Top Law Schools

Accepted an SA offer with the labor&employment group at a biglaw firm. This is a somewhat large practice group at this office (around 25 at an office of 90).

For those practicing L&E in Biglaw, please tell me about it. What do you like? What don't you like? What does you day look like? What are typical Biglaw exit options for L&E lawyers? Maybe there are questions I haven't asked that you would have wanted to know back when you were in my position. Please share.

I lobbed a lot of questions with the intent of getting a conversation going. I am grateful for any info you are willing to provide. Thank you!

Anonymous User wrote:Accepted an SA offer with the labor&employment group at a biglaw firm. This is a somewhat large practice group at this office (around 25 at an office of 90).

For those practicing L&E in Biglaw, please tell me about it. What do you like? What don't you like? What does you day look like? What are typical Biglaw exit options for L&E lawyers? Maybe there are questions I haven't asked that you would have wanted to know back when you were in my position. Please share.

I lobbed a lot of questions with the intent of getting a conversation going. I am grateful for any info you are willing to provide. Thank you!

Junior associate at a biglaw firm known for its Labor & Employment practice (e.g., Jones Day, Morgan Lewis, Proskauer, etc.). I think L&E is a great practice, particularly for gaining experience. There are a wide variety of cases -- small, single plaintiff cases, class actions, investigations, etc. so you will get a variety of experience. On smaller cases you will probably be running the show; and on larger cases your experience will be the more typical biglaw lit grunt work. (Granted, when you are on a small case flying solo with one partner, you have to do the grunt work also).

I can say for certain that I have gotten more hands-on drafting and client interaction experience than my general lit peers...by a lot.

Exit options seem to be good from my firm... most go in-house at large, institutional clients ...any company with lots of employees is going to need L&E attorneys (e.g., retail, banks, oil, big tech, etc.).

Day to day experience is going to vary widely - depending on what types of matters you are staffed on. No way to definitively answer that question.

As far as downsides, L&E can't command the rates of other practices, so firms combat that with (1) volume and (2) crappy billing arrangements. I can imagine that at some firms, L&E attorneys are considered a secondary/service practice group that isn't seen as important...fortunately that hasn't been the case in my (limited) experience at my firm.

RaceJudicata wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Accepted an SA offer with the labor&employment group at a biglaw firm. This is a somewhat large practice group at this office (around 25 at an office of 90).

For those practicing L&E in Biglaw, please tell me about it. What do you like? What don't you like? What does you day look like? What are typical Biglaw exit options for L&E lawyers? Maybe there are questions I haven't asked that you would have wanted to know back when you were in my position. Please share.

I lobbed a lot of questions with the intent of getting a conversation going. I am grateful for any info you are willing to provide. Thank you!

Junior associate at a biglaw firm known for its Labor & Employment practice (e.g., Jones Day, Morgan Lewis, Proskauer, etc.). I think L&E is a great practice, particularly for gaining experience. There are a wide variety of cases -- small, single plaintiff cases, class actions, investigations, etc. so you will get a variety of experience. On smaller cases you will probably be running the show; and on larger cases your experience will be the more typical biglaw lit grunt work. (Granted, when you are on a small case flying solo with one partner, you have to do the grunt work also).

I can say for certain that I have gotten more hands-on drafting and client interaction experience than my general lit peers...by a lot.

Exit options seem to be good from my firm... most go in-house at large, institutional clients ...any company with lots of employees is going to need L&E attorneys (e.g., retail, banks, oil, big tech, etc.).

Day to day experience is going to vary widely - depending on what types of matters you are staffed on. No way to definitively answer that question.

As far as downsides, L&E can't command the rates of other practices, so firms combat that with (1) volume and (2) crappy billing arrangements. I can imagine that at some firms, L&E attorneys are considered a secondary/service practice group that isn't seen as important...fortunately that hasn't been the case in my (limited) experience at my firm.

Thank you for the response! Got a lot out of it.