Just don't want to do this anymore Forum

[Anonymous User]

Senior IP lit associate here. As the title states, I just don't want to do this anymore. I'm not burnt out (never billed more than 2000 hours any year, very rarely work evenings and weekends). The people at my firm are awesome - very nice, extremely smart, sociable, funny. The work is substantive and should be interesting. But I just don't have any motivation at all. I don't really know what it is. I could try going in house but I don't see myself enjoying that at all - it just seems more of the same but with less interesting work. It's hard to complain when we're getting paid so much, and I have friends in different industries that work way more and get paid way less so not sure what I would even do.

Don't even know the point of this, guess I felt like venting. Anyone else get out of a funk like this?

[Lacepiece23]

Senior IP lit associate here. As the title states, I just don't want to do this anymore. I'm not burnt out (never billed more than 2000 hours any year, very rarely work evenings and weekends). The people at my firm are awesome - very nice, extremely smart, sociable, funny. The work is substantive and should be interesting. But I just don't have any motivation at all. I don't really know what it is. I could try going in house but I don't see myself enjoying that at all - it just seems more of the same but with less interesting work. It's hard to complain when we're getting paid so much, and I have friends in different industries that work way more and get paid way less so not sure what I would even do.

Don't even know the point of this, guess I felt like venting. Anyone else get out of a funk like this?

Yes, even as someone who has one of the most objectively fun lawyer jobs. Being a lawyer is difficult. Not making significant money when you could is something hard to walk away from. If you're unhappy, you have to make a change, even if it is difficult. Life is too short.

[gregfootball2001]

Senior IP lit associate here. As the title states, I just don't want to do this anymore. I'm not burnt out (never billed more than 2000 hours any year, very rarely work evenings and weekends). The people at my firm are awesome - very nice, extremely smart, sociable, funny. The work is substantive and should be interesting. But I just don't have any motivation at all. I don't really know what it is. I could try going in house but I don't see myself enjoying that at all - it just seems more of the same but with less interesting work. It's hard to complain when we're getting paid so much, and I have friends in different industries that work way more and get paid way less so not sure what I would even do.

Don't even know the point of this, guess I felt like venting. Anyone else get out of a funk like this?

Consider thinking about getting some therapy. Life is tough, and it can be helpful to get some help. You may be able to talk through some of your feelings, and either figure out how to enjoy your job or clarify what it is you're looking for.

[Anonymous User]

Senior IP lit associate here. As the title states, I just don't want to do this anymore. I'm not burnt out (never billed more than 2000 hours any year, very rarely work evenings and weekends). The people at my firm are awesome - very nice, extremely smart, sociable, funny. The work is substantive and should be interesting. But I just don't have any motivation at all. I don't really know what it is. I could try going in house but I don't see myself enjoying that at all - it just seems more of the same but with less interesting work. It's hard to complain when we're getting paid so much, and I have friends in different industries that work way more and get paid way less so not sure what I would even do.

Don't even know the point of this, guess I felt like venting. Anyone else get out of a funk like this?

I am not a professional and this is obviously not advice, but you sound like you're potentially in a mental health rut. If you can swing it, you might consider seeking advice on proper treatment, etc. If you have a good primary care physician they often have great recommendations for talk therapy, etc.

To be clear I'm not saying "Go get some medications and make yourself happy loser" - just saying you sound like you might have some depression or something - I'm speaking from experience as well, I had a pretty big rut in my first year of Biglaw. After I got some treatment (also started eating well, exercising, and putting effort into my marriage) I got out of it and my performance feedback improved measurably.

[Anonymous User]

Senior IP lit associate here. As the title states, I just don't want to do this anymore. I'm not burnt out (never billed more than 2000 hours any year, very rarely work evenings and weekends). The people at my firm are awesome - very nice, extremely smart, sociable, funny. The work is substantive and should be interesting. But I just don't have any motivation at all. I don't really know what it is. I could try going in house but I don't see myself enjoying that at all - it just seems more of the same but with less interesting work. It's hard to complain when we're getting paid so much, and I have friends in different industries that work way more and get paid way less so not sure what I would even do.

Don't even know the point of this, guess I felt like venting. Anyone else get out of a funk like this?

This is a totally normal and legitimate way to feel. The practice of law does pretty much suck for most people, and they do it for the money, not the love. Some learn to live with it by convincing themselves that basically every other high paying job is just as bad, but this is really isn't true and the job satisfaction rate for attorneys is uniquely low.

