SO can't accept that, you'll have trouble no matter what.

I do think these things are easier outside NYC, no matter what industry you're in, just because you don't have to bust your ass to have the trappings of what most people consider a normal middle-class life (owning a home a reasonable commute away from work, decent schools for the kids, etc.; you basically have to be rich to do this even in convenient parts of NJ/Long Island/Westchester). In NYC you're competing for this shit with people who are all working 70 hour weeks for biglaw-esque jobs and driving prices up.

ETA: if you're just in your 20s and unmarried/no kids though, then I really don't see how it's so hard as long as you're on the same page with your SO that this is a period where getting your career going, paying down debt, etc. is a priority.

I'd be curious to know how old you guys are and how long your marriages have lasted, assuming you're even married. Long, healthy relationships are difficult to maintain without spending regular quality time with each other year after year. It's not about having an "understanding SO." Your SO might be the most patient person on earth who puts up with all your biglaw-related bullshit for several years. At the end of that process, there WILL be irreversible damage to your relationship even if you're not divorced. There should be no deluding yourselves about that. The price must be paid, and everyone must pay it. There's no escaping this anymore than there is escaping the law of gravity.

It's not about being "understanding," it's about how you draw the parameters of your relationships. People with all-consuming professional lives have made marriages work forever. (Obviously, many of them also haven't worked.) It's just navel gazing to think that biglawyers are special in this regard.

[guano]

This whole thread is depressing. Everything from the demands of Biglaw to the advice of finding a SO who will put up with it. Are any of you guys in love or are are you just settling for whatever will constitute a running relationship while "living the Biglaw dream"?

Definitely love

[NotMyRealName09]

People really need to stop using their SA experience to tell people on the board what biglaw is like. Most firms instruct us to only give positive feedback on assignments no matter how bad your work is. We are in recruitment mode the entire summer when we tell you about our great lives. When you go out to lunch with us, we are not going to tell you the truth because we do not want to get fired for having an SA reject an offer because of us.

Wait until you get to the firm to tell people what is going on. That assignment you turned in as a summer really sucked. The wonderful boyfriend or girlfriend we said we had is threatening to leave us if we keep frequently returning home at 10:00 PM no matter what we make. After you start as a first year, go ask people how things are really going, it is a whole different story than what you were fed as a summer.

This recurring story, people tell this story as if we should feel bad, or that they system sucks. No one said you have to throw away your life to practice law. I'm sorry but if you work a job where keeping a wife is known to be difficult, what does it say about you that you CHOSE TO WORK THERE ANYWAYS. If you can land a job paying $160k, you can land one making $100k and have a family. It just doesn't make sense to me, or at least, I guess the type of people who want biglaw are the type of people for whom success in career outweighs contentment of soul.

I don't think the bolded is true. If there are $100K legal jobs with decent work/life balance I think everyone on here would like to hear about them. Please share.

It's called the mid-west. I have one in Detroit. But if you're gunning for NYC, you never applied here. My firm would probably hire someone from the T6 regardless of grades so long as they were not totally weird. Ok, they would have to have some ties to the market, but still. If you're getting NYC offers, if you had tried you could have probably landed a mid-west biglaw (midlaw? - these are amorphous terms) job.

[NotMyRealName09]

This recurring story, people tell this story as if we should feel bad, or that they system sucks. No one said you have to throw away your life to practice law. I'm sorry but if you work a job where keeping a wife is known to be difficult, what does it say about you that you CHOSE TO WORK THERE ANYWAYS. If you can land a job paying $160k, you can land one making $100k and have a family. It just doesn't make sense to me, or at least, I guess the type of people who want biglaw are the type of people for whom success in career outweighs contentment of soul.

Literally laughed out loud at this. You truly are clueless about the state of the legal market friend.

I live it bro. 1950 per year is not insane. That's 39 billable hours per week with two weeks off. You stack up some huge weeks or bill on the occassional weekend, you can take even more time off, or go home at a normal time. And culturally - if you need to leave early to go to Timmy's baseball game, thats ok, makeup the time later (so long as you're not blowing a deadline or something). No one here, at least at my firm, will bust your chops for that.

One clarification though - I didn't suggest these jobs were plentiful. I merely said that if you have the credentials to land a $160k biglaw job, you also have the credentials to land a $100k mid-west style big/mid-law job if you really wanted. I know we're seeing, for example, tons more UofMich applicants, because they aren't focusing on NYC anymore. Great for us. But I never said you WILL get one of these jobs, just that you could.

