Quit biglaw with no job lined up? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm a midlevel who is getting even more fed up with biglaw. I just can't stand the bullshit, constant fire drills, constant "emergencies" at night/weekends. I just find myself caring less and less. I'm not even sure I want to be a lawyer anymore - this profession is terrible and the work is generally kill self boring as is (from what I can tell) most corporate work. Should I quit with no job lined up? I have positive net worth (albeit only lower six figures). I know it's risky, but most people I know who have quit with no job landed on their feet again (even if it may have taken a year or so).

0Ls - save yourselves if you can. Biglaw is awful, worse than you can imagine.

[Commode, Emeritus]

I feel I must encourage you to quit your position at the said BigLaw firm. Get your act together. Rejoin the job sector then.

[Desert Fox]

Coast and start looking for something else. Don't answer emails after 7pm don't work weekends. Worst case they fire you soon and give you 3 months severance. Probably they'll take til your next review, give you a shitty review then wait 3-6 months then fire you and give you 3 months severance period. It could go even longer than that.

Even if you literally stop working you'll have a couple months.

I wouldn't quit. It makes getting the next job harder.

[KM2016]

Coast and start looking for something else. Don't answer emails after 7pm don't work weekends. Worst case they fire you soon and give you 3 months severance. Probably they'll take til your next review, give you a shitty review then wait 3-6 months then fire you and give you 3 months severance period. It could go even longer than that.

Even if you literally stop working you'll have a couple months.

I wouldn't quit. It makes getting the next job harder.

TCR. A midlevel at my firm that was hellbent on leaving stopped working after 6pm and turned down all weekend work. It took until her review (7 months later) before anything was directly said (excluding the passive aggressive remarks when she turned down work). Then they gave her another 4 months, 2 of which she literally did not work....at all. Finally they dropped the axe and she got 3 months severance. So she copped 5 months pay for literally doing no work.

Use the time to find something else.

[Anonymous User]

Am I right in thinking that the above advice really only applies to larger offices/groups where you can go unnoticed? I don't know how much this would work in a satellite office or a group with only a few partners.

[nealric]

Coast and start looking for something else. Don't answer emails after 7pm don't work weekends. Worst case they fire you soon and give you 3 months severance. Probably they'll take til your next review, give you a shitty review then wait 3-6 months then fire you and give you 3 months severance period. It could go even longer than that.

Even if you literally stop working you'll have a couple months.

I wouldn't quit. It makes getting the next job harder.

This. If you quit with nothing lined up, everyone is going to assume you were fired. Even if you have the opportunity to convince them otherwise, you are going to come off poorly in an interview unless you had some specific emergency you quit for such as a sick family member.

You've already made it a few years. You can last another few months why you find something else.

[Anonymous User]

Am I right in thinking that the above advice really only applies to larger offices/groups where you can go unnoticed? I don't know how much this would work in a satellite office or a group with only a few partners.

You are right that it is firm and even individual specific. Some people at my firm last while coasting and billing minimally for over a year on an extended version of the timelines posted above. Some go from good standing to "you have 2 months" without any step in between.

[Anonymous User]

Coast and start looking for something else. Don't answer emails after 7pm don't work weekends. Worst case they fire you soon and give you 3 months severance. Probably they'll take til your next review, give you a shitty review then wait 3-6 months then fire you and give you 3 months severance period. It could go even longer than that.

Even if you literally stop working you'll have a couple months.

I wouldn't quit. It makes getting the next job harder.

This. If you quit with nothing lined up, everyone is going to assume you were fired. Even if you have the opportunity to convince them otherwise, you are going to come off poorly in an interview unless you had some specific emergency you quit for such as a sick family member.

You've already made it a few years. You can last another few months why you find something else.

Something like 30% of the midlevels who left my firm left for no job. Around 2/3 of these end up back in law (but not biglaw) and the other 1/3 quit law entirely. I don't think it matters THAT much, especially if you have a decent resume otherwise.

And if you know you don't want to do law, why would you even stick it out in the first place? As long as you have $$ saved or parents/spouse willing to support you while you're looking and unemployed, who gives a f.

[Anonymous User]

Am I right in thinking that the above advice really only applies to larger offices/groups where you can go unnoticed? I don't know how much this would work in a satellite office or a group with only a few partners.

You are right that it is firm and even individual specific. Some people at my firm last while coasting and billing minimally for over a year on an extended version of the timelines posted above. Some go from good standing to "you have 2 months" without any step in between.

It's hard to coast in certain practice groups (cough bankruptcy) that have constant fire drills and night work..you'd probably just be fired ASAP after a couple of times of not responding.

[Anonymous User]

FML bump. Just pulled another standard 14 hour day on continuous fire drills.

[jrass]

I don't get how fire drills last more than 15-20 minutes, but in your position big law can be less work than any other field. While it's the only legal job that requires you to work 80 hour weeks on a consistent basis, it's also the only legal job where you can play video games all day and earn a salary for a year plus. When you operate within a system that is owned by 100s of people rather than one, nothing happens overnight unless one owner really wants you out tomorrow.

However, because the cost to each partner is so diluted because of the ownership structure, odds are nobody cares that much about you or what you do unless you humiliate the company. You also have to consider the fact that many individuals who become partners could possibly make more money if they had their own firm, but choose a platform where they don't have to deal with all the headaches of administrative tasks. Coming into each week with the intent of coasting and focusing your time on securing another job rather than your current job is stealing in a biblical sense, but not a legal sense so if it doesn't bother you then there's really no reason not to just stay on until you find a new job.

