Exec Comp / Benefits Hours Forum

[GuyApollo]

Any exec comp / benefits attorneys on here? I received an offer to join a V20 group in NYC, but have heard that the hours in this practice are notoriously bad compared to other specialist groups.

Curious to hear any practicing attorney's experience. Thanks.

[Hakki]

It depends on the firm, but it can be nasty because you're supporting a million different M&A deals at the same time. M&A deals are always panicked, and someone somewhere will always need something done on short notice, whether it's a large amount of diligence, employment agreements, or whatever else. The people you interact with at the clients also really care about what you do because, surprise, they're executives, and what you do affects their pay and lives both during and after the deal.

It was the nastiest specialist group to work for at one of my old firms for that reason. There weren't a ton of exec comp/benefits attorneys and there was always some deal demanding a fire drill.

[Anonymous User]

It depends on the firm, but it can be nasty because you're supporting a million different M&A deals at the same time. M&A deals are always panicked, and someone somewhere will always need something done on short notice, whether it's a large amount of diligence, employment agreements, or whatever else. The people you interact with at the clients also really care about what you do because, surprise, they're executives, and what you do affects their pay and lives both during and after the deal.

It was the nastiest specialist group to work for at one of my old firms for that reason. There weren't a ton of exec comp/benefits attorneys and there was always some deal demanding a fire drill.

+1

Deal work can be enjoyable as one of the spices of life, but if you're in an ECEB practice that does 100% deal work and supporting one of the PE-focused firms then your life is going to suck. I've been at that kind of firm and now I'm at a firm where I do 50% deal work and 50% advising. I'm on about a dozen deals at a time that are at varying stages and then help clients with granting equity awards, setting up new equity/nonqualified deferred comp/phantom/bonus plans, hiring/terminating exec, answering qualified plan questions, etc. I love what I do now. I hated being on 25 deals at a time.

EDIT: Also, not all clients are created equal. PE clients are competent but extremely demanding. Your unsophisticated (i.e. dumb) non-PE clients aren't competent, but they sure do keep out of my inbox Fri-Sun.

[Anonymous User]

I think it’s a great practice group for getting a mix of transactional work while not being responsible for the whole deal. That has its ups and downs. Corporate may not send you your piece until 8 at night even though they got it at 11 AM (or a week ago) and want to make it your emergency. If you’re a strong-willed person you can tell them they’re being ridiculous or just ignore them until the morning, but if you’re a weak people-pleaser like me it can really grind you down after a while. There’s also a lot of rules and the partners can be exceedingly helpful or exceedingly rude in helping you learn them. On that note, you’re also a lot more likely to work directly with partners from day 1 - there’s none of this junior reporting to midlevel reporting to senior where the partner doesn’t even know the junior working on a matter. That is a real mixed bag too, but ultimately great training (even if not great for WLB or sanity).

I enjoyed the practice but also burnt out all the same. I think I would have probably burnt out of M&A sooner. I think we got the most interesting work by far, but some M&A junky would probably disagree.

I’d just try to make sure it’s a well-staffed group (sometimes you will see a place only has two benefits/exec comp associates - you do not want that) and that you won’t be doing 100% deals (unless you’re into that). I’m glad I did it even if I don’t want to do it again.

[GuyApollo]

I think it’s a great practice group for getting a mix of transactional work while not being responsible for the whole deal. That has its ups and downs. Corporate may not send you your piece until 8 at night even though they got it at 11 AM (or a week ago) and want to make it your emergency. If you’re a strong-willed person you can tell them they’re being ridiculous or just ignore them until the morning, but if you’re a weak people-pleaser like me it can really grind you down after a while. There’s also a lot of rules and the partners can be exceedingly helpful or exceedingly rude in helping you learn them. On that note, you’re also a lot more likely to work directly with partners from day 1 - there’s none of this junior reporting to midlevel reporting to senior where the partner doesn’t even know the junior working on a matter. That is a real mixed bag too, but ultimately great training (even if not great for WLB or sanity).

I enjoyed the practice but also burnt out all the same. I think I would have probably burnt out of M&A sooner. I think we got the most interesting work by far, but some M&A junky would probably disagree.

I’d just try to make sure it’s a well-staffed group (sometimes you will see a place only has two benefits/exec comp associates - you do not want that) and that you won’t be doing 100% deals (unless you’re into that). I’m glad I did it even if I don’t want to do it again.

What do you do now?

[Anonymous User]

Find out if the V20 is going to have you doing all deal support OR a mixture. If you're only doing deals (basically being an exec comp lawyer) that can be a ton of hours and never ending work (2400 hours a year). But if you do a mix of deal support and client support, and the partners you work with want to make sure you are doing advice/counsel work, then it can be great (1900-2100 hours a year). I haven't been at a V20 but from what I've heard, it sounds pretty bad in some places. Of course, if you're trying to break into EBEC and this is your shot, you can deal with a couple of years at the sweatshop doing M&A work and learning everything you can, and then lateral to a chiller environment to do more counseling work. Then you'll be set.

[Anonymous User]

Kirkland, Ropes and Goodwin have notoriously demanding ECEB practices. Everyone who works in the area knows this.

There are firms that do fewer deals, but if your offer is from a V20, then I doubt that’ll be the case (although I billed 1800 hours at my V20 and was never on more than 5 deals at once).

The firms that have more sustainable ECEB practices are MWE, Morgan Lewis and Winston. These firms do the EB part of ECEB, which is as lifestyle as a specialist group can get. They usually specify in their posts whether they’re looking for a transactional comp associate or a compliance ERISA associate. The latter is what people imagine an ECEB practice is going to look like (few fire drills, autonomy, etc.).