If your only option in life is to either take biglaw at $160k or nothing, of course you take the job. If students were to get savvy and realize it's not only biglaw or bust, and send an app or two to the large firms in mid-west markets, you might be surprised at the interest you'd recieve, especially if your resume is good enough to get you that $160k NYC biglaw position. Good enough for them? Good enough for us.

And I'll conclude by just saying good luck everyone - I'm aware it's difficult out there. I'm just saying that in a buyer's market like this, where there are too many law students and not enough jobs, the top students can enter markets they might otherwise not have considered and push out the regional students who normally get those jobs.

And love, it's a motherfucker, eh?

[Anonymous User]

How is 1950 that much different from NY biglaw? Associates at my firm that is not very well-regarded for QOL pretty much bill that. Seems like it depends heavily upon which group you're in/who you are working with/how much work the firm has/what type of work so that you can actually bill those billable hours at reasonable human hours. I don't know that it's necessarily always a market specific thing. (e.g. if you are doing Lit you will know when the peaks and valleys are; if you do M&A you can pull all nighters and still not make the Cravath bonus).

Also think there is a significant difference between "a relationship" and "a family." Kids obviously take things to a different level.

[Anonymous User]

This recurring story, people tell this story as if we should feel bad, or that they system sucks. No one said you have to throw away your life to practice law. I'm sorry but if you work a job where keeping a wife is known to be difficult, what does it say about you that you CHOSE TO WORK THERE ANYWAYS. If you can land a job paying $160k, you can land one making $100k and have a family. It just doesn't make sense to me, or at least, I guess the type of people who want biglaw are the type of people for whom success in career outweighs contentment of soul.

Literally laughed out loud at this. You truly are clueless about the state of the legal market friend.

I live it bro. 1950 per year is not insane. That's 39 billable hours per week with two weeks off. You stack up some huge weeks or bill on the occassional weekend, you can take even more time off, or go home at a normal time. And culturally - if you need to leave early to go to Timmy's baseball game, thats ok, makeup the time later (so long as you're not blowing a deadline or something). No one here, at least at my firm, will bust your chops for that.

One clarification though - I didn't suggest these jobs were plentiful. I merely said that if you have the credentials to land a $160k biglaw job, you also have the credentials to land a $100k mid-west style big/mid-law job if you really wanted. I know we're seeing, for example, tons more UofMich applicants, because they aren't focusing on NYC anymore. Great for us. But I never said you WILL get one of these jobs, just that you could.

If your only option in life is to either take biglaw at $160k or nothing, of course you take the job. If students were to get savvy and realize it's not only biglaw or bust, and send an app or two to the large firms in mid-west markets, you might be surprised at the interest you'd recieve, especially if your resume is good enough to get you that $160k NYC biglaw position. Good enough for them? Good enough for us.

And I'll conclude by just saying good luck everyone - I'm aware it's difficult out there. I'm just saying that in a buyer's market like this, where there are too many law students and not enough jobs, the top students can enter markets they might otherwise not have considered and push out the regional students who normally get those jobs.

And love, it's a motherfucker, eh?

For me, I would have to assume that you have longevity at these firms. Is that true? There would have to be some real expectations I would make partner or otherwise I wouldn't do it.

Over the course of 4-5 years, you would be talking substantial pay differences. Sure, the hours tremendously suck. But if your career at either place (midwest or NYC) is 4 years tops, and the pay difference can be as high as $240K, why not live hell on earth for 4 years (before you turn 30) and get out?

Associates at the midwestern firms I met with didn't seem any happier than the NYC ones. Instead, they were making less money.

[Blessedassurance]

(dude who has no fucking idea how COL works, and loves being close to the opera and the other sophisticated things NYC has to offer)

(dude who got outed for abusing anon)

[OneMoreLawHopeful]

I don't think you're crediting the knowledge everyone has about firm culture, enough. Yes, the personality types of each individual partner impacts your life. Yes, litigation life can be different than transactional. But you can read studies on behavioral economics to confirm certain realities that just aren't avoidable: the billable hour has an almost cancer-like effect on an organization, that spreads throughout every aspect of its culture. This just doesn't exist at a traditional American corporation that prides itself on happy work cultures, or government agencies which very often do also.