[Anonymous User]

I don't get how fire drills last more than 15-20 minutes, but in your position big law can be less work than any other field. While it's the only legal job that requires you to work 80 hour weeks on a consistent basis, it's also the only legal job where you can play video games all day and earn a salary for a year plus. When you operate within a system that is owned by 100s of people rather than one, nothing happens overnight unless one owner really wants you out tomorrow.

However, because the cost to each partner is so diluted because of the ownership structure, odds are nobody cares that much about you or what you do unless you humiliate the company. You also have to consider the fact that many individuals who become partners could possibly make more money if they had their own firm, but choose a platform where they don't have to deal with all the headaches of administrative tasks. Coming into each week with the intent of coasting and focusing your time on securing another job rather than your current job is stealing in a biblical sense, but not a legal sense so if it doesn't bother you then there's really no reason not to just stay on until you find a new job.

Lol, in my experience biglaw is mainly ASAP projects - like "revise this 60 page agreement ASAP" because now the client wants it tonight, etc. That's pretty common in a lot of transactional groups - you have no idea what you're going to do on a day to day basis, and sometimes it ends up being 18 hour days since you get multiple projects like this in a day. If you're in bankruptcy practice, it's even worse (constant late nights, ASAP projects, etc.)

[jrass]

There's generally a politeness to it. They don't say "you are working on this, chop chop" They say "can you help so and so create an 800 page spreadsheet that serves no purpose and will never actually be opened, but will milk out a lot of money?" You can say you can't because you're busy. I'm not sure anybody would even notice you're billing 0 hours a week until your performance review. One of the great things about being ordinary, fungible, unimportant and replaceable is nobody pays attention to you.

[jrass]

^ accidental anon

[Desert Fox]

People will notice fairly soon.

First, people who give you work will be butthurt you are turning them down. You can get away with it for a while, but soon they'll be angry.

Second, someone is in charge of tracking your hours per month, even if you never really talk about it. Firm track their profitability likes hawks.

But they are just too reserved and passive to do anything about it for a while.

[jrass]

It's true. I once told a partner I couldn't scan through a data room, and he went on this tirade about missing his piano recital, and called me "daddy." At first I thought he just mispronounced my name (Danny), but when he stopped coming into the office, I knew something was up. It's been a year and a half now, and nobody's seen him since. It's really affected his whole family - his kid developed a meth addiction and is in rehab, and his dog still waits for at the train station each day to no avail. The rumor is that he washed up in a V-42 satellite office out in Tahiti, and practices hare krishna now. I was honestly a little surprised that partners could be so sensitive, but hopefully krishna will guide him on his path.

[radio1nowhere]

It's true. I once told a partner I couldn't scan through a data room, and he went on this tirade about missing his piano recital, and called me "daddy." At first I thought he just mispronounced my name (Danny), but when he stopped coming into the office, I knew something was up. It's been a year and a half now, and nobody's seen him since. It's really affected his whole family - his kid developed a meth addiction and is in rehab, and his dog still waits for at the train station each day to no avail. The rumor is that he washed up in a V-42 satellite office out in Tahiti, and practices hare krishna now. I was honestly a little surprised that partners could be so sensitive, but hopefully krishna will guide him on his path.

[Anonymous User]

OP here - Would it change the calculus if you know that I'm likely going to inherit between 3 to 4 million (but in 15 years or so)? Plus I'm pretty sure my parents would be okay funding my rent for awhile (or at least living in one of their houses rent free for awhile) while I look for a job. I don't know if this changes the calculus - it's not ideal, and my parents are not the type to freely hand out money to their kids (they are pretty stingy about money), but I wouldn't be destitute.

[duck]

lol jesus christ

[Anonymous User]

lol jesus christ

[duck]

kill your parents and get the inheritance now obviously

[Anonymous User]

kill your parents and get the inheritance now obviously

I'll be honest, they give me some money now (but up to the cap of like 14,500 or whatever it is a year for tax exempt giving). If I moved to a cheaper place, they'd probably buy me a house (like 300k house). But I live in NYC and they can't afford blowing 2 million on a shitty apartment. They bought my siblings cheap houses (200k a piece) in cheap areas. I need to start a family first though - or else they'd probably not help out that much.

[duck]

seriously you've got the advice you need which is it's generally not worth quitting because you can generally coast for some period of time before getting fired and may even get severance pay. that's literally all you need to know. now be an adult and start looking for another job instead of calculating the NPV of your parents' estate.

[Anonymous User]

seriously you've got the advice you need which is it's generally not worth quitting because you can generally coast for some period of time before getting fired and may even get severance pay. that's literally all you need to know. now be an adult and start looking for another job instead of calculating the NPV of your parents' estate.

The legal profession is terrible. Not entirely sure I want to stay in it. The work is terrible (at least in biglaw); the people are terrible; the lifestyle is terrible (even true at non biglaw places, even at some non profits the lifestyle is terrible); and money isn't that good.

I just need to figure out what I want to do next...that's the hard part. Really wish I never went to law school.

[duck]

sounds like you're doing just fine. I highly recommend getting over it and start applying to nonlaw jobs