1st year corp. associates: Share your stories Forum

[2020throwaway]

How's it going for the new corporate associates in here? Been busy? How does everyone feel about their new job, new firm, wfh, etc.? Had a good time so far, or sick of it already?

[Anonymous User]

Literally horrible. Taking a toll on my health. Firm has understaffing/turnover issues.

[Anonymous User]

Literally horrible. Taking a toll on my health. Firm has understaffing/turnover issues.

Similar experience. Part of it was me being a dumb 1st year not knowing how to do things but mostly crushed b/c of understaffing

[Anonymous User]

Would either of the previous two posters mind elaborating a little more?

-A concerned incoming SA

[Anonymous User]

Took on way too many deals (11) due to understaffing/high demand in my group, getting crushed. Billed 14 hours today.

[the lsat failure]

I'm sensing a pattern here....godspeed to you all

[Anonymous User]

Would either of the previous two posters mind elaborating a little more?

-A concerned incoming SA

I’m in a major market CM group. People are really under water from too many deals and are sometimes faced with impossible deadlines b/c literally no one has capacity until the day before client wants it. I feel like the former applies across the board, whereas midlevels and seniors probably have more leverage/intel to dodge the latter. Also b/c every CM group we work with is just as slammed, we spend a lot of additional time on chasing people (and getting chased) or correcting mistakes that would not otherwise be made if people were not stretched so thin.

- one of the anons

[Anonymous User]

A different anonymous replier. Everyone is crushed, no one has no time to teach, and everyone expects you to figure it out. Keeping pace with stages of a deal/what is happening is difficult because we’re assigned one urgent task after another and don’t have time to think about why we’re doing a task or it’s purpose in the deal, so learning is on pause until it calms down.

[vine][/vine]

[Anonymous User]

A different anonymous replier. Everyone is crushed, no one has no time to teach, and everyone expects you to figure it out. Keeping pace with stages of a deal/what is happening is difficult because we’re assigned one urgent task after another and don’t have time to think about why we’re doing a task or it’s purpose in the deal, so learning is on pause until it calms down.

I'm one of the first anons and agree with everything here. Will also add that everything is "urgent" even though some of it literally is not (some of it definitely is, but certainly not everything). Work from home has further deteriorated the work/life separation. Also a lot of people just seem generally unhappy, so it's a low-morale working environment.

[bigboybob]

Seems like all these stories are from capital markets lol

[Anonymous User]

Glad I'm not the only one with these experiences. I haven't been getting as crushed as others because I haven't been as aggressive about reaching out for work, but I'm steadily getting busier. My colleagues, both other first years, and everyone else, are mostly crushed. Working atleast all day on a weekend, 10 to 12 hours everyday. No training or explanations for the most part. When deals end, there isn't even a "good job team" sigifying the deal is even over, the emails just stop.

Since the midlevels are so underwater, they only reach out to tell you what to do on days with crazy deadlines, and you have to drop everything to field their phone calls and do whatever tasks they need. Not sure how that will work when two deals are needing that at once.

Pretty sad culture that on valentines day, everyone was working. Day before a national holiday too. I would never recommend my child to be a biglaw lawyer.

[Anonymous User]

Glad I'm not the only one with these experiences. I haven't been getting as crushed as others because I haven't been as aggressive about reaching out for work, but I'm steadily getting busier. My colleagues, both other first years, and everyone else, are mostly crushed. Working atleast all day on a weekend, 10 to 12 hours everyday.

I'm not even billing that many hours because there's so much in between time spent waiting for responses. And then of course when I do get responses, it's at 9pm. I swear most of my billable are outside of normal working hours.

[Anonymous User]

Not corporate but finance. Slow my first couple weeks, now we are getting slammed. This week has been brutal so far. Not as bad as people in this thread though--I'm billing 9-10 hours per day, sometimes 11-12, but only 2-4 on weekends so far (and usually only on one weekend day). I don't mind it too much but this isn't super sustainable long term for me, personally. The bad parts right now are (1) I'm not learning the bigger picture because there's no time--I'm always drafting a document, etc. I couldn't describe some of the deals I'm on; and (2) I never know when I might be needed so I just sit at my desk constantly even when I'm slow for an hour.

Honestly, WFH is saving me. If I had to get up an hour earlier to get ready and commute, I would not have gotten much sleep this week. If I was in the office each day this week, I'd be eating like shit, I'd never see my SO and dog, and and I'd be significantly more miserable.

[Anonymous User]

Not corporate but finance.

I'm also finance (I just consider it part of corporate).

[Anonymous User]

What firms are you all at that aren't training their first years?

[Anonymous User]

What firms are you all at that aren't training their first years?

Firms with a large amount of work.

[Anonymous User]

What firms are you all at that aren't training their first years?

