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I'll be a first year transactional associate in NYC biglaw this fall.

I've read through a number of posts on this forum and I have 2 questions regarding one's "stub year."

1) Some posts seem to indicate that it's not a good idea to bill an enormous amount of hours your first year. Is this because everyone assumes that you don't know anything and your hours are going to have to get cut on clients bills anyways? Some posts even indicated that acting this way could get you labelled a "gunner" like in law school - to me, this seems like it doesn't make much sense.

2) I'd like to take the odd weekend trip out of town from time to time (strictly leave late Friday night, come back late Sunday night). Is this generally an ok thing to do? (obviously I know I can't do this when there's a live deal or when I know I'm going to need to do work that weekend). Would it be possible to get into a groove where I can do a trip like this once a month? (again, I know this wouldn't be possible during some busy seasons).

Please let me know what you think

Thanks,
Anon

1. It's generally not a good idea to establish an expectation that you'll be essentially living at the office in any job. It's not about being lazy or not wanting to be labelled a "gunner". It's more just you don't really know how long projects/assignments take so if you assign away 100% of your time, you're just totally fucked if things take longer than expected (which they will.)
2. Almost entirely depends on your firm.

Anonymous User wrote:I'll be a first year transactional associate in NYC biglaw this fall.

I've read through a number of posts on this forum and I have 2 questions regarding one's "stub year."

1) Some posts seem to indicate that it's not a good idea to bill an enormous amount of hours your first year. Is this because everyone assumes that you don't know anything and your hours are going to have to get cut on clients bills anyways? Some posts even indicated that acting this way could get you labelled a "gunner" like in law school - to me, this seems like it doesn't make much sense.

2) I'd like to take the odd weekend trip out of town from time to time (strictly leave late Friday night, come back late Sunday night). Is this generally an ok thing to do? (obviously I know I can't do this when there's a live deal or when I know I'm going to need to do work that weekend). Would it be possible to get into a groove where I can do a trip like this once a month? (again, I know this wouldn't be possible during some busy seasons).

Please let me know what you think

Thanks,
Anon

Biglaw associate:

Depends on your practice group and what's going on, but it is a reality of Biglaw that you might need to work on the weekend without advance notice, and the partners will expect you to be online. This doesn't mean you shouldn't go on weekend trips, but take your laptop and don't go out into the depths of the woods without wifi without letting your boss know you will be out of pocket (and getting their ok).