Sixth Year Midlaw Associate Taking Questions Forum

[MidlawAssociate]

I used to lurk on this forum back in law school, and it occurred to me that some of you might be interested in hearing from someone who made the jump from biglaw to midlaw. If not, carry on.

I graduated from a T14 law school in 2010, and spent the following five years as an associate at a V10 firm. Around a year ago I took a fifty percent paycut (!!) to move to a smaller city in a different part of the country and now work at a midsized firm (a little over a hundred attorneys). I generally show up for work around 9am and am home by 6. I get to play with my toddler every night. And I've probably worked a total of 30 weekend hours in the past year.

Before you ask, I had great job security at my former firm, at least for the next few years. It came as quite a surprise to everyone when I announced that I was leaving. And while the cut in pay hurt, I really don't have any regrets. It kind of surprises me that more biglaw associates don't go this route.

Anyway, if you have any questions about my current job or my former job, I'm happy to answer them. I'll probably be purposefully vague about some stuff in order to stay anonymous.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

Are you in lit or transactional?

When you say you had job security I take it that you mean they weren't going to fire you before a decision on partner?

[MidlawAssociate]

I'm a corporate attorney. The corporate practice at my current firm is the largest group in the firm.

And yes, I suspect I could have easily stuck around for another three years without anyone even politely suggesting that I leave. I had my shit together well enough by that point that I could more or less run most deals by myself, which is when you start bringing real value to the firm.

I have no idea what my chances would have been for partner. When you work at a firm at that level, where partnership prospects are so incredibly dim for even the most talented attorneys, there's an awful lot of unhealthy self-doubt that begins to creep in. Ultimately I realized that I didn't really care about what my prospects were because I was more interested in being involved in my kid's life than making a lot of money.

Totally a personal decision, but the right one for me.

[Johann]

can you get me a job?

[speed_the_loot]

.

[MidlawAssociate]

can you get me a job?

We're all done with summer hiring, and we just recently brought in another lateral to the corporate group, so no. I don't know what your background is, but if you have a few years of biglaw under your belt my impression is that a lot of firms like mine would at the very least be happy to sit down with you.

[MidlawAssociate]

Was your pay cut 50% relative to COL, or in $ amount?

Do you mind giving the region of the country you are in?

Do you know if attorneys at other firms in your city have similar schedules (i.e., few weekend hours, 9-6 pm)?

Pay cut was dollar amount, not cost of living. And it's certainly a hell of a lot cheaper to live here than my former city.

I'm paranoid (for probably no good reason), so for now I'm going to decline to share anything about where I live. I'll say that it's a city of less than 250,000 people.

Everyone works more or less the same schedule. There's a matter I'm working on currently that I suspect will get pretty rough in a couple of weeks. I'm sure I'll have a few "late" nights. But that means staying until 8 or so and having to put in a little weekend time instead of not sleeping for three days.

[Johann]

cool. my question was mainly a facetious way of saying congrats, you made it. because that job path is exactly what i hope to do.

what were your biglaw billables like? what do you anticipate midlaw billables will be like? any other overlooked perqs of midlaw over biglaw other than llfestyle/hours that people often overlook? do you like your job more or anything?

[instride91]

I'm currently a 2L heading to a V10 firm this summer. I have three questions:

(1) What does it take to survive/handle biglaw for five years? Did the biglaw lifestyle become routine at some point? If so, at what point? Was it difficult to juggle starting a family while working? I'm hoping to stick around for eight years before going in house, so any advice would be appreciated.

(2) If you were going to take a pay cut, why didn't you go in house? Do you prefer working at a firm?

(3) Are you concerned about the long-term/retirement effects from having a lower income and being able to save and invest less money?

PS: Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. I really appreciate it!

[MidlawAssociate]

cool. my question was mainly a facetious way of saying congrats, you made it. because that job path is exactly what i hope to do.

what were your biglaw billables like? what do you anticipate midlaw billables will be like? any other overlooked perqs of midlaw over biglaw other than llfestyle/hours that people often overlook? do you like your job more or anything?

