Clarification on Biglaw Hours Forum

[Mal Reynolds]

If you squint your eyes Johan's posts basically look like gdanes.

[Saddle Up]

As a 1L I am nowhere near up to speed on billable anything but my sis (not barred yet) seemed happy because she billed $34k during her first month. That’s good, right?

(11 for her 23 for the firm)

[patogordo]

there's no easy way to say this so i'm just gonna tell it to you straight: I think your sister is a prostitute and The Firm is the name of her pimp.

[Saddle Up]

Just happy that the name of her pimp isn’t McDonalds.

[Anonymous User]

The hours aren't the problem. Not to be disrespectful, but the impression you get as an SA is not the same as how you feel and how you are treated as an associate. I have no problem billing 10-12 hours a day - no complaints. With that said, after one year at this place, I no longer feel like I'm a smart person, will ever be good at this and cry a couple times a week in my office. This is because people are condescending and react to everything some dick client wants like its open heart surgery.

The emails are constant. The stress is unbelievable. You can't get a human momebt out of anyone - every day I wish someone older and wiser would tell me "I know this sucks. You aren't going to get fired, and we all went through this."

You also have to suck up to people you HATE. The hierarchy is fucking crazy - associates who are a few years older than you think they are gods gift, deserving of your utmost respect. The reality is - this is a lock step pay and promotion system. You survive each year and you move up accordingly. It's not based on merit.

There are upsides. Money and name value and training. I remind myself daily that if i make it through three years and am able to move in house somewhere (based on having one of these BL names on my resume), then I will think that this whole big law thing was the best decision I ever made.

Until then, I'll be crying in my office haha.

[BiglawAssociate]

^ Biglaw is bad, but if you're crying all the time GO SEE A THERAPIST and get on some damn meds.

Look, part of surviving biglaw is knowing when to give a fuck and when not to. When you're a first year you think every little thing matters. THen you just keep your head down, do your work and stop giving a fuck what others think. Just put in the hours and do your work and go home.

And yes, the hours suck because some weeks you bill 20 and other weeks you bill 70 hours...so you are sleep deprived and working 18 hour days. It takes a toll on your body and makes a lot of people look like shit and fat. Plus you could spend all day at work (and be expected to put in face time) but not bill anything.

And a lot of work is last minute fire drill type shit.

But honestly the key is to stop giving as much of a fuck while still doing your work/putting time in - that's a lot easier to do if you don't owe any loans though (which is why I don't think people should take out massive loans just to do biglaw....) MENTAL FREEDOM IS not having any fucking loans. And biglaw becomes more enjoyable when you don't have any loans. This is why I think people are stupid as shit to take out massive loans to do biglaw...what idiots.

And not to rain on your parade, but you're looking at a minimum of 5 years in biglaw to go in house these days...not 3.

[ymmv]

^ Biglaw is bad, but if you're crying all the time GO SEE A THERAPIST and get on some damn meds.

Look, part of surviving biglaw is knowing when to give a fuck and when not to. When you're a first year you think every little thing matters. THen you just keep your head down, do your work and stop giving a fuck what others think. Just put in the hours and do your work and go home.

And yes, the hours suck because some weeks you bill 20 and other weeks you bill 70 hours...so you are sleep deprived and working 18 hour days. It takes a toll on your body and makes a lot of people look like shit and fat. Plus you could spend all day at work (and be expected to put in face time) but not bill anything.

And a lot of work is last minute fire drill type shit.

But honestly the key is to stop giving as much of a fuck while still doing your work/putting time in - that's a lot easier to do if you don't owe any loans though (which is why I don't think people should take out massive loans just to do biglaw....) MENTAL FREEDOM IS not having any fucking loans. And biglaw becomes more enjoyable when you don't have any loans. This is why I think people are stupid as shit to take out massive loans to do biglaw...what idiots.

And not to rain on your parade, but you're looking at a minimum of 5 years in biglaw to go in house these days...not 3.

You sound highly stable.

[BiglawAssociate]

^ Biglaw is bad, but if you're crying all the time GO SEE A THERAPIST and get on some damn meds.

Look, part of surviving biglaw is knowing when to give a fuck and when not to. When you're a first year you think every little thing matters. THen you just keep your head down, do your work and stop giving a fuck what others think. Just put in the hours and do your work and go home.

