Overemployment Forum

[Anonymous User]

I know a friend in tech who is overemployed (working six jobs) pulling $550K cash. He spends about 30 hours a week across three jobs and completely blows off the other three. Has anyone in biglaw tried pulling this off? I think the biglaw schedule is inhibitive for this but curious nonetheless.

[Anonymous User]

I’ve thought about it, but it’s tough when you’re on the website.

[ChickenSalad]

Are you actually considering this or trolling?

Hours aside, you’d get suspended or disbarred because of conflicts issues and fired and blackballed.

[umichman]

Please try and let us know how it goes.

[Anonymous User]

Are you actually considering this or trolling?

Hours aside, you’d get suspended or disbarred because of conflicts issues and fired and blackballed.

What's the case if you run a conflicts check to monitor whether second employer is a client or adversary?

[nixy]

Are you actually considering this or trolling?

Hours aside, you’d get suspended or disbarred because of conflicts issues and fired and blackballed.

What's the case if you run a conflicts check to monitor whether second employer is a client or adversary?

Then what do you do when they become one of those?

[malibustacy]

OP, you sound like the gullible type that would buy sand in the desert if you actually believe that story. 6 jobs for $550k? Come on man.

[Anonymous User]

OP, you sound like the gullible type that would buy sand in the desert if you actually believe that story. 6 jobs for $550k? Come on man.

This is sour grapes-type thinking.

[Anonymous User]

Sure you could pull it off. Lawyer by day, uber driver by night.

[Wanderingdrock]

OP, you sound like the gullible type that would buy sand in the desert if you actually believe that story. 6 jobs for $550k? Come on man.

?? It's a real thing. WSJ ran a story on it over a year ago; I'm sure others have covered it too. Some people - particularly in tech - get good enough at what they do that they can do a mediocre job remotely at multiple companies at once. And some people have been just cycling through, figuring what they hell, if they get fired for poor performance they'll just take on another (given the tech labor economy during the pandemic, until recently this wasn't a weird thing to think).

[ChickenSalad]

Are you actually considering this or trolling?

Hours aside, you’d get suspended or disbarred because of conflicts issues and fired and blackballed.

What's the case if you run a conflicts check to monitor whether second employer is a client or adversary?

The risk isn’t really that the employer is a client or adversary, it’s whether every single client that you work for at Firm B is adverse to clients at Firm A.

Since it’s biglaw, the odds are also very high that Firm A and Firm B represent opposing parties in ongoing litigation at any given time.

That’s a speedrun to getting disbarred, even if you aren’t actively working on any of these conflicted cases (since conflicts are imputed).

This just has to be a troll.

[nixy]

OP, you sound like the gullible type that would buy sand in the desert if you actually believe that story. 6 jobs for $550k? Come on man.

?? It's a real thing. WSJ ran a story on it over a year ago; I'm sure others have covered it too. Some people - particularly in tech - get good enough at what they do that they can do a mediocre job remotely at multiple companies at once. And some people have been just cycling through, figuring what they hell, if they get fired for poor performance they'll just take on another (given the tech labor economy during the pandemic, until recently this wasn't a weird thing to think).

I've definitely heard of this, but 6 jobs seems a little much. Though I also have no idea what any of the jobs entail.

Regardless, good luck trying that with biglaw.

[Bosque]

I look forward to outing the Anonymous OP when I read about their bar disciplinary action in Bloomberg.

Seriously, in the unlikely event you are not a troll, this is 100% going to get you in serious trouble and possibly even disbarred (assuming you don't disclose to your employer, which the question seems to imply). This isn't just a "gray area" like it might be for a programmer, we have very specific and hardass conflict of interest rules in this profession for a reason. No law firm will be ok with this.

If you really want to work for six different bosses at once, we already have a structure for that in law. Just open your own law office and bill them, like everyone else.

[hangtime813]

Maybe you can do biglaw and then take on one (or two) of those short term doc review projects where they pay you hourly on the side...? Assuming again no conflict issues of course and you can manage the fact that being in big law is basically being on call even if you dont have a lot of billables in a current stretch.

[Anonymous User]

Are you actually considering this or trolling?

Hours aside, you’d get suspended or disbarred because of conflicts issues and fired and blackballed.

What's the case if you run a conflicts check to monitor whether second employer is a client or adversary?

The risk isn’t really that the employer is a client or adversary, it’s whether every single client that you work for at Firm B is adverse to clients at Firm A.

Since it’s biglaw, the odds are also very high that Firm A and Firm B represent opposing parties in ongoing litigation at any given time.

That’s a speedrun to getting disbarred, even if you aren’t actively working on any of these conflicted cases (since conflicts are imputed).

This just has to be a troll.

Why do you think this thread is talking about working at two firms?

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Heard a story someone actually did pick up an in-house job in addition to their firm job for about 10 months in 2020/2021 and apparently had no issues other than explaining to new job that they had no idea why they were still on the firm website, other than of course it being an absurd amount of work overall (which is why I’m guessing it didn’t last).

Think you’d have a much harder time finding two fully remote jobs to pull it off now.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

There is also a well-known story about some kid in the 90s who accepted two NYC summer offers and presumably just kind of ran back and forth between the two; took him a couple weeks to get discovered and fired from both.

[ChickenSalad]

There is also a well-known story about some kid in the 90s who accepted two NYC summer offers and presumably just kind of ran back and forth between the two; *took him a couple weeks to get discovered and fired from both.*

This is the part I don’t get. What’s the best case outcome here (or for OP)? That this plan works a few weeks/months until the firms find out, fire you and report you for discipline to the bar/your law school?

At some point the music stops and the price isn’t worth the time you spent in law school (or the debt, expulsion/disbarment)

[Bramwell]

With the flat bonuses, time to pull out the side gigs!

[RedNewJersey]

There is also a well-known story about some kid in the 90s who accepted two NYC summer offers and presumably just kind of ran back and forth between the two; took him a couple weeks to get discovered and fired from both.

This ... actually seems doable during COVID. Summers don't do much anyway, and without social events, it would not be that hard to stay on top of emails. Just keep both computers open and it could actually work.

Getting multiple jobs would be hard at a firm (since so many things are time-sensitive), but might be possible if you had a government job or a mediocre role at a big company's legal department. It would still be a terrible idea because of the ethical issues--the costs of being caught are much higher for attorneys than for programmers.

[Wanderingdrock]

OP, you sound like the gullible type that would buy sand in the desert if you actually believe that story. 6 jobs for $550k? Come on man.

?? It's a real thing. WSJ ran a story on it over a year ago; I'm sure others have covered it too. Some people - particularly in tech - get good enough at what they do that they can do a mediocre job remotely at multiple companies at once. And some people have been just cycling through, figuring what they hell, if they get fired for poor performance they'll just take on another (given the tech labor economy during the pandemic, until recently this wasn't a weird thing to think).

I've definitely heard of this, but 6 jobs seems a little much. Though I also have no idea what any of the jobs entail.

Regardless, good luck trying that with biglaw.

Oh for sure, never do this in the law. It only works if you don't tell your employers, and lying about something like that - even just by omission - is disqualifying as far as character and fitness goes, at the very least. In Biglaw, it probably wouldn't even work from a pure doing-your-job perspective. I meant to be clearer that this is really only something that works and could arguably be considered by some to be ethical in tech.

[ghostoftraynor]

There are probably a few other industries that this could work in. I had a friend who worked in sales job and usually had just a few big client calls a day. He spent the rest of the day as a Wag dog walker.

But, yea, this obviously doesn't work for firms. And, Even if it were ethical to do multiple in house jobs, I don't think it would practically work at all.