Denver Market Quality of Life Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hey everyone,

I am a 4th year corporate associate in NYC and I am very interested in potentially moving to Denver. In my time in NYC, I've worked at two different firms and would consider myself a pretty good associate, but the hours and the stress are really starting to get to me. Additionally, NYC is just a really stressful place to live and work and I find the overall quality of life here to be terrible. I'm really interested in moving Denver and giving firm life one more shot, but really don't want to pick up and move to have it be a similar work/life balance and level of stress. Does anyone on this board work in Denver as an associate (especially a corporate associate)? If so, can anyone speak to the quality of life associates have out there and if it would be any less stressful or less time consuming? Or an I just delusional to think this job can be better elsewhere?

Thanks in advance for the advice and comments.

[Anonymous User]

BUMP

[shock259]

This is going to be hard to generalize. Are you going to try to lateral into a big firm in Denver? How much are you billing now? I dropped from 2400/year in NYC to 2100/year in Denver. But the general stress level and client demands were about the same. It's still big law, after all. That said, I found my colleagues in Denver to be way more human. As in I actually enjoy socializing with them.

I think the job is better here, but it's still pretty much the same job.

[Anonymous User]

This is going to be hard to generalize. Are you going to try to lateral into a big firm in Denver? How much are you billing now? I dropped from 2400/year in NYC to 2100/year in Denver. But the general stress level and client demands were about the same. It's still big law, after all. That said, I found my colleagues in Denver to be way more human. As in I actually enjoy socializing with them.

I think the job is better here, but it's still pretty much the same job.

Yea, I am trying to lateral into a big firm (either a national firm or one of the big Denver-based firms like Brownstein or DGS). I bill between 2000 and 2200 now (even less some earlier years), but it seems like the stress is always so intense. In the last six months i've worked past midnight probably 30 times and i'm generally just tired and worn out by it. Are clients less demanding than in NYC? I work with mostly PE firms, and they are an intense bunch. In terms of quality of life, I'm trying to see if it is normal for people to leave the office at like 6 and work from home after. In NYC, even on good days, I'm here till 7:30 PM and it seems like there is an aversion to leaving before 6:30, even if you are slow. So if I want to work out, I usually don't get home until 9 pm. The anecdote about your co-workers being more human sounds good, that is definitely something I'm looking for. NYC is filled with stressed out, super type A people and it's not really my cup of tea

[Anonymous User]

Bump

[Anonymous User]

How hard is it to target Denver big law from lower t14 ~top 25% with no ties to Denver/ Colorado/ Mountain West at all? Is it more likely to work in NYC or Houston and try to lateral after 2 years than go straight from school?

[Anonymous User]

I bid on a few Denver firms just for the hell of it (with no ties) from top 5% at a T6 and got 0 callbacks.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone with actual comments on quality of life, rather than asking questions about OCI bidding

[FascinatedWanderer]

You bumped this thread 3 times in like 1.5 days. Pretty sure NYC is indeed the market for you.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a former paralegal for a big denver firm. The hour targets are lower. ~1850 vs. 2000+ for new york. Obviously, your actual hours are going to depend on your group. Denver has a much higher QOL and your dollar goes much farther. On a biglaw salary, you can buy a house with a yard that's 15 minutes from downtown. Denver is the perfect city IMO. If you're at all outdoorsy, there's nowhere better.

At my firm, the place was largely dead by 6pm. Of course, people log on at home if need be.

[Anonymous User]

I'm roughly your same year but I'm on the litigation side of the house. So I'll answer as best I can and I think quality of life experience may be transferable.

My trajectory was NYC firm, clerkship, Denver firm.

Your quality of life will almost surely be better in Denver. My experience in NYC was that things rarely got done before 10 am and it was the norm to stay until 8 or later. In Denver, the city generally gets moving a bit earlier (I'm usually in the office around 8 am or 9 at the latest), and people leave for the day from 5-7 and log back in to work from home as necessary. Of course, you still have your occasional weekend fire drill, or a deadline that will keep you late. Generally speaking there is less of a "need" to be in the office just for the sake of keeping up appearances -- as long as you are making your hours. The stress is still there, and I agree with the above poster, but I find Denver to be a much more manageable city, with better weather and people that value their weekends in the mountains. People like to stay fit in Denver and the culture seems to place a lower value on proving how hard you work than NYC did.

That said, people keep busy in Denver. As to hours and how the firm has you spend your time, YMMV.

The large Denver firms (Brownstein, DGS, H&H) generally have lower target hours from my understanding regarding billable hours, but they are more aggressive regarding getting even their junior associates out into the community to hit the pavement, make connections, and start meeting new referral sources and potential clients. On the one hand you have access to the benefit of having a business development budget at the onset of your career. On the other hand, the firm's expectation is that i) this eventually pays off; and ii) you can spend your entire weekend (and even some weeknights) at events the firm sponsors, which comes alongside making your billable hours for the year.