And yes, the hours suck because some weeks you bill 20 and other weeks you bill 70 hours...so you are sleep deprived and working 18 hour days. It takes a toll on your body and makes a lot of people look like shit and fat. Plus you could spend all day at work (and be expected to put in face time) but not bill anything.

And a lot of work is last minute fire drill type shit.

But honestly the key is to stop giving as much of a fuck while still doing your work/putting time in - that's a lot easier to do if you don't owe any loans though (which is why I don't think people should take out massive loans just to do biglaw....) MENTAL FREEDOM IS not having any fucking loans. And biglaw becomes more enjoyable when you don't have any loans. This is why I think people are stupid as shit to take out massive loans to do biglaw...what idiots.

And not to rain on your parade, but you're looking at a minimum of 5 years in biglaw to go in house these days...not 3.

You sound highly stable.

If you're crying at your desk everyday in biglaw, go see a goddamn therapist

Also I stopped caring long about about looking smart in front of other people...Law isn't physics/math. There's nothing "smart" or "challenging" about the subject beyond what you can grind out through hard work. If you're fluent in English, you could practice law in the US. Just learn what you have to and move the fuck on.

I honestly probably think A LOT LESS practicing as a lawyer than I did in my math classes in college....a lot of law is just knowing the procedure and what to do next, which is learned and not really thought through or processed.

[bearsfan23]

^ Biglaw is bad, but if you're crying all the time GO SEE A THERAPIST and get on some damn meds.

Look, part of surviving biglaw is knowing when to give a fuck and when not to. When you're a first year you think every little thing matters. THen you just keep your head down, do your work and stop giving a fuck what others think. Just put in the hours and do your work and go home.

And yes, the hours suck because some weeks you bill 20 and other weeks you bill 70 hours...so you are sleep deprived and working 18 hour days. It takes a toll on your body and makes a lot of people look like shit and fat. Plus you could spend all day at work (and be expected to put in face time) but not bill anything.

And a lot of work is last minute fire drill type shit.

But honestly the key is to stop giving as much of a fuck while still doing your work/putting time in - that's a lot easier to do if you don't owe any loans though (which is why I don't think people should take out massive loans just to do biglaw....) MENTAL FREEDOM IS not having any fucking loans. And biglaw becomes more enjoyable when you don't have any loans. This is why I think people are stupid as shit to take out massive loans to do biglaw...what idiots.

And not to rain on your parade, but you're looking at a minimum of 5 years in biglaw to go in house these days...not 3.

He's back, awesome.

[Mal Reynolds]

The sad part about the legal industry is one of us might be working for biglaw associate some day.

[Johann]

biglaw associate would be pretty reasonable among most partners.

[Nomo]

I'd look at it this way. I think the the average government or legal services attorney puts in an average of about 45 hours a week in the office, 48 weeks per year. But I think many of those attorneys spend at least a quarter of that time goofing off, playing on the internet, chatting with co-workers, etc. They are doing more like 1400 or 1500 hours of work (and presumably only 1200 or 1300 billable hours). That's a lot less. And I think its more in line with what a lot of other run of the mill professionals do.

[r6_philly]

If you are disciplined enough and there is work to be done one can meet the hours requirement by working 8-9 hours a day and no weekends, that's about 11 hours at your desk. Problem is almost no one can bill that much time straight. You would end up sitting in your desk from 10am to 10pm and somehow only bill 6.5 hours.

When I am doc reviewing, I can work 9:30-7:30 and bill enough by doing it nonstop. Other tasks which requires more brain power is harder to do at such a pace. So in a way, doc review actually improves my work life balance.

[Anonymous User]

One of the big issues is that a lot of the people who become biglaw lawyers are actually really crappy at it. They tend to be the people who say the work is easy but then everyone shits on them for producing crappy work product because the issue is not that the job only involved moving commas around, but that they didn't understand the part of the assignment that didn't involve moving commas and didn't do it or fucked it up. And then they have miserable experiences because people treat them like fuckups and give them increasingly menial work thereby reinforcing the impression that the partners are cruel and the work is so stupid a monkey could do it. I see this happening to a junior associate I work with now, good guy, bright, for whatever reason he really shit the bed on one assignment with a key partner, now he's getting dog assignments, partners are getting more distant, he's becoming more embittered by the day. If he had just stayed on the "promising" side of the line his experience would've been totally different and he almost pulled it off. He'll never get fired but I bet he's gone within the year now. He's the only guy I know who complains about the hours - but of course he does, because his hours are intensely unpleasant.

