Hating biglaw as a stub--are these issues firm-specific? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I really didn't expect to hate it this quickly. Just looking for some advice on whether I can expect these issues to get better the longer I work here, whether they might get better if I lateraled down the line, left firm life altogether, etc.

I know the most common complaint is the hours, so I want to start off by saying that hasn't been a factor so far. I think most of the stubs have been pretty slow as they try to integrate us, and I only billed ~70 hours my first full month at the firm (~120 once you factor in pro bono, mandatory training sessions, admin stuff, etc.). I also like the people I work with just fine and haven't found anyone to be unreasonable.

That said, here's what I'm struggling with:

1) I absolutely hate billing time. I work in a transactional group and I feel like I do a ton of little tasks a day and lose time switching back and forth. I also hate coming up with narratives for little 0.1 BS tasks like saving docs to the system or reading an email I'm copied on only to realize that it does not require me to actually do anything. The job is at its best for me when I can sit down and work on one assignment for a large chunk of time, which is pretty rare. Related to this, I find that I feel like I've been sitting at my computer all day but somehow only ended up billing like 6 hours. I also have a lot of anxiety over turning in work and don't feel great about billing to re-read a draft email for the 10th time for typos or figuring out the perfect way to word something (essentially end up writing off my own "anxiety hours").

2) Billable hours seem to be on everyone's mind, all the time. I've been told multiple times that stub year hours don't matter but to try to "hit the ground running" in January. People will mention hours totally unprompted by me, like in casual conversation. Ex: "I've been slammed the past few months but now I don't have to worry about making my hours in December." Hours, hours, hours. Stub hours don't even matter and yet even the stubs still talk about their hours, that's how pervasive it is. Combine 1) with 2) and it's stressing me tf out.

3) Steep learning curve and being bad at everything/not knowing how to add value. It feels so pointless to be churning out work that you know can't be that good and will have to be thoroughly reviewed. I don't mind doing boring, mindless work that makes someone else's life easier, but I feel like having to train me, review my work, send back comments, have me revise, etc. is actually a burden on people's already busy schedules and they could have just done it faster themselves. A lot of the work just feels like it's mostly for my edification/integration which is obviously appreciated, but idk how long I can last not feeling like I'm adding value. The firm's also tried to hammer home the "take ownership/initiative" line in trainings, but I have no idea what to do that would move a deal forward and I'm scared to throw out dumb suggestions that are a waste of people's time.

I was warned of long hours doing mindless drudge work, but easy hours that I can competently do honestly sound like a dream right now.

[Elston Gunn]

1) I absolutely hate billing time. I work in a transactional group and I feel like I do a ton of little tasks a day and lose time switching back and forth. I also hate coming up with narratives for little 0.1 BS tasks like saving docs to the system or reading an email I'm copied on only to realize that it does not require me to actually do anything. The job is at its best for me when I can sit down and work on one assignment for a large chunk of time, which is pretty rare. Related to this, I find that I feel like I've been sitting at my computer all day but somehow only ended up billing like 6 hours. I also have a lot of anxiety over turning in work and don't feel great about billing to re-read a draft email for the 10th time for typos or figuring out the perfect way to word something (essentially end up writing off my own "anxiety hours").

To some degree, billing never stops sucking, but it will get better as you learn more about how to make it easier. It will depend on the client, but you usually do not actually have to do an entirely new billing entry for every tiny little task. Like saving your docs should be folded in with the broader narrative of “Revise [x doc] blah blah.” I would suggest talking to a mid level you are comfortable with about how to do your billing for particular clients.

In addition, you should absolutely bill for rereading emails for typos, stylistic revisions you are making, and anything else that is actual work you are doing on client matters. Firms charge so much partly because they are promising perfect work, and the time you spend trying to make it perfect is part of that. If a partner is worried by the amount of time you spend on something, they should tell you ahead of time not to spend more than x hours on this.