Best bet is to think of what else you could be doing with your life, what skills you have, and what potential connections you could make use of. Then start reaching out to people who work in interesting areas and know a lot of people and tell them you would be interested in informational interviews with people doing exciting things who might be looking to hire smart people with a legal background.

[Anonymous User]

Try researching other options in your spare time, find something you think you’ll like, go do it, and then come back if it’s not what you expected. Careers are long. One year away won’t kill you.

[Anonymous User]

If you're looking for a new specialty because IP just doesn't do it for you, consider privacy and/or product counsel roles. I know a few IP litigators who went in house for those type of roles and find the work to be more interesting than mundane infringement/validity analysis. They are often good segues into non-legal roles as well.

Anyway, you are definitely not alone here. My wife is in general lit and absolutely hates the job, no matter how busy/not busy she is. Sometimes it's just not a good fit. But as others suggest, perhaps professional help may be able to reframe the tape going on in your head to focus on more of the positives of the job. It might be more satisfying if you can look at things from a different perspective.

[CanadianWolf]

Senior IP lit associate here. As the title states, I just don't want to do this anymore. I'm not burnt out (never billed more than 2000 hours any year, very rarely work evenings and weekends). The people at my firm are awesome - very nice, extremely smart, sociable, funny. The work is substantive and should be interesting. But I just don't have any motivation at all. I don't really know what it is. I could try going in house but I don't see myself enjoying that at all - it just seems more of the same but with less interesting work. It's hard to complain when we're getting paid so much, and I have friends in different industries that work way more and get paid way less so not sure what I would even do.

Don't even know the point of this, guess I felt like venting. Anyone else get out of a funk like this?

Do you have any excitement / interesting aspect in your life at this time ? If not, then it may be a mental health issue such as depression.

Consider taking a couple of months off to recharge in addition to mental health counseling therapy before making a decision regarding your current career.

[Anonymous User]

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[Anonymous User]

OP here. Thanks everyone for the thoughtful responses. I do think it might be a mental health issue, though its tough to admit.

[Anonymous User]

Senior IP lit associate here. As the title states, I just don't want to do this anymore. I'm not burnt out (never billed more than 2000 hours any year, very rarely work evenings and weekends). The people at my firm are awesome - very nice, extremely smart, sociable, funny. The work is substantive and should be interesting. But I just don't have any motivation at all. I don't really know what it is. I could try going in house but I don't see myself enjoying that at all - it just seems more of the same but with less interesting work. It's hard to complain when we're getting paid so much, and I have friends in different industries that work way more and get paid way less so not sure what I would even do.

Don't even know the point of this, guess I felt like venting. Anyone else get out of a funk like this?

You probably have quite a bit of money saved up, right? Maybe you could transition into an easier and more enjoyable career that offers plenty of time off, like teaching. in very specific school districts under very specific circumstances

Fixed that for you. Maybe teaching will be a cakewalk after biglaw, but this seems to way overestimate the joys and underestimate the stress of teaching.

[Anonymous User]

Senior IP lit associate here. As the title states, I just don't want to do this anymore. I'm not burnt out (never billed more than 2000 hours any year, very rarely work evenings and weekends). The people at my firm are awesome - very nice, extremely smart, sociable, funny. The work is substantive and should be interesting. But I just don't have any motivation at all. I don't really know what it is. I could try going in house but I don't see myself enjoying that at all - it just seems more of the same but with less interesting work. It's hard to complain when we're getting paid so much, and I have friends in different industries that work way more and get paid way less so not sure what I would even do.

Don't even know the point of this, guess I felt like venting. Anyone else get out of a funk like this?

You probably have quite a bit of money saved up, right? Maybe you could transition into an easier and more enjoyable career that offers plenty of time off, like teaching. in very specific school districts under very specific circumstances

Fixed that for you. Maybe teaching will be a cakewalk after biglaw, but this seems to way overestimate the joys and underestimate the stress of teaching.

Yeah I went to law school to get out of teaching. Other than hours, biglaw's better

[Anonymous User]

Senior IP lit associate here. As the title states, I just don't want to do this anymore. I'm not burnt out (never billed more than 2000 hours any year, very rarely work evenings and weekends). The people at my firm are awesome - very nice, extremely smart, sociable, funny. The work is substantive and should be interesting. But I just don't have any motivation at all. I don't really know what it is. I could try going in house but I don't see myself enjoying that at all - it just seems more of the same but with less interesting work. It's hard to complain when we're getting paid so much, and I have friends in different industries that work way more and get paid way less so not sure what I would even do.

Don't even know the point of this, guess I felt like venting. Anyone else get out of a funk like this?