[Anonymous User]

^ can you define really shitting the bed? How junior is he and how complex was the assignment?

[wildhaggis]

I am going to quote myself from a previous thread. Even leaving out the context in which I posted this, OP, I think the illustration in the following is responsive to your question:

OK, just read through the entire thread and, while this issue may have been put to rest, I have to comment on it.

I read through several posts debating whether 100+ hours is "expected" in biglaw or not, and some dude pushing all the blame for such hours on OP because his V10 told him that average billables were less than 2100 during a record year. "That's only 45- to 55- hour weeks!" "2800 hours is barely 48 60-hour weeks!"

This is complete fucking bullshit.

Even if 100+ hours is not expected, and even if 2000 is a typical billing average, this has nothing to do with how those hours were spent and paints nothing resembling an accurate picture of what a 2000-hour, 2500-hour, or even 1900-hour year may look like. That KidStuddi suggests a 2800-hour year is "barely" 48 60-hour weeks ("Look, you even have a bunch of time for vacation!"), or that a 2100-hour year is consistently working 45-55 hours a week, makes me genuinely question whether he is flame or not.

Let's take a look at why this is the case. I'll use an example that is illustrative of how biglaw corp works: I just finish up a pretty busy 200-hour month. I'm lagging a bit on my hours because last month was slow, but I'm confident I can catch up. I come in to work and the other matters I'm staffed on are pencils down or in some kind of a lull. I do some small post-closing things and ask around for work. No one has anything at the moment, so I work on this or that until 6pm, not having much to do. I've billed about 2.5 hours. I tool around a bit and decide to leave early at 7pm. Partner A sends me an e-mail at 8:30pm saying he needs some such fucking thing ASAP. I work for 4 hours, send it to him. He sends back comments. Why the fuck is he still awake. I take another hour to work in his comments, send it back to him. It's now after 2am, and I've billed approximately 7.5 hours that day.

I come in the next day, tired, still not much to do. I ask around for work again... Nothing. Partner A gets back to me on the document from the night before at 5:30pm. He spoke to the client and needs me to turn a bunch of changes. I work until 10:30pm, send it to him, go home because I'm pissed. I've billed 5 hours that day. It is now Wednesday and I'm on pace for a 30-hour week, maybe. If it keeps up, I'm on pace for a 120-hour month, or so. The truth is I don't feel like I just worked a 7.5- or 5-hour day. I feel like I just worked two 16-hour days, and I'm exhausted. My time not working those days was spent trying to get work, or twiddling my thumbs wondering why I wasn't getting work, or whether I'm too slow. Anxiety at my ability to catch up on my hours begins to creep in as my satisfaction of a completed 200-hour month fades away. I realize it's going to be one of "those" months, where I bill 130-140 hours, which makes me look slow, but really I billed hours all over the board, barely got sleep, and checked my phone every 2 minutes.

Fast-forward to next month. I did, in fact, only bill about 130 hours. But, hey, several new M&A deals are on their way down the pipeline, and they all have massive data rooms and maybe one is a contribution so that means double the fucking drafting, so no worries about hours anymore, right? It's about to be a 250-hour month. But didn't you just have a 140-hour month? You surely used the slowdown to catch up on sleep and chill, right?

I mean, shit, isn't 140 hours, like, only 6 hours per day anyway?

And, Jesus Christ, why are 2Ls/3Ls responding to OP? "I'm not an attorney yet, but..." It's like they can't resist.

[nealric]

The hours aren't the problem. Not to be disrespectful, but the impression you get as an SA is not the same as how you feel and how you are treated as an associate. I have no problem billing 10-12 hours a day - no complaints. With that said, after one year at this place, I no longer feel like I'm a smart person, will ever be good at this and cry a couple times a week in my office. This is because people are condescending and react to everything some dick client wants like its open heart surgery.

