Lateraling to Midlaw Forum

[Anonymous User]

Are there solid Midlaw firms where someone can bill between 1600-1800 hours a year and make like 250-300k? Or any Midlaw firms with good work-life balance where a biglaw senior associate might be able to lateral to as a partner? Assume the senior associate is in Litigation and has very strong credentials. Starting to think billing 2200+ every year is just not going to be practical with a family.

[Anonymous User]

Yup. I did exactly that and am working midlaw now making what you are saying in a tertiary market.

[Moneytrees]

Are there solid Midlaw firms where someone can bill between 1600-1800 hours a year and make like 250-300k? Or any Midlaw firms with good work-life balance where a biglaw senior associate might be able to lateral to as a partner? Assume the senior associate is in Litigation and has very strong credentials. Starting to think billing 2200+ every year is just not going to be practical with a family.

Probably. My guess is that senior associates and income partners at strong boutiques or regional biglaw firms probably have salaries in the 250k/300k range.

[crazywafflez]

I think in my market (secondary) there are a couple off the top of my head who do have similar reqs to that (some might have 1900 but allow for 100-200 pro bono hours, I believe).
Baker Donleson has a 1900 hour req (I'm not sure their pro bono amount though).
A number of the L&E shops have around 1800-1900 hour reqs but allow 100 or so pro bono hours- Littler is 1900 and allow 100 training hours and 100 pro bono hours (I may be off slightly), JL is like 1800 or 1850 and has similar amounts.
Adams and Reese is 1800 hours- I believe they allow 50-100 pro bono hours?
I think Butler Snow and Waller are in this same ballpark as well. I'm sure there are plenty more as well.

[Anonymous User]

I think in my market (secondary) there are a couple off the top of my head who do have similar reqs to that (some might have 1900 but allow for 100-200 pro bono hours, I believe).
Baker Donleson has a 1900 hour req (I'm not sure their pro bono amount though).
A number of the L&E shops have around 1800-1900 hour reqs but allow 100 or so pro bono hours- Littler is 1900 and allow 100 training hours and 100 pro bono hours (I may be off slightly), JL is like 1800 or 1850 and has similar amounts.
Adams and Reese is 1800 hours- I believe they allow 50-100 pro bono hours?
I think Butler Snow and Waller are in this same ballpark as well. I'm sure there are plenty more as well.

To cap off your Nashville tour, Bass is 1850 billable hours plus 50 non-billables. A certain number of the 1850 billables can be pro-bono or diversity initiatives.

[Anonymous User]

Exists in my tertiary market. Obviously whether that’s an option depends on your willingness to practice in one.

[Anonymous User]

I work at the very type of firm you’re talking about. I made the conscious choice out of law school to avoid biglaw and come straight here. Our average billable hours for associates was like 1775 in 2018, which is the highest it has been in recent memory. Most years it’s in the 1600s. No hours minimum, hours are not used as a review metric or to award bonuses.

7 year partnership track, straight to equity, with no book of business required. The standard for partnership is “do I trust you to handle a case/deal on your own.”

It’s in a tertiary market. Associate salaries go from $180 to $225ish, lockstep. With bonus those numbers increase to total comp of about $190 to $250. Partner salaries are higher, of course, but I doubt many, if any, partners clear $1m.

One of the catches is that they are really focused on academic credentials in hiring, so it’s tough to get in the door. But, I guess the point is that these types of firms do exist, but there are not many of them and they’re hard to find (I think even people in my firm’s market think that our lawyers bill 1800+, so it’s not some well-known thing that we have it made from a work-life perspective).

[Anonymous User]

I like my MidLaw life. Wouldn’t do it for free but it’s a good living. 1st year partner (1 tier partnership), billed maybe 1750, tons of marketing, $450k all in comp this year. Form covers 100% of health insurance. No insane people, super collegial, good cases.

[Anonymous User]

I work somewhere similar. You can bill 1700-1800 for your entire career. Equity track is a bit long and two-tiered, but it's pretty much you put in the time and you get equity. Comp matches junior to mid level biglaw very well but then pulls away significantly at the senior level (but still $300k+). I think equity partners make $450k-$500k on the low end and a couple of million on the high end. It's certainly a reasonable alternative to biglaw. It's still hard not to be envious of the crazy biglaw comp, because it still feels like we work hard, but then I dig deep into my memory when I was in biglaw and worked so much harder that I had practically no life. Now, I have my weekends and, if I'm remotely efficient, my weeknights. I spend very little time answering substantive emails (or really emails at all) past 5:30 PM. Could be worse.

[umichman]

I work somewhere similar. You can bill 1700-1800 for your entire career. Equity track is a bit long and two-tiered, but it's pretty much you put in the time and you get equity. Comp matches junior to mid level biglaw very well but then pulls away significantly at the senior level (but still $300k+). I think equity partners make $450k-$500k on the low end and a couple of million on the high end. It's certainly a reasonable alternative to biglaw. It's still hard not to be envious of the crazy biglaw comp, because it still feels like we work hard, but then I dig deep into my memory when I was in biglaw and worked so much harder that I had practically no life. Now, I have my weekends and, if I'm remotely efficient, my weeknights. I spend very little time answering substantive emails (or really emails at all) past 5:30 PM. Could be worse.