You probably have quite a bit of money saved up, right? Maybe you could transition into an easier and more enjoyable career that offers plenty of time off, like teaching. in very specific school districts under very specific circumstances

Fixed that for you. Maybe teaching will be a cakewalk after biglaw, but this seems to way overestimate the joys and underestimate the stress of teaching.

Yeah as the child of two high school teachers this is going to be a strong no as an alternative to Biglaw. Teaching is in an awful place in the USA right now. Extremely long hours, constant minefield of potential wrongs and mistakes, takes a decade at least to make 90-110k, and that’s only if you go administration routes. My parents are near retirement and have noticeably become jaded and more bitter about their careers.

To the extent helpful - my father taught at a low income public school (<40% students in poverty) in a rural city of 10-15k. My mom taught at a flagship nationally ranked public school in a high income suburban school district in a large metro. My mom is more bitter than my father so anecdotally district isn’t always a cure.

Don’t want to derail, just want to be clear they teaching is anything but a refuge. My parents worked harder than I do in Biglaw throughout their careers. My only current friend that is a teacher is in literal poverty, depressed, and is high all of the time to numb the pain of his bad career choices.

[Anonymous User]

Not sure what kind of Big Law the other teachers in this thread were experiencing, but I went from teaching to Big Law and Big Law DEFINITELY has longer hours, plus an expectation of being on-call 24/7. Teaching for me was waking up at 6 AM, getting to school around 7 to 7:30 AM, 1 hour lunch break, sometimes have time to grade while students are taking tests or watching movies or whatever, ending class at 3:00 PM, grading until 5:00 PM, going home, a break for dinner and then maybe an hour more of lesson planning and grading at night, five days a week, maybe a few hours here and there over the weekend. Holidays and school vacations off, with some training / workshops during the summer break but not more than two weeks of that.

Big Law is working until midnight on an average night, 6 or 7 days a week, sometimes until 2 to 5 AM with the occasional true all-nighter probably once or twice a month on average, maybe you get 2 or 3 holidays off but probably work at least a little bit on all the other holidays, no summer break, and any vacations you do manage to take can be blown up by work at any time. Difficult to travel over the weekend. Difficult to do anything involving more than 4 hours away from your computer or phone on any weeknight or weekend. Eat lunch at your desk while working pretty much always. Maybe a half hour can be taken for dinner but sometimes you'll work through dinner too. Typical sign-on at 9 or 10 AM but you're probably firing away emails from your bed or from your commute from 6 AM onwards. Hours wise, it's not even close.

Obviously pay is much better.

[Anonymous User]

No one said that the hours in teaching were worse than big law (and you certainly wouldn’t be on call in the same way), just that calling it easier and more enjoyable is a stretch. It’s also just a completely different endeavor - I’d imagine there are plenty of people happy to spend hours writing a brief etc who would be MISERABLE trying to control a classroom of kids/teenagers however many hours a day.

Like clearly there’s a reason you’re not still teaching, right?

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Thanks everyone for the thoughtful responses. I do think it might be a mental health issue, though its tough to admit.

I get it, i’m also a senior associate and I’ve been there/still am there. You’re very likely burnt out. When type A perfectionists/big law associates hear that, the natural reaction is “i can’t be burnt out, i’m billing sub-2000 hours. There are tons of people who are billing 2,500+ and under more stress.”

It’s not the Olympics of Suffering. Give yourself some slack. i’ll echo the therapy point (and possibly a visit to your PCP for a chat about medication)

[lawlo]

Not sure what kind of Big Law the other teachers in this thread were experiencing, but I went from teaching to Big Law and Big Law DEFINITELY has longer hours, plus an expectation of being on-call 24/7. Teaching for me was waking up at 6 AM, getting to school around 7 to 7:30 AM, 1 hour lunch break, sometimes have time to grade while students are taking tests or watching movies or whatever, ending class at 3:00 PM, grading until 5:00 PM, going home, a break for dinner and then maybe an hour more of lesson planning and grading at night, five days a week, maybe a few hours here and there over the weekend. Holidays and school vacations off, with some training / workshops during the summer break but not more than two weeks of that.

Big Law is working until midnight on an average night, 6 or 7 days a week, sometimes until 2 to 5 AM with the occasional true all-nighter probably once or twice a month on average, maybe you get 2 or 3 holidays off but probably work at least a little bit on all the other holidays, no summer break, and any vacations you do manage to take can be blown up by work at any time. Difficult to travel over the weekend. Difficult to do anything involving more than 4 hours away from your computer or phone on any weeknight or weekend. Eat lunch at your desk while working pretty much always. Maybe a half hour can be taken for dinner but sometimes you'll work through dinner too. Typical sign-on at 9 or 10 AM but you're probably firing away emails from your bed or from your commute from 6 AM onwards. Hours wise, it's not even close.