Just want to point out that this isn't necessarily a universal experience, and may be partially a product of the attitude you approach things with. You have to accept as a first year that you don't know anything and will be making a lot of mistakes. That doesn't mean you are dumb, it means you are inexperienced. Dumb people rarely make it through the door in biglaw. As a result of your inexperience, more senior attorneys are going to have to correct a lot of things you do. This can be frustrating for them because they are under a lot of pressure to meet deadlines, and corrections slow them down. Some of them aren't as polite as they could be when they make these corrections- but it's just because they are stressed, not because they are judging you. You have to avoid taking it personally. Your job is to learn as much as possible in as short a time as possible so you can become valuable. Even unfair corrections can be learning experiences- in office politics if not law.

People react to everything a client wants like it's open heart surgery because that's why the client hired you. I'm an in-house lawyer. I've done biglaw, and I have the technical know-how to do the work my company needs. If we hire a firm, it's because it's a big matter and we need manpower and/or niche expertise. It's going to be complex and/or labor intensive. That's why we pay outside counsel $350-1250 an hour. If they don't provide that level of service, we will go elsewhere. That's the nature of the business. Your bosses aren't intentionally being jerks, they are just trying to run a business in a competitive market.

As for hours: It's all over the map. You could put in consistent 50 hour weeks (more likely in a technical niche like ERISA) or you could pull consecutive all nighters followed by sitting around doing nothing (more likely in certain corporate groups). You are more likely to be in a world of hurt working at Skadden NYC (or similar) as opposed to a non-vault regional firm, but individual practice groups or partners can be completely different within a firm. Don't try to over-analyze it. Just accept you are going to be working a lot and probably won't be able to make consistent weekend plans. Thing of biglaw as a residency.

[Anonymous User]

One of the big issues is that a lot of the people who become biglaw lawyers are actually really crappy at it. They tend to be the people who say the work is easy but then everyone shits on them for producing crappy work product because the issue is not that the job only involved moving commas around, but that they didn't understand the part of the assignment that didn't involve moving commas and didn't do it or fucked it up. And then they have miserable experiences because people treat them like fuckups and give them increasingly menial work thereby reinforcing the impression that the partners are cruel and the work is so stupid a monkey could do it. I see this happening to a junior associate I work with now, good guy, bright, for whatever reason he really shit the bed on one assignment with a key partner, now he's getting dog assignments, partners are getting more distant, he's becoming more embittered by the day. If he had just stayed on the "promising" side of the line his experience would've been totally different and he almost pulled it off. He'll never get fired but I bet he's gone within the year now. He's the only guy I know who complains about the hours - but of course he does, because his hours are intensely unpleasant.

This. At my firm happiness with the hours depended greatly on the kind of work you got as an associate, and the kind of work you got as an associate depended largely on how you performed. If you did less-than-stellar work early on, you ended up doing mostly doc review and other boring things, and suddenly even a 1900-hour year is miserable. If you impressed the right people early on, you got pulled into fascinating stuff with a consistent workflow and didn't see 2300 hours as that crazy/exhausting. Most people are somewhere in the middle of that, but it's definitely a spectrum and there are people on both the low and the high end.

Also, if you got on the good side of the right people early on, they would protect you from boring assignments or stupid fire drills that could've been avoided if someone higher up had planned better.

[Desert Fox]

One of the big issues is that a lot of the people who become biglaw lawyers are actually really crappy at it. They tend to be the people who say the work is easy but then everyone shits on them for producing crappy work product because the issue is not that the job only involved moving commas around, but that they didn't understand the part of the assignment that didn't involve moving commas and didn't do it or fucked it up. And then they have miserable experiences because people treat them like fuckups and give them increasingly menial work thereby reinforcing the impression that the partners are cruel and the work is so stupid a monkey could do it. I see this happening to a junior associate I work with now, good guy, bright, for whatever reason he really shit the bed on one assignment with a key partner, now he's getting dog assignments, partners are getting more distant, he's becoming more embittered by the day. If he had just stayed on the "promising" side of the line his experience would've been totally different and he almost pulled it off. He'll never get fired but I bet he's gone within the year now. He's the only guy I know who complains about the hours - but of course he does, because his hours are intensely unpleasant.

Every firms fires people like this. There will be more juniors next year. Eventually the partners find a new dog. This guys hours drop and he's gone. Or they might not drop and they'll fire them anyway.