2) Billable hours seem to be on everyone's mind, all the time. I've been told multiple times that stub year hours don't matter but to try to "hit the ground running" in January. People will mention hours totally unprompted by me, like in casual conversation. Ex: "I've been slammed the past few months but now I don't have to worry about making my hours in December." Hours, hours, hours. Stub hours don't even matter and yet even the stubs still talk about their hours, that's how pervasive it is. Combine 1) with 2) and it's stressing me tf out.

This is pretty firm specific. At my firm, people rarely talked about hours. But in any case I would bet you are at a firm with an hours cut off for bonuses and your colleagues are just talking about getting their bonus. Which is very important! But it’s not the be all and end all of how you’ll be perceived by the partners at most places.

3) Steep learning curve and being bad at everything/not knowing how to add value. It feels so pointless to be churning out work that you know can't be that good and will have to be thoroughly reviewed. I don't mind doing boring, mindless work that makes someone else's life easier, but I feel like having to train me, review my work, send back comments, have me revise, etc. is actually a burden on people's already busy schedules and they could have just done it faster themselves. A lot of the work just feels like it's mostly for my edification/integration which is obviously appreciated, but idk how long I can last not feeling like I'm adding value. The firm's also tried to hammer home the "take ownership/initiative" line in trainings, but I have no idea what to do that would move a deal forward and I'm scared to throw out dumb suggestions that are a waste of people's time.

I was warned of long hours doing mindless drudge work, but easy hours that I can competently do honestly sounds like a dream right now.

This is completely normal. It will get much better. Don’t worry about taking ownership at all in your first six months. The exception is taking ownership of making sure the specific tasks you’ve been assigned get done, even if something unexpected comes up. Though it’s fine to go to a midlevel and say, here’s what’s come up, do you have any advice on how to address this?

[Dcc617]

Don't write off your own time. Your anxiety hours are still you working and anything you catch is one less thing your mid-level has to bill fixing.

[Anonymous User]

This is completely normal. It will get much better. Don’t worry about taking ownership at all in your first six months. The exception is taking ownership of making sure the specific tasks you’ve been assigned get done, even if something unexpected comes up. Though it’s fine to go to a midlevel and say, here’s what’s come up, do you have any advice on how to address this?

Thanks, this is reassuring. I definitely follow through on the specific tasks assigned to me. But sometimes I just feel like there must be some way to contribute more that I'm missing.

Noted on billing all of my time. Definitely need to get better about it.

[Anonymous User]

To the OP: I feel the same way, and I feel really guilty. In fact, I always try to make sure to say thanks for your patience to a lot of the emails to the seniors reviewing my work. It’s not that I hate the work, but the guilt is what is difficult for me. It’s also hard because when I’m slow, I worry that people hate me so they stopped staffing me

[Anonymous User]

To OP, I’m also a stub. I definitely also feel bad about anxiety billing. I just don’t know how to explain billing 0.8 to write and then fret over a 1-2 paragraph email. What’s also tough is later in the day when I’m tying up loose ends, I’ll get slower and lazier with my work. If replying to emails or doing some assignment, I might check my texts or scroll through Instagram. I have no way figuring out how much time I wasted checking my phone and then probably underbill by a little to be safe.

[Anonymous User]

Stub here. Ditto a little bit on the finding a way to describe what I am doing in a client-friendly way, but I definitely disagree with everything else.

I'm absolutely loving my firm so far, even if it is kind of stressful. Definitely gonna be hard learning everyone's management styles.

[Anonymous User]

lol at these billing discussions. Don't want to make people too cynical too quickly but it's fun to watch the transformation from:

".2h: Revise e-mail regarding forum selection clause issues; incorporate research findings into same; review e-mail."

to

"9h: Attention to upcoming hearing; calls on same."

that takes place over a few years. Trust me, it'll happen. Don't start doing it now, you have to start the way you're starting in order for it to be an authentic hero's journey.