Obviously pay is much better.

Get the hell out of ny or your firm. That has not been my experience and isn't for those in my office. V50 corp.

[Anonymous User]

Not sure what kind of Big Law the other teachers in this thread were experiencing, but I went from teaching to Big Law and Big Law DEFINITELY has longer hours, plus an expectation of being on-call 24/7. Teaching for me was waking up at 6 AM, getting to school around 7 to 7:30 AM, 1 hour lunch break, sometimes have time to grade while students are taking tests or watching movies or whatever, ending class at 3:00 PM, grading until 5:00 PM, going home, a break for dinner and then maybe an hour more of lesson planning and grading at night, five days a week, maybe a few hours here and there over the weekend. Holidays and school vacations off, with some training / workshops during the summer break but not more than two weeks of that.

Big Law is working until midnight on an average night, 6 or 7 days a week, sometimes until 2 to 5 AM with the occasional true all-nighter probably once or twice a month on average, maybe you get 2 or 3 holidays off but probably work at least a little bit on all the other holidays, no summer break, and any vacations you do manage to take can be blown up by work at any time. Difficult to travel over the weekend. Difficult to do anything involving more than 4 hours away from your computer or phone on any weeknight or weekend. Eat lunch at your desk while working pretty much always. Maybe a half hour can be taken for dinner but sometimes you'll work through dinner too. Typical sign-on at 9 or 10 AM but you're probably firing away emails from your bed or from your commute from 6 AM onwards. Hours wise, it's not even close.

Obviously pay is much better.

Get the hell out of ny or your firm. That has not been my experience and isn't for those in my office. V50 corp.

Same.

[Anonymous User]

Not sure what kind of Big Law the other teachers in this thread were experiencing, but I went from teaching to Big Law and Big Law DEFINITELY has longer hours, plus an expectation of being on-call 24/7. Teaching for me was waking up at 6 AM, getting to school around 7 to 7:30 AM, 1 hour lunch break, sometimes have time to grade while students are taking tests or watching movies or whatever, ending class at 3:00 PM, grading until 5:00 PM, going home, a break for dinner and then maybe an hour more of lesson planning and grading at night, five days a week, maybe a few hours here and there over the weekend. Holidays and school vacations off, with some training / workshops during the summer break but not more than two weeks of that.

Big Law is working until midnight on an average night, 6 or 7 days a week, sometimes until 2 to 5 AM with the occasional true all-nighter probably once or twice a month on average, maybe you get 2 or 3 holidays off but probably work at least a little bit on all the other holidays, no summer break, and any vacations you do manage to take can be blown up by work at any time. Difficult to travel over the weekend. Difficult to do anything involving more than 4 hours away from your computer or phone on any weeknight or weekend. Eat lunch at your desk while working pretty much always. Maybe a half hour can be taken for dinner but sometimes you'll work through dinner too. Typical sign-on at 9 or 10 AM but you're probably firing away emails from your bed or from your commute from 6 AM onwards. Hours wise, it's not even close.

Obviously pay is much better.

Seriously? Lateral. This is not normal. I've been one of the highest billing associates at my firm for the past two years and I usually work only a few hours on the weekend, almost NEVER send emails before 8:30 am, and maybe once a month work past midnight. This is not normal.

[Billywonderful]

How to change your mind, by Pollan

He describes how people get in ruts. Pollan has a vid on YT, he was on 60 minutes, also on YT. You may find it shocking if you explore this, how the people got out of their ruts. The book may be a free download PDF if you google that along with the title.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Thanks everyone for the thoughtful responses. I do think it might be a mental health issue, though its tough to admit.

I get it, i’m also a senior associate and I’ve been there/still am there. You’re very likely burnt out. When type A perfectionists/big law associates hear that, the natural reaction is “i can’t be burnt out, i’m billing sub-2000 hours. There are tons of people who are billing 2,500+ and under more stress.”

It’s not the Olympics of Suffering. Give yourself some slack. i’ll echo the therapy point (and possibly a visit to your PCP for a chat about medication)

This is an excellent response. Never really thought about it this way but it captures the biglaw grind guilt perfectly. There's always someone billing more hours than you, but that's irrelevant to what you're experiencing.