Want to have a work-related and professionally fulfilling event at the office, like bringing in a guest speaker? Well, you can do it at a firm, but the partners will be fixated on the fact that the 4 hours of time times the 25 associates who signed up means approximately $35,000 in lost revenues to the firm. Yeah. (I use this as an example because my government agency is bringing in a Supreme Court justice to sit down and chat with us one afternoon, in a few weeks. Just cuz. Stuff like that just happens, often, when you work in a place run by non-fascists.)

The point is: billable hours reign supreme over all aspects of life, at a firm. There is no escaping that fact, even if there are slight variations from one firm to another, one practice area vs. another, etc.

Okay, so to sum up this Anon post:
It's Anon, but no personal information is actually shared.
Instead, the poster literally cites "behavioral economics studies"
I would call them a 0L, but then they admit that they work for a government agency, and so they're not really qualified to discuss relationships in biglaw anyway...

I'll go ahead and +1 guano again for saying that all the anon posting here is ruining any potential discussion.

[Anonymous User]

This whole thread is depressing. Everything from the demands of Biglaw to the advice of finding a SO who will put up with it. Are any of you guys in love or are are you just settling for whatever will constitute a running relationship while "living the Biglaw dream"?

Definitely love

Definitely love.

I'm the above poster who is in BL and has an SO in BL. It can work pretty easily. Finding someone who understands should be obvious. I mean how long will you stay in love if the time you do spend together is filled with arguments about the time you don't have together.

We still make time for each other, not as much as we'd like, of course. We do brunches and watch movies and all that. Sometimes we both work from home on evenings and weekends. Yeah we don't get each other's undivided attention but we take breaks and chat or talk about our work and how stupid.annoying it is.

In some ways our lives are better. We don;t have to worry about chores (someone does that for us) or grocery shopping (gets delivered). Plus, we don;t have to worry about money. We are saving for a house, which feels great. We're paying off debt, which feels even better. We just try to focus on the positive an enjoy the time we do have together rather than complaining about the time we don't have together. Plus, biglaw is temporary, the marriage isn't. Having a long-term view helps smooth out the short-term irritants.

I could NOT imagine having kids though. I cant even imagine having a puppy.

[Anonymous User]

This recurring story, people tell this story as if we should feel bad, or that they system sucks. No one said you have to throw away your life to practice law. I'm sorry but if you work a job where keeping a wife is known to be difficult, what does it say about you that you CHOSE TO WORK THERE ANYWAYS. If you can land a job paying $160k, you can land one making $100k and have a family. It just doesn't make sense to me, or at least, I guess the type of people who want biglaw are the type of people for whom success in career outweighs contentment of soul.

Literally laughed out loud at this. You truly are clueless about the state of the legal market friend.

I live it bro. 1950 per year is not insane. That's 39 billable hours per week with two weeks off. You stack up some huge weeks or bill on the occassional weekend, you can take even more time off, or go home at a normal time. And culturally - if you need to leave early to go to Timmy's baseball game, thats ok, makeup the time later (so long as you're not blowing a deadline or something). No one here, at least at my firm, will bust your chops for that.

One clarification though - I didn't suggest these jobs were plentiful. I merely said that if you have the credentials to land a $160k biglaw job, you also have the credentials to land a $100k mid-west style big/mid-law job if you really wanted. I know we're seeing, for example, tons more UofMich applicants, because they aren't focusing on NYC anymore. Great for us. But I never said you WILL get one of these jobs, just that you could.

If your only option in life is to either take biglaw at $160k or nothing, of course you take the job. If students were to get savvy and realize it's not only biglaw or bust, and send an app or two to the large firms in mid-west markets, you might be surprised at the interest you'd recieve, especially if your resume is good enough to get you that $160k NYC biglaw position. Good enough for them? Good enough for us.

And I'll conclude by just saying good luck everyone - I'm aware it's difficult out there. I'm just saying that in a buyer's market like this, where there are too many law students and not enough jobs, the top students can enter markets they might otherwise not have considered and push out the regional students who normally get those jobs.

And love, it's a motherfucker, eh?

For me, I would have to assume that you have longevity at these firms. Is that true? There would have to be some real expectations I would make partner or otherwise I wouldn't do it.

Over the course of 4-5 years, you would be talking substantial pay differences. Sure, the hours tremendously suck. But if your career at either place (midwest or NYC) is 4 years tops, and the pay difference can be as high as $240K, why not live hell on earth for 4 years (before you turn 30) and get out?

Associates at the midwestern firms I met with didn't seem any happier than the NYC ones. Instead, they were making less money.

