Stub year ramping up: how long till you were busy? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Apologies for the anon, but my username is likely identifiable from post history and would like to remain somewhat anonymous for this post.

V15 stub year lit associate in in non-NYC major market. Pretty slow right now. I have been reaching out to people to let them know i'm available, but haven't had much luck yet.

For those experienced biglaw lit associates here, how long did it take you to ramp up and get staffed?

[Anonymous User]

Took me about 4 months to get fairly busy and then I was slammed at 6 months (over 300 hours). If you are slow enjoy it, it will get busier for sure. Don’t take on a bunch of pro bono to try to fill the time since you will undoubtedly get staffed on a bunch of stuff within a month.

[QContinuum]

Took me about 4 months to get fairly busy and then I was slammed at 6 months (over 300 hours). If you are slow enjoy it, it will get busier for sure. Don’t take on a bunch of pro bono to try to fill the time since you will undoubtedly get staffed on a bunch of stuff within a month.

This is TCR. Don't worry; especially in lit, it'll usually take some time for a new associate to get staffed on matters. I especially second the advice about not overcommitting yourself to pro bono - you can take on a small, time-limited pro bono assignment if you want, but you don't want to end up in a situation where you're juggling multiple pro bono cases and turning down paying client work.

[Anonymous User]

Took me about 4 months to get fairly busy and then I was slammed at 6 months (over 300 hours). If you are slow enjoy it, it will get busier for sure. Don’t take on a bunch of pro bono to try to fill the time since you will undoubtedly get staffed on a bunch of stuff within a month.

This is TCR. Don't worry; especially in lit, it'll usually take some time for a new associate to get staffed on matters. I especially second the advice about not overcommitting yourself to pro bono - you can take on a small, time-limited pro bono assignment if you want, but you don't want to end up in a situation where you're juggling multiple pro bono cases and turning down paying client work.

A good thing to do if you are worried about not having stuff to fill the time is to propose/write some articles. For example, check the court websites for the major appeals courts in your jurisdiction and when the new opinions come out try to write an article summarizing them and their implications. Or if you have any areas you are interested in propose some articles to the partners who also work on those areas. These are discrete projects that can take a couple days but does not have an external deadline that might conflict with new matters and that you can put to the side when you get more billable work.

As a first year lit associate, just FYI, you are liable to get tapped for a couple of rush doc review projects so it is really important not to overextend yourself.