The Am law 100 firms with offices in Denver (GDC, WH, HL, A&P etc.) are likely a lot more like your NYC firm. This is especially true for the firms with satellite offices in Denver that went Cravath scale. Often they won't start expecting any sort of business development (if they ever expect any) until you are a senior associate. Simultaneously, their hours expectations can be more comparable to what you would see in a large coastal city, but with the caveat that in some cases you may be a "service office" helping the firm's biggest clients in DC or elsewhere, which could put you on an east coast timeline.

The upshot of it is that I'm very happy in Denver, the move was absolutely the right choice for me, the quality of life is absolutely better, and I think you will find that while it is less stressful in many ways than NYC, there is no silver bullet for a job as an attorney in a large firm being "less time consuming."

[Anonymous User]

You bumped this thread 3 times in like 1.5 days. Pretty sure NYC is indeed the market for you.

haha touche, but im desperate and I hate who i've become

[shock259]

Yea, I am trying to lateral into a big firm (either a national firm or one of the big Denver-based firms like Brownstein or DGS). I bill between 2000 and 2200 now (even less some earlier years), but it seems like the stress is always so intense. In the last six months i've worked past midnight probably 30 times and i'm generally just tired and worn out by it. Are clients less demanding than in NYC? I work with mostly PE firms, and they are an intense bunch. In terms of quality of life, I'm trying to see if it is normal for people to leave the office at like 6 and work from home after. In NYC, even on good days, I'm here till 7:30 PM and it seems like there is an aversion to leaving before 6:30, even if you are slow. So if I want to work out, I usually don't get home until 9 pm. The anecdote about your co-workers being more human sounds good, that is definitely something I'm looking for. NYC is filled with stressed out, super type A people and it's not really my cup of tea

I work with PE firms too. Some Denver PE firms are more humane and some are as bad as NYC. Also, depending on what firm you end up at, be aware that a lot of your work may be for clients based in NYC or other markets. Particularly with national firms. There aren't that many clients in Denver that can afford the national firm rates.

On timing, it's 100% normal for people to leave at 6pm and work from home. I would say 90% of people do it in my office.

[Anonymous User]

To the two posters above, thanks so much for the explanations. I definitely understand how it all depends on which client, but from talking to a few friends and the board here, seems like it is typical to get in around 8:30 - 9:00 am and leave between 5:30 - 6:00, which is pretty fantastic in my view. Do you guys live in the city, or out in the burbs? Seems like traffic can get bad during rush hour so not sure how that affects the quality of life. I know my SO would want to move out near the mountains if we moved there which could mean like an hour commute each way. Not sure if that is a deal breaker or not for working there. Seems like working from home is an option a few days a week as well from the people I spoke to, which would be amazing. Especially if you could do a M-W in office and a Thursday/Friday at home.

[Anonymous User]

Do you guys live in the city, or out in the burbs? Seems like traffic can get bad during rush hour so not sure how that affects the quality of life. I know my SO would want to move out near the mountains if we moved there which could mean like an hour commute each way. Not sure if that is a deal breaker or not for working there.

Not the other posters, but I've lived in the metro area for years. Denver traffic is not great during rush hour (especially with all you damn imports ), but there are accessible city neighborhoods and suburbs that aren't bad. Traffic is far worse going north-south to the suburbs along I-25 than it is from the west (near the mountains). I live in the western suburbs and work downtown, and most days my commute is ~30 minutes. It would actually be better if I could shift my start/end times to miss the worst of rush hour, but I'm in government so don't have that option. There are also good light rail connections to downtown if you don't want to drive every day.

TL;DR: commute won't be a dealbreaker if you're flexible on location, especially when coming from NYC.

[Tr3]

Do you guys live in the city, or out in the burbs? Seems like traffic can get bad during rush hour so not sure how that affects the quality of life. I know my SO would want to move out near the mountains if we moved there which could mean like an hour commute each way. Not sure if that is a deal breaker or not for working there.

Not the other posters, but I've lived in the metro area for years. Denver traffic is not great during rush hour (especially with all you damn imports ), but there are accessible city neighborhoods and suburbs that aren't bad. Traffic is far worse going north-south to the suburbs along I-25 than it is from the west (near the mountains). I live in the western suburbs and work downtown, and most days my commute is ~30 minutes. It would actually be better if I could shift my start/end times to miss the worst of rush hour, but I'm in government so don't have that option. There are also good light rail connections to downtown if you don't want to drive every day.

TL;DR: commute won't be a dealbreaker if you're flexible on location, especially when coming from NYC.

Just adding that Denver is pretty close to the mountains. You can be in the mountains (well, the foothills) within about a half hour. If you live an hour west of Denver, you'll probably be living in the mountains. =)