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What's the quality of life for an associate in a securities litigation/enforcement practice? Does the work-life balance tend to be better than some of the other litigation practice areas?

No. Best quality of life in litigation is in a practice area where you're exclusively litigating before federal courts, because everything happens on a pre-determined schedule with ample room between nearly all deadlines. (Appellate, anti-trust, toxic tort, etc.) Not so with securities enforcement, which is agency-driven (SEC/DOJ) and involves fast-paced and compressed investigations that are all-consuming for the associates working on them. If you can get on securities class actions/shareholder disputes, your QOL will be better than if you're doing enforcement work, as the only "fire drills" will be occasional 220 demands or motions to enjoin mergers/shareholder votes. but most places you can't only to sec litigation and also need to do investigations.