[Desert Fox]

People act like you are either working or have no work. That is not how it works unless you are a grinding machine. When was the last time you worked on something for 8 hours straight. I don't think it's possible.

When you are studying for finals, how much of that 12 hour study day would be considered billable? 6-8? You check facebook, espn, whatever. You talk with a buddy. You space out and stare at your screen.

I assume anyone who is billing more than 75% of their time in office is just padding, intentionally or not.

[Anonymous User]

Every firms fires people like this. There will be more juniors next year. Eventually the partners find a new dog. This guys hours drop and he's gone. Or they might not drop and they'll fire them anyway.

We don't. We only fire people for affirmatively bad work product. Guy who gets onto the non-prospect track for whatever reason, but keeps doing his job OK, basically gets to stick around for 3-5 years. It's good business - keep folks around long enough so that they can place well into their second job, and you've made a career-long client.

This. At my firm happiness with the hours depended greatly on the kind of work you got as an associate, and the kind of work you got as an associate depended largely on how you performed. If you did less-than-stellar work early on, you ended up doing mostly doc review and other boring things, and suddenly even a 1900-hour year is miserable. If you impressed the right people early on, you got pulled into fascinating stuff with a consistent workflow and didn't see 2300 hours as that crazy/exhausting. Most people are somewhere in the middle of that, but it's definitely a spectrum and there are people on both the low and the high end.

Also, if you got on the good side of the right people early on, they would protect you from boring assignments or stupid fire drills that could've been avoided if someone higher up had planned better.

Bingo. Not all assignments are created equal, not all hours are created equal. Some biglaw work is - believe it or not - fun - but there's not that much of the fun stuff and there's pretty intense competition to get in the group of associates to whom good assignments get channeled.

can you define really shitting the bed? How junior is he and how complex was the assignment?

A white dude who got caught crying in his office after he made a mistake by a white male older lawyer. As I was told over drinks, "the problem is not crying in your office, but not remembering to close the door before you cry." He'd had a couple of unprofessional moments in front of clients before that, and the crying episode just confirmed the image of a guy who couldn't be trusted to hold it together under stress. Just like that <snaps fingers>, it was over.

[Desert Fox]

We only fire people for affirmatively bad work product.

What the fuck do you call the dood who sucks and only gets shit work, if not someone who does bad work product?

[juzam_djinn]

One of the big issues is that a lot of the people who become biglaw lawyers are actually really crappy at it. They tend to be the people who say the work is easy but then everyone shits on them for producing crappy work product because the issue is not that the job only involved moving commas around, but that they didn't understand the part of the assignment that didn't involve moving commas and didn't do it or fucked it up. And then they have miserable experiences because people treat them like fuckups and give them increasingly menial work thereby reinforcing the impression that the partners are cruel and the work is so stupid a monkey could do it. I see this happening to a junior associate I work with now, good guy, bright, for whatever reason he really shit the bed on one assignment with a key partner, now he's getting dog assignments, partners are getting more distant, he's becoming more embittered by the day. If he had just stayed on the "promising" side of the line his experience would've been totally different and he almost pulled it off. He'll never get fired but I bet he's gone within the year now. He's the only guy I know who complains about the hours - but of course he does, because his hours are intensely unpleasant.

dang, this is pretty insightful. what type of work is that guy getting nowadays?

[Johann]

We only fire people for affirmatively bad work product.

What the fuck do you call the dood who sucks and only gets shit work, if not someone who does bad work product?

I think y'all are kinda on the same page. Didn't anon say guy would be gone within the year. It's jsut a function of getting enough shit work and voluntarily leaving or eventually the firm looking over its finances and realizing, yeah this guy needs to go. Could be a couple months, could be a year sounds like.

[Desert Fox]

We only fire people for affirmatively bad work product.

What the fuck do you call the dood who sucks and only gets shit work, if not someone who does bad work product?

I think y'all are kinda on the same page. Didn't anon say guy would be gone within the year. It's jsut a function of getting enough shit work and voluntarily leaving or eventually the firm looking over its finances and realizing, yeah this guy needs to go. Could be a couple months, could be a year sounds like.

he said he won't get fired, but I don't believe it.