I Got Fired This Week Forum

[Npret]

Maybe this goes without saying but save as much money as you can now. Do all your doctor and dentist appointments now while you have insurance. Fill prescriptions if you have any.

You may as well use the benefits you have now.

[legalpotato]

OP, are you unhappy with this firm, or big law generally (you may not know). If it's big law generally, then if you want to stay in DC, you should network with any friends/former classmates who are in DC working for federal agencies, because obviously fedgov is a huge player in DC. I think it's generally an easy sell to say you are leaving your firm because you want to work in public service, or you're leaving because you want to be in a new location, but it can sometimes be harder to explain why you want to leave big law to go to another big law firm and do the exact same work (unless you're lateralling up), so to the extent you're looking to move to another big law firm, you should make sure you've locked down a good response as to why you're leaving.

I assume your firm will still give you a good reference (or at least a standard "we don't give references but we can confirm employment dates" response) to your new employer? You should consider asking HR what their policy is, if you're not sure.

OP here. I know. I hate BigLaw. And I hate the fact that there is no diversity. I will never go back to another large law firm. I am diligently working on getting federal government employment as we speak.

FWIW, at my biglaw firm, all juniors are treated like utter shit, it doesn’t matter the color of skin. your experience may be even worse due to color of skin or lack of ppl you feel comfortable confiding in, but I think it’s helpful to acknowledge that all juniors (at least at my firm) are treated with complete lack of care and respect. People leave you off email chains. Don’t tell you about deadlines. Give you an assignment Friday at 10pm and ask for it back ASAP. Leave you completely out of the loop but expect you to ask “how high” within 2 minutes of being told to “jump.” That’s just biglaw - you are a cog in the machine. Again, not saying it is not worse being a POC in biglaw. But FWIW, there is absolutely no person in my firm I feel comfortable confiding in - it is a fukken cutthroat shark pit.

Edited to say sorry this happened to you and you will likely be fine, and to echo that website time is the most valuable thing for you right now.

[Anonymous User]

OP, are you unhappy with this firm, or big law generally (you may not know). If it's big law generally, then if you want to stay in DC, you should network with any friends/former classmates who are in DC working for federal agencies, because obviously fedgov is a huge player in DC. I think it's generally an easy sell to say you are leaving your firm because you want to work in public service, or you're leaving because you want to be in a new location, but it can sometimes be harder to explain why you want to leave big law to go to another big law firm and do the exact same work (unless you're lateralling up), so to the extent you're looking to move to another big law firm, you should make sure you've locked down a good response as to why you're leaving.

I assume your firm will still give you a good reference (or at least a standard "we don't give references but we can confirm employment dates" response) to your new employer? You should consider asking HR what their policy is, if you're not sure.

OP here. I know. I hate BigLaw. And I hate the fact that there is no diversity. I will never go back to another large law firm. I am diligently working on getting federal government employment as we speak.

FWIW, at my biglaw firm, all juniors are treated like utter shit, it doesn’t matter the color of skin. your experience may be even worse due to color of skin or lack of ppl you feel comfortable confiding in, but I think it’s helpful to acknowledge that all juniors (at least at my firm) are treated with complete lack of care and respect. People leave you off email chains. Don’t tell you about deadlines. Give you an assignment Friday at 10pm and ask for it back ASAP. Leave you completely out of the loop but expect you to ask “how high” within 2 minutes of being told to “jump.” That’s just biglaw - you are a cog in the machine. Again, not saying it is not worse being a POC in biglaw. But FWIW, there is absolutely no person in my firm I feel comfortable confiding in - it is a fukken cutthroat shark pit.

Edited to say sorry this happened to you and you will likely be fine, and to echo that website time is the most valuable thing for you right now.

Hi. OP here. I don’t believe I was treated the way I was because of race. I’m only faulting the fact that I was the only black person there. Any working environment thrives when there is diversity in race, thought, gender, etc etc. I felt alone — like there was no one to whom to talk about my problems. I felt that no one would understand my issue. No, I’m not focused on race or blamed my treatment on it. We are all treated as disposable, you’re correct — but the thing is, all the other associates have a sense of camaraderie and try as I might, I just didn’t feel like I belonged.

[legalpotato]

OP, are you unhappy with this firm, or big law generally (you may not know). If it's big law generally, then if you want to stay in DC, you should network with any friends/former classmates who are in DC working for federal agencies, because obviously fedgov is a huge player in DC. I think it's generally an easy sell to say you are leaving your firm because you want to work in public service, or you're leaving because you want to be in a new location, but it can sometimes be harder to explain why you want to leave big law to go to another big law firm and do the exact same work (unless you're lateralling up), so to the extent you're looking to move to another big law firm, you should make sure you've locked down a good response as to why you're leaving.