Exactly my experience as well. I get frustrated with comp, then realize it’s a Wednesday night and I’m chillin with my kids in a big house or that it’s a weekend and haven’t looked at my phone all day and remember when I brought my computer to brunch on sundays just in case.

You got to make the call whether it’s right for you but i am having a mid law busy month and will bill 200 and it feels like a lot, and remember when 200 was essentially the minimum

[existentialcrisis]

I’m not really calling BS, but I’m struggling to understand what not working after 5:30 works like when you’re doing deals? It seems odd to me that these firms could both be doing the kind of work that allows them to pay associates 250k+ and then also have clients that aren’t more demanding in terms of responsiveness/turn arounds.

Maybe all the folks in this thread are in litigation though?

[Anonymous User]

I’m not really calling BS, but I’m struggling to understand what not working after 5:30 works like when you’re doing deals? It seems odd to me that these firms could both be doing the kind of work that allows them to pay associates 250k+ and then also have clients that aren’t more demanding in terms of responsiveness/turn arounds.

Maybe all the folks in this thread are in litigation though?

I am not these people or in the same situation and would appreciate more detail as well. To purely speculate though - I'd wager that once you eliminate bulge bracket financial institutions and F500 clientele from your books, the attitudes and deadlines in the middle market are probably more relaxed. Currently in a finance practice and do notice that the timelines for deals with lenders like GS, JPM, etc. have a much different tenor than deals with middle market PE sponsors.

[Anonymous User]

I’m not really calling BS, but I’m struggling to understand what not working after 5:30 works like when you’re doing deals? It seems odd to me that these firms could both be doing the kind of work that allows them to pay associates 250k+ and then also have clients that aren’t more demanding in terms of responsiveness/turn arounds.

Maybe all the folks in this thread are in litigation though?

I am not these people or in the same situation and would appreciate more detail as well. To purely speculate though - I'd wager that once you eliminate bulge bracket financial institutions and F500 clientele from your books, the attitudes and deadlines in the middle market are probably more relaxed. Currently in a finance practice and do notice that the timelines for deals with lenders like GS, JPM, etc. have a much different tenor than deals with middle market PE sponsors.

I am someone who posted above. I am in lit, so I can’t speak too much to the transactional stuff. That being said, I know that I have more regularity in my schedule than the corporate associates do, even though we end up around the same number of billable hours per year. I guess that means they have some days when they leave at 2pm with nothing going on to make up for the days they stay late.

I think there is something to your point about the nature of the client. I do a type of lit that results in some occasional transactional consulting, and I was recently across from GS and that deal certainly seemed to have a different tone than what our transactional people were used to.

I’ll bill just around 1,850 this year, which will be on the very high end for my firm. I leave every day at 5:00, but that doesn’t mean I’m always done working at 5. There are weeks-long stretches where I work for an hour or two from home every night, and there are weeks-long stretches where I don’t look at my computer after 5. But, my understanding is that big NY firm hours are 9-9 five days a week, if not longer. And that’s (1) not how it goes where I work and (2) absolute insanity nobody should subject themselves to.

[Anonymous User]

I’m not really calling BS, but I’m struggling to understand what not working after 5:30 works like when you’re doing deals? It seems odd to me that these firms could both be doing the kind of work that allows them to pay associates 250k+ and then also have clients that aren’t more demanding in terms of responsiveness/turn arounds.

Maybe all the folks in this thread are in litigation though?

Comes down to many factors, that are not always obvious (which is why so many biglaw partners will tell you that its impossible):

1. Clients tend to be smaller. A lot of insane deadlines and expectations come from midlevel in-house pencil pushers trying to impress the boss. Much less of an issue when you are dealing directly with the CEO and GC.

2. Partners are making a lot less money and tend to be lazier. They have no interest in spending their Sunday marking up documents and hating life.

3. Opposing counsel (often biglaw) has lower expectations from you. They see you have a small team, limited leverage, limited expertise and lower motivation levels. Everyone involved gets that you don't get paid enough to be pulling all nighters and operating under massive stress.

4. Similar to #4, opposing counsel will often volunteer to do a lot of the heavy lifting. They will put together the steps memo, irrespective of whether they are buyer or seller. They will pull multiple specialists in to do the heavy lifting in tha regard as well.

5. Clients, understanding your rate structure, expect a lot less. They get that all nighters aren't happening and that deals will be slower.

6. Partners push back on unreasonable requests. They aren't making enough money to subject themselves to pain, and get that their associates will promptly quit if they start working biglaw hours.

7. The types of matters clients send your way are designed to work with #1-6 above, and other similar considerations. Your deals aren't making the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The crazy PE funds that are full of STB guys and hire STB, and expect their lawyers to answer emails at 3am and turn documents instantly, aren't hiring you. Blackstone isn't hiring you. Everyone gets that you are relatively cheap, relatively competent, and are willing to put in a decent days work, but not much more than that. Life goes on. You aren't paid enough to make this job your end all be all.

