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So while salary and money are obviously important, i'm more concerned about hours than pay. I'd rather make sub 6 figures and work 40 hours a week with vacations then do sweatshop law for 160K, working nights, weekends, holidays etc.

So far in my research i've gathered that the only law/law related jobs with decent hours(aka "factory hours") are in the government, so i plan on focusing all my OCI bids/networking/career search in the Public Sector. I was wondering if anyone has suggestions for jobs in private law fields i should consider as well? Are there really any private law jobs(non solo work) with low hours?

I wouldn't mind doing solo work 5 or 10 years into my career, but lack of experience and contacts precludes doing it right out of the gate.

thoughs?

Your right that solo work is nearly impossible straight out of law school.

Federal government careers are probably your best shot. The closer you get to politics or higher leadership, the crazier the hours get - but especially at entry level a lot are 9-5.

Unfortunately, many people assume that since biglaw has crazy hours and crazy salary, there must be 'midlaw' jobs with lower hours and lower but still livable salary. The sad news is, as reported by people like reasonable_man, non-biglaw firm jobs tend to still have very long hours.

The law isn't a great field to look into for 'factor hours'. No professional degree really is. It's a hard degree to get, with a hard exam at the end, and hard long hours awaiting graduates.

9-5 is a luxury that most professionals don't have. It comes with the territory, it's part of the value.

What kind of hours do people work at big law. Obviously a ton but is it as crazy as I-Bank analyst kind of hours?

fathergoose wrote:What kind of hours do people work at big law. Obviously a ton but is it as crazy as I-Bank analyst kind of hours?

Survey says the average ranges from the mid-50s to 60+ at the meat-grindiest (Wachtell was like 65, IIRC). Those are surveys and averages to be taken with a grain of salt, but it's one of the only data points actually floating around.

Note that the above #s are averages, so the war stories of 70+ hours in a week all but certainly happen, but are by no means common (except perhaps at the Wachtells/Cravaths of the world).

I work at a small plaintiffs' firm where the lawyers all work between 40 and 50 hours a week, and the partners especially are pulling in $$$$. Of course, they've been in the business for awhile, too--I doubt they'd take someone right out of law school, unless they knew them well, and then maybe. There's a young associate and he's making $50,000-ish.