I assume your firm will still give you a good reference (or at least a standard "we don't give references but we can confirm employment dates" response) to your new employer? You should consider asking HR what their policy is, if you're not sure.

OP here. I know. I hate BigLaw. And I hate the fact that there is no diversity. I will never go back to another large law firm. I am diligently working on getting federal government employment as we speak.

FWIW, at my biglaw firm, all juniors are treated like utter shit, it doesn’t matter the color of skin. your experience may be even worse due to color of skin or lack of ppl you feel comfortable confiding in, but I think it’s helpful to acknowledge that all juniors (at least at my firm) are treated with complete lack of care and respect. People leave you off email chains. Don’t tell you about deadlines. Give you an assignment Friday at 10pm and ask for it back ASAP. Leave you completely out of the loop but expect you to ask “how high” within 2 minutes of being told to “jump.” That’s just biglaw - you are a cog in the machine. Again, not saying it is not worse being a POC in biglaw. But FWIW, there is absolutely no person in my firm I feel comfortable confiding in - it is a fukken cutthroat shark pit.

Edited to say sorry this happened to you and you will likely be fine, and to echo that website time is the most valuable thing for you right now.

Hi. OP here. I don’t believe I was treated the way I was because of race. I’m only faulting the fact that I was the only black person there. Any working environment thrives when there is diversity in race, thought, gender, etc etc. I felt alone — like there was no one to whom to talk about my problems. I felt that no one would understand my issue. No, I’m not focused on race or blamed my treatment on it. We are all treated as disposable, you’re correct — but the thing is, all the other associates have a sense of camaraderie and try as I might, I just didn’t feel like I belonged.

No I get that, and I don’t think you came across as playing the victim card either. It is definitely hard if you don’t have ppl in your class year you can talk to or feel you can relate to. I was more just clarifying just in case there are 0Ls reading that biglaw sucks really really bad.

[objctnyrhnr]

OP, are you unhappy with this firm, or big law generally (you may not know). If it's big law generally, then if you want to stay in DC, you should network with any friends/former classmates who are in DC working for federal agencies, because obviously fedgov is a huge player in DC. I think it's generally an easy sell to say you are leaving your firm because you want to work in public service, or you're leaving because you want to be in a new location, but it can sometimes be harder to explain why you want to leave big law to go to another big law firm and do the exact same work (unless you're lateralling up), so to the extent you're looking to move to another big law firm, you should make sure you've locked down a good response as to why you're leaving.

I assume your firm will still give you a good reference (or at least a standard "we don't give references but we can confirm employment dates" response) to your new employer? You should consider asking HR what their policy is, if you're not sure.

OP here. I know. I hate BigLaw. And I hate the fact that there is no diversity. I will never go back to another large law firm. I am diligently working on getting federal government employment as we speak.

FWIW, at my biglaw firm, all juniors are treated like utter shit, it doesn’t matter the color of skin. your experience may be even worse due to color of skin or lack of ppl you feel comfortable confiding in, but I think it’s helpful to acknowledge that all juniors (at least at my firm) are treated with complete lack of care and respect. People leave you off email chains. Don’t tell you about deadlines. Give you an assignment Friday at 10pm and ask for it back ASAP. Leave you completely out of the loop but expect you to ask “how high” within 2 minutes of being told to “jump.” That’s just biglaw - you are a cog in the machine. Again, not saying it is not worse being a POC in biglaw. But FWIW, there is absolutely no person in my firm I feel comfortable confiding in - it is a fukken cutthroat shark pit.

Edited to say sorry this happened to you and you will likely be fine, and to echo that website time is the most valuable thing for you right now.

This sounds brutal. Any desire to out your firm?

[CardozoLaw09]

BigLaw seems like it's only good for the money and exit opps.

[Anonymous User]

I feel like my first two years were a complete shitshow with a lot of work on Friday / weekends but it definitely got better after having someone more junior on the team.

[objctnyrhnr]

3 months is not a ton of time. Ask for more and ask to stay on the website and health care. Use the transition services as they should help.

Sounds like they were right about you being unhappy. Just try to get as much time as you can.

I'm sorry to hear about this OP. I understand it's tough, but you really have no leverage here and 3 months is pretty solid. It's more important that you get increased website time. And I cannot speak to this partner, as I don't know him/her, but I'm sensing that you aren't that into BigLaw in general. There's no shame in that, as there are plenty of reasons to jump ship. Take some time to reassess. Hopefully you're not beholden to the BIgLaw paycheck.

