Am I already burning out? Forum

[Anonymous User]

(This is the OP at the smaller firm, just deleting the quoted posts)

I don’t really regret leaving biglaw because I was never going to make partner there (I have neither the desire, the work ethic, the networking skills, etc.) and I do think there’s a serious drop-off in lateral opportunities as you get to the senior end of the associate scale in litigation, so I wouldn’t have wanted to stick around much longer (my old firm wasn’t overtly up-or-out but it also wasn’t the kind of place you could just hang around indefinitely).

I’m not sure I would do anything differently if I had a do-over. Maybe in-house, but those roles aren’t that easy to come by in lit, and I think I would have regretted not seeing whether I would like small firm life. I would consider govt at some point but the idea of a huge paycut was not appealing when I was looking because I was still paying off my loans. I’ll probably try to end up in either govt or in-house in the future, though, because I think the firm lifestyle actually bothers me more now than it did in biglaw. Biglaw felt like a temporary shitty thing that me and my friends were all in together until we moved on to something better. Now I’m a lot more conscious of how much of my life I’m wasting listening to some partner draft an email over the phone on a Sunday morning.

As a biglaw senior associate in lit, I suspect you’re right that there’s a drop off as you get in years 6+. It’s both a golden handcuffs situation and the feeling that once you move on to something else, coming back into big law is not really feasible. Eventually, you keep telling yourself that you’ll stick it out just a liiittle longer and it doesn’t really end.

But I’m curious as to what lateral opportunities youre referring to in particular. Lateraling because your workplace is toxic makes a lot of sense and changing firms may be harder as a senior.

If the goal is to make partner at a firm, lateraling doesn’t seem to help increase your chances unless you have portable business (which is almost impossible to get in biglaw given the high hourly rates and that you’ve been practicing law for 6-8 years). You’ll also be set back a few years since a new firm would want to evaluate you before promoting you to partner.

If you’re looking to lateral for a less stressful job, it sounds like it’s not something you can count on and can be just as much work.

Government is where it’s at IMHO

I’d like to explore the lateral to different firm scenario in your opinion a bit.

So let’s say you are quite good and a 10th year or so at top of market big law, but for reasons out of your control (maybe your specialty isn’t a growth area, maybe you have no specialty, maybe your mentor/s left, maybe your main client just switched firms), partner won’t happen.

How feasible is it to go to a peer or maybe even from your v20 to a non market v80, take a salary hit, and basically just be a mid level making a run at partner despite the fact that you are ten years out?

Intuitively I can’t imagine why a v80 would object to having an associate with 10 years of experience bill and get paid as a fifth year. Right? But I dunno on the other hand I feel like I haven’t really heard about this happening.

Obviously assume you were cool with the salary hit.

[Anonymous User]

(This is the OP at the smaller firm, just deleting the quoted posts)

I don’t really regret leaving biglaw because I was never going to make partner there (I have neither the desire, the work ethic, the networking skills, etc.) and I do think there’s a serious drop-off in lateral opportunities as you get to the senior end of the associate scale in litigation, so I wouldn’t have wanted to stick around much longer (my old firm wasn’t overtly up-or-out but it also wasn’t the kind of place you could just hang around indefinitely).

I’m not sure I would do anything differently if I had a do-over. Maybe in-house, but those roles aren’t that easy to come by in lit, and I think I would have regretted not seeing whether I would like small firm life. I would consider govt at some point but the idea of a huge paycut was not appealing when I was looking because I was still paying off my loans. I’ll probably try to end up in either govt or in-house in the future, though, because I think the firm lifestyle actually bothers me more now than it did in biglaw. Biglaw felt like a temporary shitty thing that me and my friends were all in together until we moved on to something better. Now I’m a lot more conscious of how much of my life I’m wasting listening to some partner draft an email over the phone on a Sunday morning.

As a biglaw senior associate in lit, I suspect you’re right that there’s a drop off as you get in years 6+. It’s both a golden handcuffs situation and the feeling that once you move on to something else, coming back into big law is not really feasible. Eventually, you keep telling yourself that you’ll stick it out just a liiittle longer and it doesn’t really end.

But I’m curious as to what lateral opportunities youre referring to in particular. Lateraling because your workplace is toxic makes a lot of sense and changing firms may be harder as a senior.

If the goal is to make partner at a firm, lateraling doesn’t seem to help increase your chances unless you have portable business (which is almost impossible to get in biglaw given the high hourly rates and that you’ve been practicing law for 6-8 years). You’ll also be set back a few years since a new firm would want to evaluate you before promoting you to partner.

If you’re looking to lateral for a less stressful job, it sounds like it’s not something you can count on and can be just as much work.

Government is where it’s at IMHO

I’d like to explore the lateral to different firm scenario in your opinion a bit.

So let’s say you are quite good and a 10th year or so at top of market big law, but for reasons out of your control (maybe your specialty isn’t a growth area, maybe you have no specialty, maybe your mentor/s left, maybe your main client just switched firms), partner won’t happen.

How feasible is it to go to a peer or maybe even from your v20 to a non market v80, take a salary hit, and basically just be a mid level making a run at partner despite the fact that you are ten years out?

Intuitively I can’t imagine why a v80 would object to having an associate with 10 years of experience bill and get paid as a fifth year. Right? But I dunno on the other hand I feel like I haven’t really heard about this happening.

Obviously assume you were cool with the salary hit.

Salary hit is significant and most folks wouldn’t be able to sustain it; most firms don’t want to insult someone by even asking to take a haircut like that ESPECIALLY given their experience. Haircuts are for folks who had either a nontrad work path or not meaningful firm experience, otherwise no hiring person would offer that to a candidate.