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I'm trying to cold email partners. Is there a particular practice area that is less stressful or tends to have some down time so I could have a higher success rate at responses? Mostly been striking out with corporate guys, so far.

lol, no. maybe government lawyers?

Employment law

I made my career in state government law. It is much less stressful than private practice. No billables, paid annual and sick leave, holidays off, 40-50 hour weeks. Your CLE and bar dues are usually paid for, full benefits, oh yeah, it's great.

But.

The pay is simply awful. We start new attorneys as low as the mid forties. You can retire after twenty five years never having made more than seventy-five.

The bureaucracy will crush you unless you develop the patience of Job's first wife.

You may have to start your career in a state, and a part of that state, that you would never have considered before.

Good luck whatever you do.

From my experience as a summer, employment law was by far the lowest stress and most humane group (likely because its the only area in biglaw that deals with real, human problems, so it attracts a certain kind of personality, in good way). If a firm has a wills, trusts, and estates practice, that might qualify as well.

But your Q seems to really be who is least busy, not who is lowest stress. And that can certainly vary.

Yeah, not so sure on employment law... If your at biglaw you will be doing defense side, so you will not be "helping the little guy" unless you somehow end up at a P's firm. A lot of the P's I have dealt with have sketchy at-best cases and all believe they would have won $150,000,000 for their "unique case" if not for us damn lawyers.


Any practice area is only as good as your immediate supervisor IMO... Even if you work gov't, having a terrible boss makes it hell.

Gorki wrote:Yeah, not so sure on employment law... If your at biglaw you will be doing defense side, so you will not be "helping the little guy" unless you somehow end up at a P's firm. A lot of the P's I have dealt with have sketchy at-best cases and all believe they would have won $150,000,000 for their "unique case" if not for us damn lawyers.


Any practice area is only as good as your immediate supervisor IMO... Even if you work gov't, having a terrible boss makes it hell.

100% true. It's all about who you work for.

I think your question is based on an incorrect assumption. I don't think there's any practice area slow enough that partners are likely to respond to cold emails.

How about family law? Immigration law?

BlueLotus wrote:How about family law? Immigration law?

I'd imagine a custody battle or a pending deportation can be very stressful.

Maybe trusts and estates (the high end can be very stressful, though)

T&E, tax, IP, gov't Ks, really any area with more predictable schedules.

BeautifulSW wrote:I made my career in state government law. It is much less stressful than private practice. No billables, paid annual and sick leave, holidays off, 40-50 hour weeks. Your CLE and bar dues are usually paid for, full benefits, oh yeah, it's great.

But.

The pay is simply awful. We start new attorneys as low as the mid forties. You can retire after twenty five years never having made more than seventy-five.

Jesus. The government I'm summering at starts attorneys at 87k (req. 2+ yrs experience), and I think everyone here is in the next category up (req. 5+ yrs experience, starts at 93k, maxes out at 138k)--not including the department head, who makes more. And this is a market where "biglaw" starts at 90-115k. They also don't seem to work from home/work late very much at all.
Too bad it's a small department and openings don't come up very often. I will definitely keep my eye on it after I graduate because I'd work here in a heartbeat.

citylawyer1010 wrote:Employment law

Tell that to the employment law folks at my firm.