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I was on a case my first year or two that took up basically all of my time. Now that it’s over, I find myself on 3-4 different case teams (big cases, not smaller matters). I am not working super crazy hours, but I hate how I feel like I am spread too thin over all the cases and am not involved enough in any of them to have much real responsibility or understanding of the overall case strategy and facts. I also continue to get pretty substantial one-off assignments from other cases and partners I’ve worked for before (getting better at just saying no). Have had many deadline clashes and miss being on one main case. Hard to imagine trying to schedule a vacation needing approval from so many teams. Is this pretty typical or do you usually find yourself on one or two main cases with other smaller things occasionally?

I'm a first year, and I'm currently on 3 major teams (3 different partners) along with a host of smaller matters. Two of the big projects have been absolutely crazy lately. I don't have much advice to offer, but I feel your pain about being spread too thin. It definitely has affected my work, especially on the smaller matters, which I often put off and do last minute or even after the initial deadline. I've reached the point where I feel I need to talk to someone about this. I'm on pace for about 2400 hours, but I feel like none of the partners are aware just how busy I am.

legallyblonde21 wrote:I was on a case my first year or two that took up basically all of my time. Now that it’s over, I find myself on 3-4 different case teams (big cases, not smaller matters). I am not working super crazy hours, but I hate how I feel like I am spread too thin over all the cases and am not involved enough in any of them to have much real responsibility or understanding of the overall case strategy and facts. I also continue to get pretty substantial one-off assignments from other cases and partners I’ve worked for before (getting better at just saying no). Have had many deadline clashes and miss being on one main case. Hard to imagine trying to schedule a vacation needing approval from so many teams. Is this pretty typical or do you usually find yourself on one or two main cases with other smaller things occasionally?

I use to work on anywhere from 6-8 matters at a time. Most of my matters were fairly small and didn't require much discovery. I'd probably have like 1-2 "big" cases at a time. I sort of liked it this way. Things were never boring, and I wasn't stuck doing discovery stuff all the time.