Litigators taking questions from law students Forum

[AReasonableMan]

Sorry if this has been asked but:

1) What kind of recruiting calls do you get? Anything in house?
2) If you're not a Supreme Clerk scholar are your partnership chances virtually done?
3) If you want to stay in big law how important is the vault ranking of your firm? If you picked a lower ranked firm for fit and specialty areas, does vault rank matter as much as some make it seem to?
4) Does most of your work come from the same partners?
5) Is it hard to space your hours out somewhat evenly through the year?

[fats provolone]

Do you wish you would have majored in a real degree and not gone to law school?

I majored in a real degree and still went to law school

[Kimikho]

Would you recommend litigation for someone who really doesn't want to be in a courtroom (given the fact that most litigators don't end up there anyways)?

Why don't you want to be in a courtroom?

I don't think I'd be good at it and I don't know if I'll be able to see over the podium thing.

[sublime]

..

[Anonymous User]

(Accidental post)

[Anonymous User]

Sorry if this has been asked but:

1) What kind of recruiting calls do you get? Anything in house?
2) If you're not a Supreme Clerk scholar are your partnership chances virtually done?
3) If you want to stay in big law how important is the vault ranking of your firm? If you picked a lower ranked firm for fit and specialty areas, does vault rank matter as much as some make it seem to?
4) Does most of your work come from the same partners?
5) Is it hard to space your hours out somewhat evenly through the year?

1.) All of the recruiting spam I get is for other law firms. Most businesses don't use in-house counsel to handle litigation because they either hire a law firm directly or through their insurers, so I don't really have the kind of skills that would be useful for that sort of job.

2.) Partnership odds vary wildly by firm, so I can't really give you an informed answer here. I think things look pretty good, but really it just comes down to self-selection. A whole lot of people in the first five years decide that they're just done dealing with this shit and don't want a whole life of it, which is understandable.

3.) My understanding is that Vault rankings are almost completely irrelevant outside of NYC transactional practice. Litigators who are hyper-focused on Vault rankings are usually just blind prestige whores. This is 100x more true if you're working outside of NYC.

4.) Yes. About 95% of my work comes from the same 3 partners.

5.) Yes. You're probably going to have a few months where you can cruise at 130-150 hours and a few others where you're killing yourself at nearly twice that, and unless you have a trial you probably won't know too far in advance which is which. Just learn to enjoy it when it's slow.

[Anonymous User]

2.) Partnership odds vary wildly by firm, so I can't really give you an informed answer here. I think things look pretty good, but really it just comes down to self-selection. A whole lot of people in the first five years decide that they're just done dealing with this shit and don't want a whole life of it, which is understandable.

When you say that some people decide they "don't want a whole life of it" what do they do at that point? Exit the profession and do something non-legal?

[Anonymous User]

2.) Partnership odds vary wildly by firm, so I can't really give you an informed answer here. I think things look pretty good, but really it just comes down to self-selection. A whole lot of people in the first five years decide that they're just done dealing with this shit and don't want a whole life of it, which is understandable.

When you say that some people decide they "don't want a whole life of it" what do they do at that point? Exit the profession and do something non-legal?

Small firm? Go solo? Government work? Non-legal job? Move out to the New Mexican desert and cook blue meth? Who knows, but there's definitely life beyond large firm litigation.

[Anonymous User]

What area is booming?

What time do you get to go home on average?

I have absolutely no idea what is booming. Maybe IP?

I usually get home about 6:30.

IP is not booming. It's busy, but not booming.