Big Law L&E? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hi all! I'm a 3rd year at a lower end Amlaw 100 doing L&E with mix of insurance and private clients. I'm looking to move back up to Nor Cal. I'm thinking this is a good opportunity to switch firms and try for Big Law L&E? Currently I'm bringing in $150,000 for 2,200 hours. The current firm I'm at has a pretty chill culture and they don't care when I come and go as long as I get my work done. Can you all share some insight into firms I should look into that have a good culture (or similar to what I have) and pay well? Happy to share more information to get your collective wisdom! Many thanks!!

[Anonymous User]

Depends what you value most. I know at least one Bay Area L&E boutique starts its first years (out of law school) at $175k, and most bill around 1900-1950. If you are fine with billing 2200 every year, though, you might want to consider a higher-paying full service firm. Not sure how "chill" they are, but you could make Cravath scale money at a firm like Paul Hastings, DLA, Orrick, Morgan Lewis, etc., though they would maybe slot you at a lower class level, e.g., class of 2018 rather than class of 2017.

[Anonymous User]

Depends what you value most. I know at least one Bay Area L&E boutique starts its first years (out of law school) at $175k, and most bill around 1900-1950. If you are fine with billing 2200 every year, though, you might want to consider a higher-paying full service firm. Not sure how "chill" they are, but you could make Cravath scale money at a firm like Paul Hastings, DLA, Orrick, Morgan Lewis, etc., though they would maybe slot you at a lower class level, e.g., class of 2018 rather than class of 2017.

I would certainly be much happier with lower hours! Can you share with me some names of Bay Area L&E boutiques that you would recommend? How do raises work at boutiques? Do you know what I might make as a 3rd year? Would they have that "chill" vibe so to speak? I'm assuming boutiques are not an up or out system?

Would I be slotted lower at a Cravath scale firm because I don't come from another Cravath type firm?

Thanks for your insight!!

[Anonymous User]

The L&E boutique firms you would be looking at would be Litter, Jackson Lewis, or Ogletree. Those are the three main players in the L&E-only boutique space. The pay is less at these firms, but the work-life balance appears to be better.

I know at least at Jackson Lewis that people are fairly happy there, and that there is usually a chance of partnership assuming you check off all the boxes. But you probably wouldn't be making BigLaw level of money. I think the PPP for a firm like Jackson Lewis is something around $500K.

[Anonymous User]

For the L&E boutique shops mentioned above, do we know what their pay scale typically looks like from entry to partner? I guess my thought is how far off from Cravath and how much better is the work-life balance (like are they 1800 hour shops?) because that would be super helpful for me as I try and figure out how much I'd be sacrificing by not going to a traditional Big Law?

[howell]

For the L&E boutique shops mentioned above, do we know what their pay scale typically looks like from entry to partner? I guess my thought is how far off from Cravath and how much better is the work-life balance (like are they 1800 hour shops?) because that would be super helpful for me as I try and figure out how much I'd be sacrificing by not going to a traditional Big Law?

If you PM me, I can answer some of this for one of the firms mentioned above.

[Raiden]

For the L&E boutique shops mentioned above, do we know what their pay scale typically looks like from entry to partner? I guess my thought is how far off from Cravath and how much better is the work-life balance (like are they 1800 hour shops?) because that would be super helpful for me as I try and figure out how much I'd be sacrificing by not going to a traditional Big Law?

Jackson Lewis is 1850 (with 50 of those hours for training, marketing, etc.)

[istan]

For the L&E boutique shops mentioned above, do we know what their pay scale typically looks like from entry to partner? I guess my thought is how far off from Cravath and how much better is the work-life balance (like are they 1800 hour shops?) because that would be super helpful for me as I try and figure out how much I'd be sacrificing by not going to a traditional Big Law?

Also interested the pay at L&E firms like Ogletree, Jackson Lewis, etc and how the work/life balance compares to typical biglaw.

For someone who really wants to do employment law, would it be a smart move to start at one of those firms instead of starting off doing generic biglaw litigation (assuming it would be hard to do L&E in biglaw because new hires have little control over practice area)?

[Lacepiece23]

For the L&E boutique shops mentioned above, do we know what their pay scale typically looks like from entry to partner? I guess my thought is how far off from Cravath and how much better is the work-life balance (like are they 1800 hour shops?) because that would be super helpful for me as I try and figure out how much I'd be sacrificing by not going to a traditional Big Law?

Also interested the pay at L&E firms like Ogletree, Jackson Lewis, etc and how the work/life balance compares to typical biglaw.

For someone who really wants to do employment law, would it be a smart move to start at one of those firms instead of starting off doing generic biglaw litigation (assuming it would be hard to do L&E in biglaw because new hires have little control over practice area)?

My wife was at ML and is now at Littler. She took a big pay cut to go there. She wasn’t interested in doing commercial litigation and class actions disguised as employment work. Single plaintiff cases were few and far between.