My hours weren't anything crazy. I think my biggest year was around 2400. But it was the short-term intensity that really got to me. One month I might bill 60 hours. And the next it might be 400. I expect here that I'll bill between 1700 and 2000 until I make partner. After that it might be a little less.

Some of the perks are perhaps unique to my firm, like how family-oriented and genuinely friendly everyone is. But something I imagine is pretty common at a firm like this is that I am, one hundred percent, certain that I will make partner in two years. In some ways it's harder to get in the door here than it is in biglaw, but once you're in you can be in for life.

It's a real weight off of my shoulders to know that unless I choose to, I never have to look for another job again. I can be invested in this place in a way I never was at my former job.

In terms of the actual "job" part of my job, and setting aside the enormous difference of hours, I don't know that I like it any more or less than what I did before. I'm lucky in that for the most part I enjoy the substance of what I do.

[MidlawAssociate]

I'm currently a 2L heading to a V10 firm this summer. I have three questions:

(1) What does it take to survive/handle biglaw for five years? Did the biglaw lifestyle become routine at some point? If so, at what point? Was it difficult to juggle starting a family while working? I'm hoping to stick around for eight years before going in house, so any advice would be appreciated.

(2) If you were going to take a pay cut, why didn't you go in house? Do you prefer working at a firm?

(3) Are you concerned about the long-term/retirement effects from having a lower income and being able to save and invest less money?

PS: Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. I really appreciate it!

This will be long.

(1) I never imagined that I would be among the last 15% or so of my summer class to leave, and even now it's kind of a puzzle to me how I made it as long as I did. Perhaps the biggest factor was that while I have a lot of opinions about how inhuman biglaw is in general, I happened to fall into a solid and supportive group of people that made the whole experience easier.

As a summer associate, the best thing I can tell you is try to find a practice group that has attorneys who you think you'll get along with. I have genuine love for many of my former colleagues, which I think is pretty rare at at a place like that. And I think having those kinds of relationships was necessary in order for a person like me to make it as long as I did.

I wanted to say that it never becomes routine, but that's just not true. Biglaw rewires your brain. My first few months after leaving I felt like I'd woken up from some sort of dissociative episode. All of a sudden I could make plans again, which I never really did the last few years there. You wake up, you go to work, maybe you get to come home for dinner, maybe not. You live minute by minute, and you get used to doing that. It just becomes what life is. So I guess it becomes "easier" in some perverse way, but it's because you give up a lot of who you were before you went in.

I'd caution you against any eight-year plans, which also ties into the family thing. For me, once my daughter was born, what had been sort of a generalized "I'll probably leave here at some point" became "I'm getting the fuck out of here asap because check out how cute she is". As much as I criticized biglaw in the prior paragraph, I think there's something to be said for sticking it out for four years or so. You won't get better training anywhere else. But eight years is such a huge chunk of your life I'd worry that either (a) you'd get so bitter with the job because you felt trapped by your plan or (b) even if you made it, you would have sacrificed such a tremendous amount just to ultimately leave anyway.

(2) In house has never really appealed to me. I like dealing with different clients, different issues. I like doing deals. I have a lot of great friends who have gone in-house, and that seems to work for them. It's just not for me.

(3) Well I should say that I probably make sub-optimal financial decisions on a daily basis, so I doubt I'm someone you should spend much time listening to on that front. But the median income for partners in my firm is probably around 300-400k. Not biglaw partner money by any stretch, but enough to live an incredibly comfortable lifestyle in a city that's a hell of a lot cheaper than any major American city. My wife and I both come from firmly middle-class families, so neither of us ever had the expectation that we'd be pulling in millions a year.

[lowdmouse]

Do you think there are the same biglaw --> midlaw --> midlaw partner opportunities for litigators? I know there are fewer in house opportunities for litigators, so this sounds like a unicorn to me.

