Transactional attorneys and procrastination habits? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm a lifelong procrastinator and somehow did pretty well at a lower tier T14 with minimal effort in school. I'm a lazy person and worried about my habits.

I'll be a summer in a V10 corporate practice this year. Worried about how to manage big law with my procrastination habits.

Those of you that have been in a similar boat. Are you still procrastinators? Does the fear of missing deadlines whip you into shape? How much time do you spend procrastinating? What do your days look like?

[Anonymous User]

I'm not transactional, but also a fellow procrastinator. It has been mostly whipped out of me. You just get too much work. I might put off big projects (I am now holding off on responding to a huge doc dump...) but generally you just can't put off everything. I coasted through law school, for the most part, without too much effort, had decent but not great grades (although, I did try pretty dang hard 1L).
As far as my days go, I generally get into the office, look for my lit mentor (he gets in early, thus, I get in early), have a quick chat, and then make breakfast and check my to do list.
Work for an hour or two, check with the other partner I do most of my work for and shoot the shit with him for 15 mins or so; head back to work. Around 12-1, I'll go make my lunch (most of the time I'm eating leftovers, sometimes go out with the 2-3 partners I do most of my work for, they pay for me like a quarter of the time, hah). I'll then work from 1-3:30ish, then head back to the partner I do the most work for and chat with him about strategies or work on stuff off and on with him until 5-6 or so, then I head home... You probs weren't asking for this much info, but there you have it... hah. I'm typing this up to procrastinate doing a motion right now! I usually work 8/8:30-5:15/6. Don't usually have weekend work though the occasional couple hours here and there.

[Anonymous User]

This describes me perfectly and I'm 6 years into my transactional practice with top tier reviews. This also describes 50% of the high performers that I know in top tier transactional practices (Biglaw isn't exactly a place where people boast about this stuff, but you figure out you're not "alone" the longer you practice). The litigators I know are less so like this and clearly more on top of their shit. Something about corporate/transactional work just attracts us fellow procrastinators. You have clearly found a way to get your shit done when it matters until now, so you'll keep developing and doing the same in your job. Don't sweat it.

[Anonymous User]

Not practicing yet, but I've also described myself as "lazy" and a lifelong procrastinator. After this past summer associateship was incredibly difficult due to procrastination-type stuff I looked into what was going on, and it turns out I've got ADHD. (It's apparently not uncommon for people to first be diagnosed in graduate programs.) Among other things, ADHD affects time perception/ability to conceptualize the future, so future deadlines don't feel "real" until they're close, at which point the pressure is stimulating.

[Anonymous User]

Once you practice long enough you figure out how long something will take, what level of effort is required and what the response looks like.

Then adjust to your level of comfort accordingly. (Much harder for juniors where you need to finish early, ask questions then finalize details so you don’t look bad)