Associates at Midwestern firms made less money than your NYC friends even with the cost of living adjustment? Which by the way usually undervalues the inflation of living in NYC, where it costs $100 a minute just to breathe, not to mention hang out and socialize with one's high-spending friends.

That aside, you make good points. There is no way in hell you can live a happy family life in biglaw but if you're single and childless for a few years, why care? I do question the judgment of anyone who signs up for such a lifestyle for their lifetime, but such people couldn't give a flying fuck what I think anyway and why should they? We each make our own choices and live with our own decisions and circumstances.

[Anonymous User]

I don't think you're crediting the knowledge everyone has about firm culture, enough. Yes, the personality types of each individual partner impacts your life. Yes, litigation life can be different than transactional. But you can read studies on behavioral economics to confirm certain realities that just aren't avoidable: the billable hour has an almost cancer-like effect on an organization, that spreads throughout every aspect of its culture. This just doesn't exist at a traditional American corporation that prides itself on happy work cultures, or government agencies which very often do also.

Want to have a work-related and professionally fulfilling event at the office, like bringing in a guest speaker? Well, you can do it at a firm, but the partners will be fixated on the fact that the 4 hours of time times the 25 associates who signed up means approximately $35,000 in lost revenues to the firm. Yeah. (I use this as an example because my government agency is bringing in a Supreme Court justice to sit down and chat with us one afternoon, in a few weeks. Just cuz. Stuff like that just happens, often, when you work in a place run by non-fascists.)

The point is: billable hours reign supreme over all aspects of life, at a firm. There is no escaping that fact, even if there are slight variations from one firm to another, one practice area vs. another, etc.

Okay, so to sum up this Anon post:
It's Anon, but no personal information is actually shared.
Instead, the poster literally cites "behavioral economics studies"
I would call them a 0L, but then they admit that they work for a government agency, and so they're not really qualified to discuss relationships in biglaw anyway...

I'll go ahead and +1 guano again for saying that all the anon posting here is ruining any potential discussion.

I'm the anon poster above and I hope you do better than this when analyzing legal arguments. No personal info is shared? Other than the specific information I probably over-shared regarding my employer and a Supreme Court visit we have coming up?

It seems to me that you want to keep living in your state of denial to justify some choice you've made that conflicts with the obvious consensus of this discussion. My point here is a pretty simple one though: working in biglaw (and really, this is true for virtually all law firms too, even small ones, because of the cancerous effect of the billable hour as discussed above) requires sacrificing time with your loved ones. It's amazing to see how much hysterical denial of this simple law of physics there seems to be from a select few.

[OneMoreLawHopeful]

I'm the anon poster above and I hope you do better than this when analyzing legal arguments. No personal info is shared? Other than the specific information I probably over-shared regarding my employer and a Supreme Court visit we have coming up?

It seems to me that you want to keep living in your state of denial to justify some choice you've made that conflicts with the obvious consensus of this discussion. My point here is a pretty simple one though: working in biglaw (and really, this is true for virtually all law firms too, even small ones, because of the cancerous effect of the billable hour as discussed above) requires sacrificing time with your loved ones. It's amazing to see how much hysterical denial of this simple law of physics there seems to be from a select few.

Yeah, I'm not living in a state of denial, maybe you missed it in my earlier post, but my girlfriend is a 2nd year lit associate in a biglaw office. I live the "biglaw relationship" every day of the week. You work for the government, don't actually have any firsthand experience with biglaw, and seem intent on telling me how my own relationship is. But hey, I guess your argument from total ignorance must beat out my lived experience...

[dixiecupdrinking]

I'm the anon poster above and I hope you do better than this when analyzing legal arguments. No personal info is shared? Other than the specific information I probably over-shared regarding my employer and a Supreme Court visit we have coming up?

It seems to me that you want to keep living in your state of denial to justify some choice you've made that conflicts with the obvious consensus of this discussion. My point here is a pretty simple one though: working in biglaw (and really, this is true for virtually all law firms too, even small ones, because of the cancerous effect of the billable hour as discussed above) requires sacrificing time with your loved ones. It's amazing to see how much hysterical denial of this simple law of physics there seems to be from a select few.

Billable hour + physics = you will never be in a happy relationship

TLS math

[A. Nony Mouse]

I'm the anon poster above and I hope you do better than this when analyzing legal arguments. No personal info is shared? Other than the specific information I probably over-shared regarding my employer and a Supreme Court visit we have coming up?