OP here. I hated BigLaw around December of my stub year. But, I wanted to make it to at least a year before I called it quits. I am not ashamed that I hate BigLaw. I'm more ashamed that firms say they care about retaining black associates, but we leave at faster rates than everyone else because of the shit we put up with at firms. You can't have only one black associate in the building and expect that person to be "happy" that he or she is there. There were no mentorship opportunities either! It's a shame.

You can only be happy around people that look like you? Also, whose responsibility is it to seek mentorship opportunities? Seems like a pretty toxic mix of entitlement, an inability to effectively work with people based on the color of their skin and a hatred of your job led to a natural outcome. I would recommend some honest self-reflection.

Blatant anon abuse, but Qcontonum beat me to the punch. I do think that TLS needs to accept contrary views in order to avoid being an echo chamber, and (as much as I disagree with the sentiment) I think that the outed poster’s post is at least arguably important to the dialogue. But hiding behind anon to voice an objectively unpopular (and likely some other worse adjectives) view certainly constitutes abuse of the feature. (And further, at the end of the day, it’s a blog between strangers...so like say what you want, but why hide? Nobody’s finding you.)

[QContinuum]

To OP: I'm sorry - it's rough to get fired, and even rougher getting fired at the beginning of your second year. I echo the advice ITT to ask for additional website time. That is critical, because 3 months isn't really a long time - you ideally want to not only get an offer but also clear background checks before you're off the website.

I certainly would not hire an employment lawyer if I were in your shoes.

All the best going forward.

To other TLSers: Something about this thread seems to have made many posters go off the rails. I have given this thread a thorough cleansing, and fervently hope I won't have to do so again. As a reminder, the anon use rules are available at http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=170603. Also as a reminder, profane ad hominem attacks against other posters - no matter how strongly you may disagree with them - are against TLS' rules. Given the rampant rule-breaking so far in this thread, I've decided to give everyone involved a "general amnesty," so to speak, but if this thread continues careening out of control, I'll issue official warnings and/or bans as warranted.

Let's focus on helping OP, not squabbling amongst ourselves.

[Npret]

OP - this got moved to the other thread but I’ll double post the substance here.

Are you able to move to other markets? I’m concerned about DC hiring right now with the uncertainty and the likelihood that government hiring is out until with another shutdown possible.

I suggest you consider where else you might be able to live and work of only for a couple of years.

Did you apply to other markets in OCI? The good news is DC is the most competitive market so you may find it easier to look elsewhere.

[nealric]

BigLaw seems like it's only good for the money and exit opps.

It has the potential to be a fantastic training environment. You work around people who are pretty uniformly smart, and you get to work on very complex matters on a regular basis. Of course, that doesn't always pan out. You may be stuck doing diligence/doc review for years on end, but if you can get yourself in the right place, it gives you the tools you will need to succeed in the places you might exit to. And believe it or not, some people do manage to stick around.

[jbagelboy]

2nd year so I’m assuming you’ve only been at your firm for like a year and a 3-4 months. That’s rough, did they give you a reason? Was your group slow?

Yes, that's right. The reason was that they were worried I wasn't happy and interested in working biglaw. They said I was too low on hours (true), but that was because I had to constantly fight for work. My practice area also hired three other lateral associates, so I think my job just became obsolete.

I admit, I was not happy. I hated the job. There was no diversity, and I felt alone by myself. But, I still tried to put myself out there; they still figured out that I was not happy. Oh well.

This is nothing to be ashamed of. Expecting biglaw associates to be “happy” is completely unreasonable. These jobs are generally terrible and everyone knows that. The people who routinely show up “happy” to their corporate law firm jobs are probably sociopaths.

OTOH it makes sense if you were fired because (1) low hours plus (2) firm struggling to compete. Don’t for a second take blame for not acting happier about your job.

[rowingmyboat]

2nd year so I’m assuming you’ve only been at your firm for like a year and a 3-4 months. That’s rough, did they give you a reason? Was your group slow?

Yes, that's right. The reason was that they were worried I wasn't happy and interested in working biglaw. They said I was too low on hours (true), but that was because I had to constantly fight for work. My practice area also hired three other lateral associates, so I think my job just became obsolete.

I admit, I was not happy. I hated the job. There was no diversity, and I felt alone by myself. But, I still tried to put myself out there; they still figured out that I was not happy. Oh well.

