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Have some time over the holiday break. I'm in a secondary market, not LA or CHI, more like ATL or St. Louis. Taking questions if anyone is interested.

What is your work/life balance like? Are you at a market paying firm, regional biglaw, or a large local firm? Have you been able to get a decent amount of substantive work yet?

Anonymous User wrote:What is your work/life balance like? Are you at a market paying firm, regional biglaw, or a large local firm? Have you been able to get a decent amount of substantive work yet?

On a good day I work 8 to 6. That's my normal day. When I'm busy I work at night. Work 4 to 6 hours most weekends. All I do is substantive work. I've taken four depos with one being billable, tried an arbtitration pro bono, and have a couple of pro bono trials coming up this year. As far as billable stuff most my day is spent writing briefs, doing research, and other discovery stuff; there isn't much doc review.

Anonymous User wrote:What is your work/life balance like? Are you at a market paying firm, regional biglaw, or a large local firm? Have you been able to get a decent amount of substantive work yet?

Also not market paying biggest firm in the market, so if day regional biglaw. It's vault ranked.

Bump in case anyone was curious about secondary market big firm litigation life. I realize that the other thread covers NYC, but I'm happy to answer any other questions folks may have.

What do you feel like your options are as you begin to advance over the next 3-5 years? Is partnership realistic or are you expected to leave and go elsewhere? What sort of civic commitments are expected of you? Did you clerk and if not, would the firm support you leaving for a year to do so?

jbagelboy wrote:What do you feel like your options are as you begin to advance over the next 3-5 years? Is partnership realistic or are you expected to leave and go elsewhere? What sort of civic commitments are expected of you? Did you clerk and if not, would the firm support you leaving for a year to do so?

I feel like my options are generally go to a smaller firm or pick up a specialty and shoot for in house. I haven't really seen general litigation folks like myself do anything else, but people just haven't left since I've been there in the commercial practice. Actually, I haven't seen anyone leave yet in my group because people are decently happy.

I'd say partnership is realistic and someone just made it in my group. I did not clerk, but the firm would support it if I did. I can't leave my city at the moment, but I'd like to at some point. I think I'll probably exit for das office, a smaller firm, or start my own firm. I actually do feel pretty comfortable running small cases with my experience so far so I think I could do any of those things.

Sent from my phone sorry for typos.

Do you really feel comfortable running your own cases? I'm a second-year lit associate as well and I don't think I could handle a case by myself start-to-finish yet. I am handling a couple matters independently without much supervision but the opportunities for error on my part are somewhat limited with these.

1styearlateral wrote:Do you really feel comfortable running your own cases? I'm a second-year lit associate as well and I don't think I could handle a case by myself start-to-finish yet. I am handling a couple matters independently without much supervision but the opportunities for error on my part are somewhat limited with these.

I do feel comfortable on smaller matters. I'm in kind of a rare practice where from the get go I had partners that were really into baptism by fire, and let me run independently with a lot of things. I do a lot of products work. In those cases, I've pretty much seen all the stages of litigation and even have seen a case from beginning to end. I'd like to have a bit more experience, but if push came to shove, I think I have enough to go out on my own and not commit malpractice.

After reading through the "So you want to be an NY corporate associate thread," many TLSers' biglaw experiences sound horrific. Do you feel like your experience is significantly better than it would be if you worked in a major market?

AZ123 wrote:After reading through the "So you want to be an NY corporate associate thread," many TLSers' biglaw experiences sound horrific. Do you feel like your experience is significantly better than it would be if you worked in a major market?

Yes. Absolutely. I still work very hard, but I could easily stick this out for 5+ years, if I wanted to. There is a trade off though, secondary markets really compress midlevel/senior associate salaries. I'll never make 400k as an associate like NYC associates. Also, we face a lot of pressure to bill efficiently since are fees are the top of the market. I've worked on some NYC matters this past year, and no one blinked at what or how I was billing.

All in all though, at the end of the day, it's still Biglaw. There is a lot of stress that comes with the job. I also don't do a good enough job of turning off and I really beat myself up over dumb mistakes.

I think secondary market litigation could be the way to go for a lot of people though. I definitely believe that I have more skills/experience than a lot of midlevels in NYC who have never taken a deposition. From what I understand, you may have to wait until you are a midlevel to write anything substantive in some places. That has definitely not been my experience. On the other hand, some days I do envy my friends who bill 8+ hours to a document review and call it a day.

How many attorneys are in your office?

1styearlateral wrote:How many attorneys are in your office?

Probably 140 partner track attorneys including those who are already partner. Probably another 100 or so doc review/ staff attorneys.