[Pneumonia]

To OP, I’m also a stub. I definitely also feel bad about anxiety billing. I just don’t know how to explain billing 0.8 to write and then fret over a 1-2 paragraph email. What’s also tough is later in the day when I’m tying up loose ends, I’ll get slower and lazier with my work. If replying to emails or doing some assignment, I might check my texts or scroll through Instagram. I have no way figuring out how much time I wasted checking my phone and then probably underbill by a little to be safe.

0.8 is nothing. "Correspondence with Joe Partner." Or if you feel like it, "Correspondence with Joe Partner regarding Agreement X." Remember, the partners make money for ever .1 you bill. So they are happy to see you billing time. If your descriptions are lacking or your time is too heavy, they will tell you.

[Anonymous User]

0.8 is nothing. "Correspondence with Joe Partner." Or if you feel like it, "Correspondence with Joe Partner regarding Agreement X." Remember, the partners make money for ever .1 you bill. So they are happy to see you billing time. If your descriptions are lacking or your time is too heavy, they will tell you.

This is great to know. I just have no idea how long anything is supposed to actually take, but know that I'm usually spending five to ten minutes writing an email and twenty minutes or up combing every line for typos.

[Anonymous User]

0.8 is nothing. "Correspondence with Joe Partner." Or if you feel like it, "Correspondence with Joe Partner regarding Agreement X." Remember, the partners make money for ever .1 you bill. So they are happy to see you billing time. If your descriptions are lacking or your time is too heavy, they will tell you.

This is great to know. I just have no idea how long anything is supposed to actually take, but know that I'm usually spending five to ten minutes writing an email and twenty minutes or up combing every line for typos.

OP here, and same. Twenty minutes for typos plus trying to get the tone just right and not sounding like I just started 7 weeks ago, even though I did.

[Anonymous User]

What is a stub?

[Anonymous User]

0.8 is nothing. "Correspondence with Joe Partner." Or if you feel like it, "Correspondence with Joe Partner regarding Agreement X." Remember, the partners make money for ever .1 you bill. So they are happy to see you billing time. If your descriptions are lacking or your time is too heavy, they will tell you.

This is great to know. I just have no idea how long anything is supposed to actually take, but know that I'm usually spending five to ten minutes writing an email and twenty minutes or up combing every line for typos.

The right amount of time is the time the task took. Don't micro-manage your time entries and bill every possible second. Always. Easier said than done but you'll get there.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

To OP, I’m also a stub. I definitely also feel bad about anxiety billing. I just don’t know how to explain billing 0.8 to write and then fret over a 1-2 paragraph email. What’s also tough is later in the day when I’m tying up loose ends, I’ll get slower and lazier with my work. If replying to emails or doing some assignment, I might check my texts or scroll through Instagram. I have no way figuring out how much time I wasted checking my phone and then probably underbill by a little to be safe.

Nobody will ever read your time entries unless you give them a reason to, and your partners would much prefer you overbill than underbill, HTH.

[nealric]

No question that the hours part of biglaw never stops sucking. But most people who do it long term have come up with a system that works for them so they don't have to constantly obsess over it.

It sounds like a lot of your issues are with the learning curve. That's very understandable. The good news is after another year or two, the feeling of not knowing what you are doing will subside. The bad news is that the drudge work is likely to grate on you increasingly as time goes on.

As a final note, the inefficiency of juniors is a feature rather than a bug of the biglaw system. You are expected to be inefficient, but for the firm that has the happy side effect of driving up the bill. Personally, my biggest problem in biglaw was that I started to get too efficient, when the billable hours system demanded a high degree of inefficiency (at least when your group isn't drowning in work). It felt unethical to spend extra time just for its own sake. The best biglaw fits can intuitively dial their efficiency up or down depending on their workload, the client, and firm politics.

[lolwutpar]

The only time I've ever had someone read time entries (as a corporate attorney) is when I got sucked into doing something related to BK because the court will review the application for fees. But otherwise, I've pretty much disregarded firm guidelines for writing entries (say "electronic mail" instead of "email" hurr hurr...fuck off) and nobody has ever said anything.