This is nothing to be ashamed of. Expecting biglaw associates to be “happy” is completely unreasonable. These jobs are generally terrible and everyone knows that. The people who routinely show up “happy” to their corporate law firm jobs are probably sociopaths.

OTOH it makes sense if you were fired because (1) low hours plus (2) firm struggling to compete. Don’t for a second take blame for not acting happier about your job.

I think there might be a happy medium between a "happy" sociopath and someone noticeably bothered about being at work (not saying this was necessarily the case for OP). As with lots of things, sometimes you do have to wear that mask. For biglaw, folks don't necessarily want to assign work to people that make it seem like its a huge chore. I agree that (1) and (2) are likely the reason behind the firing and many biglaw firings in general, but a lack of eagerness might fit into the math on who gets the axe. For OP, this also sounds like a line that they told you to cover up (1) and (2), but for the above poster, while it maybe be unreasonable to expect biglaw associates to actually be happy, it isn't that unreasonable to expect them to not act unhappy.

Wishing all the best to OP and hoping you find a good fit.

[Anonymous User]

I got fired from my V1 firm after my first year. Happened pretty frequently, and most of it appears as elective. Still got the bonus, was on the website as long as I needed, etc. Was a huge pain in the ass but landed on my feet (in my opinion, at least).

Good luck.

[QContinuum]

I got fired from my V1 firm after my first year. Happened pretty frequently, and most of it appears as elective. Still got the bonus, was on the website as long as I needed, etc. Was a huge pain in the ass but landed on my feet (in my opinion, at least).

Good luck.

A bit confused. Does "V1" mean Cravath, or "V50," or "V100"?

[Anonymous User]

OP - this got moved to the other thread but I’ll double post the substance here.

Are you able to move to other markets? I’m concerned about DC hiring right now with the uncertainty and the likelihood that government hiring is out until with another shutdown possible.

I suggest you consider where else you might be able to live and work of only for a couple of years.

Did you apply to other markets in OCI? The good news is DC is the most competitive market so you may find it easier to look elsewhere.

I'd like to emphasize this advice. I recently (within the last year) moved from biglaw to the federal government, but to do so took about 18 months despite broadly applying. That was probably a bit on the long side, but I've heard generally that you should expect it to take a year to land a fed job. But of course that timing could be worse now with the shutdown and threat of another shutdown. I would recommend (1) lobbying to get more website time even at the expense of some severance, as others have suggested; (2) apply to fed jobs broadly, including not limiting yourself to GS14 or GS15 jobs; and (3) also look at other jobs, including in areas other than DC, in case you don't get any bites from the feds in time. Hopefully you can get a fed job in the time you're on the firm website, but you should have options in mind if that doesn't happen. Good luck!

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

2nd year so I’m assuming you’ve only been at your firm for like a year and a 3-4 months. That’s rough, did they give you a reason? Was your group slow?

Yes, that's right. The reason was that they were worried I wasn't happy and interested in working biglaw. They said I was too low on hours (true), but that was because I had to constantly fight for work. My practice area also hired three other lateral associates, so I think my job just became obsolete.

I admit, I was not happy. I hated the job. There was no diversity, and I felt alone by myself. But, I still tried to put myself out there; they still figured out that I was not happy. Oh well.

This is nothing to be ashamed of. Expecting biglaw associates to be “happy” is completely unreasonable. These jobs are generally terrible and everyone knows that. The people who routinely show up “happy” to their corporate law firm jobs are probably sociopaths.

OTOH it makes sense if you were fired because (1) low hours plus (2) firm struggling to compete. Don’t for a second take blame for not acting happier about your job.

If Biglaw fired every unhappy lawyer, we'd be left with seven DSM-diagnosable midlevels and 100 Rutgers eager beavers just thrilled for the chance to be there.

OP was fired for being some combination of unprofitable and unliked (fair or not). By the way, that's the reason anyone is fired, just to save you all some time in the next 100 threads.

[Anonymous User]

I got fired from my V1 firm after my first year. Happened pretty frequently, and most of it appears as elective. Still got the bonus, was on the website as long as I needed, etc. Was a huge pain in the ass but landed on my feet (in my opinion, at least).

Good luck.

A bit confused. Does "V1" mean Cravath, or "V50," or "V100"?

The former.

[Anonymous User]

OP, I feel for you. As a minority myself, I've definitely noticed how tough it is. I noticed there's a disinclination to give me visible roles (on litigation teams, for client meets) and I can't help but wonder if it's because the clients or judges are white males and the firm feels other white people are more presentable than myself. Always got glowing reviews and hit hours, but am not taken to depos, court, or client meetings.