Sometimes she misses it because the work was way easier. She had tons of doc review and seniors to shield her. Now, it’s just her running tons of cases with barely any oversight.

All things to consider.

[Anonymous User]

For the L&E boutique shops mentioned above, do we know what their pay scale typically looks like from entry to partner? I guess my thought is how far off from Cravath and how much better is the work-life balance (like are they 1800 hour shops?) because that would be super helpful for me as I try and figure out how much I'd be sacrificing by not going to a traditional Big Law?

Also interested the pay at L&E firms like Ogletree, Jackson Lewis, etc and how the work/life balance compares to typical biglaw.

For someone who really wants to do employment law, would it be a smart move to start at one of those firms instead of starting off doing generic biglaw litigation (assuming it would be hard to do L&E in biglaw because new hires have little control over practice area)?

Pay at these firms typically is going to be a good bit lower than the top tier firms. I'm at Ogletree and in my market (large city in the South), the entry level pay probably is $20-25k lower, and that gap grows larger the more senior you are. In the 5-6th year range, you probably are looking at a difference of at least $50k. An 8th year associate is in the $200k range and my guess is that entry level partners start out in the ~$225k range.

That being said, our hours requirement is 1900 and it seems to me that everyone enjoys a healthy work-life balance. They've added a new bonus of $10k for hitting 1900 (in response to salary increases, and presumably bonus based in order not to increase guaranteed base salary costs) and our bonus program starts at 2000 hours with a 5% bonus and goes up another 5% for each 50 hours billed past that (max of 25% for 2200 hours). Pro bono/leave count toward the 1900 target, but are not counted for the 2000+ bonus.

One thing I've noticed in talking to some colleagues at general practice firms is that the L&E work there practically is given away to corporate clients, so it seems like your shot at partnership is pretty low since you are not generating revenue. Longer term prospects for an L&E attorney may be better at the boutiques. (Though that's pure speculation.) Also, I think our associates are put in front of clients/doing substantive work pretty early compared to bigger shops, but can't verify that.

[Anonymous User]

For the L&E boutique shops mentioned above, do we know what their pay scale typically looks like from entry to partner? I guess my thought is how far off from Cravath and how much better is the work-life balance (like are they 1800 hour shops?) because that would be super helpful for me as I try and figure out how much I'd be sacrificing by not going to a traditional Big Law?

Also interested the pay at L&E firms like Ogletree, Jackson Lewis, etc and how the work/life balance compares to typical biglaw.

For someone who really wants to do employment law, would it be a smart move to start at one of those firms instead of starting off doing generic biglaw litigation (assuming it would be hard to do L&E in biglaw because new hires have little control over practice area)?

My wife was at ML and is now at Littler. She took a big pay cut to go there. She wasn’t interested in doing commercial litigation and class actions disguised as employment work. Single plaintiff cases were few and far between.

Sometimes she misses it because the work was way easier. She had tons of doc review and seniors to shield her. Now, it’s just her running tons of cases with barely any oversight.

All things to consider.

I worked at one of the L&E-only boutiques and this is consistent with my experience. It also seemed to vary widely by office (e.g., our CA offices were notoriously way busier than everywhere else). Although we were "required" to bill only 1850-1900, everyone billed way more and you were absolutely expected to do so. I'd say just about every associate billed 2000. On top of that, there was a ton of non-billable administrative nonsense because of how much of the work was EPLI, which is soul-sucking in its own way.

If I were OP, I'd go to a full service firm and stay there as long as possible.

[Anonymous User]

One thing I've noticed in talking to some colleagues at general practice firms is that the L&E work there practically is given away to corporate clients, so it seems like your shot at partnership is pretty low since you are not generating revenue. Longer term prospects for an L&E attorney may be better at the boutiques. (Though that's pure speculation.) Also, I think our associates are put in front of clients/doing substantive work pretty early compared to bigger shops, but can't verify that.

This is probably pretty firm-dependent. I did some work for my prior (biglaw) firm's L&E department, and because it was lit-oriented firm rather than primarily corporate, the L&E partners weren't really adjuncts in the way you describe. There was still a rainmaker/service partner split, but the rainmaker L&E partners were bringing in work on their own rather than just getting referrals from other partners. This may be more of a west coast phenomenon; there's just so much L&E work there.

We also got substantive work and client contact pretty frequently, even as 1st/2nd years. Sometimes court appearances once partners started to trust you. Typically you'd get a case or two with some handholding and then if you "got" it, you'd start getting your own to basically run -- though there were some tasks that partners still largely handled, like mediations. It was a pretty sweet setup for juniors and I'd recommend almost every junior attorney at a big firm try some L&E work for that reason, if possible. Ultimately it wasn't something I could imagine doing full-time as my career, but it was great experience.

[Anonymous User]

I am at Littler and compensation sounds equivalent to Ogletree, although there is no clear bonus structure. I think starting pay is around $155k and entry-level partners are at around $225k. Slightly more for LA/SF/NY/etc. Above that it is really dependent on the work you bring in.