It seems to me that you want to keep living in your state of denial to justify some choice you've made that conflicts with the obvious consensus of this discussion. My point here is a pretty simple one though: working in biglaw (and really, this is true for virtually all law firms too, even small ones, because of the cancerous effect of the billable hour as discussed above) requires sacrificing time with your loved ones. It's amazing to see how much hysterical denial of this simple law of physics there seems to be from a select few.

Yeah, I'm not living in a state of denial, maybe you missed it in my earlier post, but my girlfriend is a 2nd year lit associate in a biglaw office. I live the "biglaw relationship" every day of the week. You work for the government, don't actually have any firsthand experience with biglaw, and seem intent on telling me how my own relationship is. But hey, I guess your argument from total ignorance must beat out my lived experience...

They never said the only place they'd worked was the government - in fact, they said they put in their dues to get to that job.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

I'm married and concerned about work/life balance. I had big law offers in secondary market where my school is and major market (160k). I accepted the major market firm (v50). Major market is where I grew up and my family is still there. Major market is better professionally for my wife. I have read only good things about the firm and loved it during my callback. Even looking it as a 2-3 year proposition (until likely midlaw or in house or biglaw outside of major market to regain some semblance of balance) I'm concerned because we want to start a family. Wife has much more stable hours but will still be working 40/50 hours a week.

[OneMoreLawHopeful]

They never said the only place they'd worked was the government - in fact, they said they put in their dues to get to that job.

That Anon has owned up to two postings in this thread and neither post talked about "dues." I went back and checked both.

Maybe you have secret mod info, but what you're saying here is not in those two posts.

Besides, even if that Anon did put in their "dues," they've still accusing me of being in denial about my own relationship, and since they don't know me they're doing it from a place of ignorance.

[A. Nony Mouse]

They never said the only place they'd worked was the government - in fact, they said they put in their dues to get to that job.

That Anon has owned up to two postings in this thread and neither post talked about "dues." I went back and checked both.

Maybe you have secret mod info, but what you're saying here is not in those two posts.

Besides, even if that Anon did put in their "dues," they've still accusing me of being in denial about my own relationship, and since they don't know me they're doing it from a place of ignorance.

You're right, I may have mixed up the anons.

But I also don't think that the statements "working in biglaw requires sacrificing time with loved ones" and "you can maintain a relationship while in big law" are mutually exclusive.

[NotMyRealName09]

For me, I would have to assume that you have longevity at these firms. Is that true? There would have to be some real expectations I would make partner or otherwise I wouldn't do it.

Over the course of 4-5 years, you would be talking substantial pay differences. Sure, the hours tremendously suck. But if your career at either place (midwest or NYC) is 4 years tops, and the pay difference can be as high as $240K, why not live hell on earth for 4 years (before you turn 30) and get out?

Associates at the midwestern firms I met with didn't seem any happier than the NYC ones. Instead, they were making less money.

Associates at Midwestern firms made less money than your NYC friends even with the cost of living adjustment? Which by the way usually undervalues the inflation of living in NYC, where it costs $100 a minute just to breathe, not to mention hang out and socialize with one's high-spending friends.

That aside, you make good points. There is no way in hell you can live a happy family life in biglaw but if you're single and childless for a few years, why care? I do question the judgment of anyone who signs up for such a lifestyle for their lifetime, but such people couldn't give a flying fuck what I think anyway and why should they? We each make our own choices and live with our own decisions and circumstances.

I think the COL differential is under-appreciated. Look, I know no one lacking significant ties to Michigan is going to move to beautiful suburban Detroit. And yes, if you bank $160k per year you are well off, and few things drop panties faster than a high tax bracket. But add in an apartment commensurate with your status as a big-dog in the law game, and the attendant expensive dinners and other luxuries you know you’re going to buy because your wallet is fat and you’ve earned it….I don’t know, it seems to balance out. I don’t know that higher cost of living equates to higher quality of life. This year I built a 3000 sq. ft. house and my mortgage is probably less than a decent, not amazing NYC apartment. And I’m building equity (slowly).

And 1950 hours are pretty comparable to some NYC firms, sure, but it’s the culture, it’s the (lack of) face time requirement, it’s the people around me being chill, the pace of life. In the end, what do I know? I’ve never worked in NYC Big Law. But since the thread is about love in the fast lane, maybe an alternative is to slow it down.