In reality, as others have mentioned, transactional comp practices are mostly nightmares. Corporate never gives you info, and then they get upset when they decide to close in two days and you still don’t have the info for the 280G.

[Anonymous User]

I think it’s a great practice group for getting a mix of transactional work while not being responsible for the whole deal. That has its ups and downs. Corporate may not send you your piece until 8 at night even though they got it at 11 AM (or a week ago) and want to make it your emergency. If you’re a strong-willed person you can tell them they’re being ridiculous or just ignore them until the morning, but if you’re a weak people-pleaser like me it can really grind you down after a while. There’s also a lot of rules and the partners can be exceedingly helpful or exceedingly rude in helping you learn them. On that note, you’re also a lot more likely to work directly with partners from day 1 - there’s none of this junior reporting to midlevel reporting to senior where the partner doesn’t even know the junior working on a matter. That is a real mixed bag too, but ultimately great training (even if not great for WLB or sanity).

I enjoyed the practice but also burnt out all the same. I think I would have probably burnt out of M&A sooner. I think we got the most interesting work by far, but some M&A junky would probably disagree.

I’d just try to make sure it’s a well-staffed group (sometimes you will see a place only has two benefits/exec comp associates - you do not want that) and that you won’t be doing 100% deals (unless you’re into that). I’m glad I did it even if I don’t want to do it again.

What do you do now?

In-house doing exec comp.

[Anonymous User]

Kirkland, Ropes and Goodwin have notoriously demanding ECEB practices. Everyone who works in the area knows this.

There are firms that do fewer deals, but if your offer is from a V20, then I doubt that’ll be the case (although I billed 1800 hours at my V20 and was never on more than 5 deals at once).

The firms that have more sustainable ECEB practices are MWE, Morgan Lewis and Winston. These firms do the EB part of ECEB, which is as lifestyle as a specialist group can get. They usually specify in their posts whether they’re looking for a transactional comp associate or a compliance ERISA associate. The latter is what people imagine an ECEB practice is going to look like (few fire drills, autonomy, etc.).

In reality, as others have mentioned, transactional comp practices are mostly nightmares. Corporate never gives you info, and then they get upset when they decide to close in two days and you still don’t have the info for the 280G.

The bolded above is true. I worked in KE exec comp, and we had high turnover/people billing crazy numbers. At one point, it got so bad, they made a list where if you were on track to bill 250hrs/mo. (I think that was the number, but I have suppressed many of those memories) for a sustained period if time, you could get put on the list and not receive any more work. Except, at one point in time, all the mid levels were on the list, so they had to start giving those people more work. They kept telling us they'd hire more people, but it never seemed fast enough. There was also a seemingly absurd amount of group Zoom calls, which just wasted more of your already precious time and some folks in the group more senior to you would occasionally reprimand you if you skipped too many. I worked with a ton of nice and very smart people there, but I would not recommend it to anyone who wants anything resembling a "work life balance". I left for one of the three bolded firms in the latter group above that actually does some counseling and less deal work, and my life got infinitely better.

[Anonymous User]

Everything in this thread so far looks right to me (other than the firm-specific reputations, which I’m not fully up on - though Kirkland does seem to burn out their EC folks pretty quickly, and I know Morgan Lewis has a big counseling-focused section of their practice).

Signed,
Another burned out exec. comp. associate who went in-house

[Anonymous User]

Everything in this thread so far looks right to me (other than the firm-specific reputations, which I’m not fully up on - though Kirkland does seem to burn out their EC folks pretty quickly, and I know Morgan Lewis has a big counseling-focused section of their practice).

Signed,
Another burned out exec. comp. associate who went in-house

Most of the in-house positions I’m seeing are looking for 7+ years of experience, which is unfortunate. Like, I get that they want someone senior enough who understands the nuances of 409A, but it just seems ridiculous when you have corporate associates going in-house as 2nd years.

[Anonymous User]

Kirkland, Ropes and Goodwin have notoriously demanding ECEB practices. Everyone who works in the area knows this.

There are firms that do fewer deals, but if your offer is from a V20, then I doubt that’ll be the case (although I billed 1800 hours at my V20 and was never on more than 5 deals at once).

The firms that have more sustainable ECEB practices are MWE, Morgan Lewis and Winston. These firms do the EB part of ECEB, which is as lifestyle as a specialist group can get. They usually specify in their posts whether they’re looking for a transactional comp associate or a compliance ERISA associate. The latter is what people imagine an ECEB practice is going to look like (few fire drills, autonomy, etc.).

In reality, as others have mentioned, transactional comp practices are mostly nightmares. Corporate never gives you info, and then they get upset when they decide to close in two days and you still don’t have the info for the 280G.

The bolded above is true. I worked in KE exec comp, and we had high turnover/people billing crazy numbers. At one point, it got so bad, they made a list where if you were on track to bill 250hrs/mo. (I think that was the number, but I have suppressed many of those memories) for a sustained period if time, you could get put on the list and not receive any more work. Except, at one point in time, all the mid levels were on the list, so they had to start giving those people more work. They kept telling us they'd hire more people, but it never seemed fast enough. There was also a seemingly absurd amount of group Zoom calls, which just wasted more of your already precious time and some folks in the group more senior to you would occasionally reprimand you if you skipped too many. I worked with a ton of nice and very smart people there, but I would not recommend it to anyone who wants anything resembling a "work life balance". I left for one of the three bolded firms in the latter group above that actually does some counseling and less deal work, and my life got infinitely better.

This is a masterful troll.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have insight on Weil's exec comp department?

[Sackboy]

Anyone have insight on Weil's exec comp department?

Typical M&A-focused practice.

[Bobaball]

Anyone has insight in the exec comp group for GDC or V&E?