Firms with a large amount of work.

Cool, so it's safe to say that I'll have the same experience since I am a 2L summering at a v10. Can't wait!

[2013]

Pretty sad culture that on valentines day, everyone was working. Day before a national holiday too. I would never recommend my child to be a biglaw lawyer.

What did you expect from biglaw? Valentine’s Day is just a regular working day for most people... also, President’s day is not a real holiday. Just because something is a national holiday doesn’t mean you’re expected not to work that day.

I get all of the legitimate complaints and concerns on here, but this one is just out of touch with reality.

You get paid all that money to be available at all times. That includes Valentine’s Day and President’s day. Occasionally that will include Independence Day, Memorial Day, thanksgiving, etc. as well.

[Anonymous User]

Serious question. So you won't be receiving top-notch training at NYC biglaw?

[Dcc617]

Valentine’s Day was a Sunday, for the record.

And working in biglaw sucks. You don’t have to defend of rationalize it. Biglaw isn’t fun and it’s okay for people to express that.

[Anonymous User]

Serious question. So you won't be receiving top-notch training at NYC biglaw?

There is a Mr. Miyagi element to all of this. Not saying it is intentional, but after a few years, even though the formal training I received was pretty much worthless, I knew what I was doing. You don’t bill 7,000 hours in three years and come out clueless.

[Anonymous User]

I think it’s also a WFH problem. During my summer, even really busy associates would give color to a deal you’re on with them, just in hallway conversations. It’s natural while you’re working with someone to talk about what’s happening on the 5 minutes you get to blow off steam while waiting for responses, and that has critical value for a first year. Now we only get called when something needs doing and when there’s not time to explain what needs doing.

[Anonymous User]

What firms are you all at that aren't training their first years?

Firms with a large amount of work.

Yeah the training has been abysmal. We have formal training, but it's pretty much useless because it's not tied to what we actually do day-to-day. And then we get real assignments dumped on us with no direction or context. It's frustrating because just a few minutes of explanation/context would literally save hours of time wasted trying to figure it out.

[Anonymous User]

Re: the Valentines post above: Just jumping in to point out that (pre-covid times) at my V5, I was on a deal team as a midlevel with a first year and a partner. We were trying to make a Feb 15 pre-market filing for a major deal and there was still a shitload of work to be done, and we figured the first year understood what that meant. But at 8pm we call her and she's not in her office. So, fine, whatever. Partner calls her and she ends up coming in at like 9pm clearly tipsy from wine (it being Valentines Day). She proceeds to spend the entire all nighter (the partner had this annoying "we must all be together in the conference room at all times for these things" ethos) making several comments about "Man, I hope the client appreciates the fact that working through midnight on freaking Valentines Day is also just asking for divorces. Is that why lawyers are all divorced? I don't want to be divorced." I found it hilarious, partner found it not so and refused to staff her on future deals. She got a horrible reputation in the group and lateraled to a different group in a different firm. She enjoys her new situation much more and whenever we speak she always mentions how ridiculous it is that lawyers at the V5 "didn't even treat Valentines Day like a holiday!"

[Anonymous User]

Re: the Valentines post above: Just jumping in to point out that (pre-covid times) at my V5, I was on a deal team as a midlevel with a first year and a partner. We were trying to make a Feb 15 pre-market filing for a major deal and there was still a shitload of work to be done, and we figured the first year understood what that meant. But at 8pm we call her and she's not in her office. So, fine, whatever. Partner calls her and she ends up coming in at like 9pm clearly tipsy from wine (it being Valentines Day). She proceeds to spend the entire all nighter (the partner had this annoying "we must all be together in the conference room at all times for these things" ethos) making several comments about "Man, I hope the client appreciates the fact that working through midnight on freaking Valentines Day is also just asking for divorces. Is that why lawyers are all divorced? I don't want to be divorced." I found it hilarious, partner found it not so and refused to staff her on future deals. She got a horrible reputation in the group and lateraled to a different group in a different firm. She enjoys her new situation much more and whenever we speak she always mentions how ridiculous it is that lawyers at the V5 "didn't even treat Valentines Day like a holiday!"

Valentine's day anon from above. I mean I get it, we are paid to be available, yada yada. It was a sunday night, the day before a federal holiday. Seems like it would be easy to push back on a client asking for an all nighter that night, considering the timing. Just shows the culture of this industry is fucked. No wonder why people in big law seem to have twisted and mostly symbolic "relationships". Could never be married doing corporate law, and would tell anyone i cared about to avoid corporate lawyers (while they're at a firm) as well. Funniest thing about being a lawyer: as cool as partners may act, they got there by being the biggest servile bitch to their clients. Guess the big house or whatever helps them avoid feeling as emasculated.