[Alyosha]

Did your firm give you time off for the bar?

[MidlawAssociate]

Do you think there are the same biglaw --> midlaw --> midlaw partner opportunities for litigators? I know there are fewer in house opportunities for litigators, so this sounds like a unicorn to me.

I do. We recently hired a biglaw associate into our litigation practice.

Especially on the litigation side of things, I think you probably want to be pretty diligent about asking what kind of practice you'll be coming into. I imagine that there are lots of firms that you could lateral into that would have very different practices compared with what you are accustomed to.

[MidlawAssociate]

Did your firm give you time off for the bar?

I was fortunate in that I was able to waive in without taking the bar. But yes, we both give time off and pay for bar expenses (application, review course, etc.). Don't expect that you'll have two months off to study, though. You'll definitely get left alone for 3 or 4 weeks, but the prior month you'll likely have to juggle studying and a reduced workload.

[PeanutsNJam]

If you could take a job at your midsized firm straight out of law school, would you just have done that? Was there any value to you spending a few years at a big firm, other than the increased savings? And would the increased savings have been worth it?

[MidlawAssociate]

If you could take a job at your midsized firm straight out of law school, would you just have done that? Was there any value to you spending a few years at a big firm, other than the increased savings? And would the increased savings have been worth it?

For me, I think the way I did it was the right one. First, I really liked living in a big city during my pre-fatherhood days. I don't think I'd be as into my current city (which I now love) as a younger childless person.

Second, I think the training that you get in biglaw is hard to replicate at a smaller, more slow-paced firm. That's not to say that we don't have incredibly talented people working at my current firm, but I just think that you're more likely to develop marketable skills at a biglaw firm. I have no doubt that varies tremendously by practice area and firm, but it was true in my case.

And yeah, I don't think I could have swung a first year's salary at my current firm given the debt I graduated with.

[Anonymous User]

As a current midlaw associate (lit not corp), I'll just chime in and say (a) this is a good thread; and (b) my experiences align with much of OP's observations.

[WhiteCollarBlueShirt]

I'll throw my hat in the ring as a biglaw expat and generally agree. And, I definitely agree with respect to the value of biglaw training--midlaw tends to give more substantive training early on, but nothing compares to the technical knowledge available through biglaw in-house CLE's and resources.

And just to be a contrarian, I'll say downsides to consider, include:

(1) Salary: Obviously lower, but also note that pay scales tend to be extremely compressed from junior associate through junior partner (even when PPP is not shockingly lower).
(2) Client-base: Beware of situations where losing even 1 client might collapse your practice (at least for some period).
(3) Billable hour: An hour billed is not equal everywhere; there may be pressure to self edit or otherwise write down time due to client expectations. Though, without a doubt, night and day in terms of reclaiming evenings and weekends regardless.
(4) Expertise: Not necessarily on the forefront of the practice and development, even if the clients are in their own businesses.

And obviously none of the above necessarily applies to lit, especially #4.

[Anonymous User]

cool. my question was mainly a facetious way of saying congrats, you made it. because that job path is exactly what i hope to do.

what were your biglaw billables like? what do you anticipate midlaw billables will be like? any other overlooked perqs of midlaw over biglaw other than llfestyle/hours that people often overlook? do you like your job more or anything?

My hours weren't anything crazy. I think my biggest year was around 2400. But it was the short-term intensity that really got to me. One month I might bill 60 hours. And the next it might be 400. I expect here that I'll bill between 1700 and 2000 until I make partner. After that it might be a little less.

Some of the perks are perhaps unique to my firm, like how family-oriented and genuinely friendly everyone is. But something I imagine is pretty common at a firm like this is that I am, one hundred percent, certain that I will make partner in two years. In some ways it's harder to get in the door here than it is in biglaw, but once you're in you can be in for life.

It's a real weight off of my shoulders to know that unless I choose to, I never have to look for another job again. I can be invested in this place in a way I never was at my former job.