When you're a minority, you have fewer opportunities in biglaw than other people.

[Anonymous User]

OP, are you unhappy with this firm, or big law generally (you may not know). If it's big law generally, then if you want to stay in DC, you should network with any friends/former classmates who are in DC working for federal agencies, because obviously fedgov is a huge player in DC. I think it's generally an easy sell to say you are leaving your firm because you want to work in public service, or you're leaving because you want to be in a new location, but it can sometimes be harder to explain why you want to leave big law to go to another big law firm and do the exact same work (unless you're lateralling up), so to the extent you're looking to move to another big law firm, you should make sure you've locked down a good response as to why you're leaving.

I assume your firm will still give you a good reference (or at least a standard "we don't give references but we can confirm employment dates" response) to your new employer? You should consider asking HR what their policy is, if you're not sure.

OP here. I know. I hate BigLaw. And I hate the fact that there is no diversity. I will never go back to another large law firm. I am diligently working on getting federal government employment as we speak.

FWIW, at my biglaw firm, all juniors are treated like utter shit, it doesn’t matter the color of skin. your experience may be even worse due to color of skin or lack of ppl you feel comfortable confiding in, but I think it’s helpful to acknowledge that all juniors (at least at my firm) are treated with complete lack of care and respect. People leave you off email chains. Don’t tell you about deadlines. Give you an assignment Friday at 10pm and ask for it back ASAP. Leave you completely out of the loop but expect you to ask “how high” within 2 minutes of being told to “jump.” That’s just biglaw - you are a cog in the machine. Again, not saying it is not worse being a POC in biglaw. But FWIW, there is absolutely no person in my firm I feel comfortable confiding in - it is a fukken cutthroat shark pit.

Edited to say sorry this happened to you and you will likely be fine, and to echo that website time is the most valuable thing for you right now.

I agree. It's like that at my firm too. At my firm and my practice group, not everyone is shit but few seniors definitely are and they are given free rein by the partners they work with the most. One or two terrible seniors can make your life at the firm completely miserable even though all your previous experiences were pleasant with the usual "the work is tough but I like the people" feeling. At some point, you just cannot take it anymore. You just cannot keep saying sorry for things you clearly do not feel sorry about. You vent your frustration out at that senior and then your life at the firm is fucked. You used to be optimistic and like your firm somewhat. You used to pull several all-nighters and work hard during holidays when very few were online, because it will all be worth it in the end. But you no longer really care, because it doesn't fucking matter. You are just a machine that doesn't get any credit or recognition whatsoever.

[LBJ's Hair]

I got fired from my V1 firm after my first year. Happened pretty frequently, and most of it appears as elective. Still got the bonus, was on the website as long as I needed, etc. Was a huge pain in the ass but landed on my feet (in my opinion, at least).

Good luck.

A bit confused. Does "V1" mean Cravath, or "V50," or "V100"?

The former.

weird flex

[CardozoLaw09]

I got fired from my V1 firm after my first year. Happened pretty frequently, and most of it appears as elective. Still got the bonus, was on the website as long as I needed, etc. Was a huge pain in the ass but landed on my feet (in my opinion, at least).

Good luck.

A bit confused. Does "V1" mean Cravath, or "V50," or "V100"?

The former.

weird flex

but OK

[Anonymous User]

I got fired from my V1 firm after my first year. Happened pretty frequently, and most of it appears as elective. Still got the bonus, was on the website as long as I needed, etc. Was a huge pain in the ass but landed on my feet (in my opinion, at least).

Good luck.

A bit confused. Does "V1" mean Cravath, or "V50," or "V100"?

The former.

weird flex

I meant that almost every firm is firing people all the time, including firms like my former firm that try to hide it from the associates. Many people come in thinking that they have 3-5 years before the pushing out begins and that's simply not the case.

[Anonymous User]

OP here.

Hooray! I have an interview with a federal agency this week. While I will be doing the same type of work and the agency is in the top 10 agencies for which to work, I am kinda nervous about how to approach an interview with governmental agencies. Any advice? Thanks!

[nixy]

Have a good answer for “why fedgov” that isn’t “because I need a job” (even though that’s a perfectly fair real answer). I would say: emphasize any public service you might have and your interest in public service without overselling it. Also emphasize any relevant skills you have and what the agency will let you do that you can’t at a firm (e.g. have more autonomy, develop skills more quickly than firm work, that kind of thing). Agencies are frequently looking for someone who can come in and run with stuff at the same time that you’ll comply with policies/standards and not be a maverick. Stay away from pay/resources.