In terms of the actual "job" part of my job, and setting aside the enormous difference of hours, I don't know that I like it any more or less than what I did before. I'm lucky in that for the most part I enjoy the substance of what I do.

400 hours? Most I have heard of is in the 300s...how is 400 even possible?

[Anonymous User]

As a summer associate, the best thing I can tell you is try to find a practice group that has attorneys who you think you'll get along with. I have genuine love for many of my former colleagues, which I think is pretty rare at at a place like that. And I think having those kinds of relationships was necessary in order for a person like me to make it as long as I did.

The issue with this advice is half the people you worked with during the summer won't be here by the time you come back.. at least that's how it was for me in biglaw. Literally no associate I worked with during the summer is here anymore and half had left by the time I was a second year. (I'm now a midlevel.)

[MidlawAssociate]

I'll throw my hat in the ring as a biglaw expat and generally agree. And, I definitely agree with respect to the value of biglaw training--midlaw tends to give more substantive training early on, but nothing compares to the technical knowledge available through biglaw in-house CLE's and resources.

And just to be a contrarian, I'll say downsides to consider, include:

(1) Salary: Obviously lower, but also note that pay scales tend to be extremely compressed from junior associate through junior partner (even when PPP is not shockingly lower).
(2) Client-base: Beware of situations where losing even 1 client might collapse your practice (at least for some period).
(3) Billable hour: An hour billed is not equal everywhere; there may be pressure to self edit or otherwise write down time due to client expectations. Though, without a doubt, night and day in terms of reclaiming evenings and weekends regardless.
(4) Expertise: Not necessarily on the forefront of the practice and development, even if the clients are in their own businesses.

And obviously none of the above necessarily applies to lit, especially #4.

I agree with most of this. Especially the salary thing. A sixth year doesn't make all that much more than a first year here. Here, at least, there's definitely a significant bump once you hit partner.

I'd add that I've only had one experience (so far) where I was asked to write down my time. And in that case I didn't necessarily disagree since it was shortly after I started and I'd broadened my practice, so I was doing stuff that was new to me.

[MidlawAssociate]

400 hours? Most I have heard of is in the 300s...how is 400 even possible?

It helps when you put in multiple 24 hours days. In my five years, I only had a couple 400 hour months. And after it was over I was barely able to get out of my bed for a few days. 300+ hour months were way too common.

[MidlawAssociate]

As a summer associate, the best thing I can tell you is try to find a practice group that has attorneys who you think you'll get along with. I have genuine love for many of my former colleagues, which I think is pretty rare at at a place like that. And I think having those kinds of relationships was necessary in order for a person like me to make it as long as I did.

The issue with this advice is half the people you worked with during the summer won't be here by the time you come back.. at least that's how it was for me in biglaw. Literally no associate I worked with during the summer is here anymore and half had left by the time I was a second year. (I'm now a midlevel.)

This is a good point. I'll be the first one to admit that I was very lucky, in that there was an unusual amount of continuity in my particular group.

[WhiteCollarBlueShirt]

It helps when you put in multiple 24 hours days. In my five years, I only had a couple 400 hour months. And after it was over I was barely able to get out of my bed for a few days. 300+ hour months were way too common.

For reference too, when I said night and day with regard to hours--I still say that with having never even come close to a 300+ hour month. Not accusing you of anything, but generally when I hear that I envision block billing entire days, which I know is par for the course at some NY practices.

I probably averaged in the mid 200's. I have never done a 100 hour week billed (though plenty "worked"). And I still think midlaw is much easier, probably 2/3rds the hours worked at the absolute high-end.

And as far as our partner vs. associate salary, it tends to be low at the junior partner level across the local firms generally--I could easily see this varying from state-to-state or even firm-to-firm. The junior partner salaries, along with the true client list, are items that I wish I knew more about when going in--wouldn't have changed my mind necessarily, but these things aren't always communicated forthright.