8. Also, the whole practice of law is done differently. Less leverage, fewer reviews of documents, more of a focus on producing a reasonably good document than a perfect one, less concern about what you have done in the past 20 deals, less concern about annoying nitpicking details and unnecessarily painful diligence. Basically you get the job done reasonably well, but not perfectly, and life goes on.

[existentialcrisis]

I’m not really calling BS, but I’m struggling to understand what not working after 5:30 works like when you’re doing deals? It seems odd to me that these firms could both be doing the kind of work that allows them to pay associates 250k+ and then also have clients that aren’t more demanding in terms of responsiveness/turn arounds.

Maybe all the folks in this thread are in litigation though?

Comes down to many factors, that are not always obvious (which is why so many biglaw partners will tell you that its impossible):

1. Clients tend to be smaller. A lot of insane deadlines and expectations come from midlevel in-house pencil pushers trying to impress the boss. Much less of an issue when you are dealing directly with the CEO and GC.

2. Partners are making a lot less money and tend to be lazier. They have no interest in spending their Sunday marking up documents and hating life.

3. Opposing counsel (often biglaw) has lower expectations from you. They see you have a small team, limited leverage, limited expertise and lower motivation levels. Everyone involved gets that you don't get paid enough to be pulling all nighters and operating under massive stress.

4. Similar to #4, opposing counsel will often volunteer to do a lot of the heavy lifting. They will put together the steps memo, irrespective of whether they are buyer or seller. They will pull multiple specialists in to do the heavy lifting in tha regard as well.

5. Clients, understanding your rate structure, expect a lot less. They get that all nighters aren't happening and that deals will be slower.

6. Partners push back on unreasonable requests. They aren't making enough money to subject themselves to pain, and get that their associates will promptly quit if they start working biglaw hours.

7. The types of matters clients send your way are designed to work with #1-6 above, and other similar considerations. Your deals aren't making the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The crazy PE funds that are full of STB guys and hire STB, and expect their lawyers to answer emails at 3am and turn documents instantly, aren't hiring you. Blackstone isn't hiring you. Everyone gets that you are relatively cheap, relatively competent, and are willing to put in a decent days work, but not much more than that. Life goes on. You aren't paid enough to make this job your end all be all.

8. Also, the whole practice of law is done differently. Less leverage, fewer reviews of documents, more of a focus on producing a reasonably good document than a perfect one, less concern about what you have done in the past 20 deals, less concern about annoying nitpicking details and unnecessarily painful diligence. Basically you get the job done reasonably well, but not perfectly, and life goes on.

These have been interesting perspectives.

This hasn’t really been my impression of how middle market sponsors operate, but I suppose a lot of these type of clients are smaller corporates?

[Anonymous User]

I’m not really calling BS, but I’m struggling to understand what not working after 5:30 works like when you’re doing deals? It seems odd to me that these firms could both be doing the kind of work that allows them to pay associates 250k+ and then also have clients that aren’t more demanding in terms of responsiveness/turn arounds.

Maybe all the folks in this thread are in litigation though?

Comes down to many factors, that are not always obvious (which is why so many biglaw partners will tell you that its impossible):

1. Clients tend to be smaller. A lot of insane deadlines and expectations come from midlevel in-house pencil pushers trying to impress the boss. Much less of an issue when you are dealing directly with the CEO and GC.

2. Partners are making a lot less money and tend to be lazier. They have no interest in spending their Sunday marking up documents and hating life.

3. Opposing counsel (often biglaw) has lower expectations from you. They see you have a small team, limited leverage, limited expertise and lower motivation levels. Everyone involved gets that you don't get paid enough to be pulling all nighters and operating under massive stress.

4. Similar to #4, opposing counsel will often volunteer to do a lot of the heavy lifting. They will put together the steps memo, irrespective of whether they are buyer or seller. They will pull multiple specialists in to do the heavy lifting in tha regard as well.

5. Clients, understanding your rate structure, expect a lot less. They get that all nighters aren't happening and that deals will be slower.

6. Partners push back on unreasonable requests. They aren't making enough money to subject themselves to pain, and get that their associates will promptly quit if they start working biglaw hours.

7. The types of matters clients send your way are designed to work with #1-6 above, and other similar considerations. Your deals aren't making the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The crazy PE funds that are full of STB guys and hire STB, and expect their lawyers to answer emails at 3am and turn documents instantly, aren't hiring you. Blackstone isn't hiring you. Everyone gets that you are relatively cheap, relatively competent, and are willing to put in a decent days work, but not much more than that. Life goes on. You aren't paid enough to make this job your end all be all.

8. Also, the whole practice of law is done differently. Less leverage, fewer reviews of documents, more of a focus on producing a reasonably good document than a perfect one, less concern about what you have done in the past 20 deals, less concern about annoying nitpicking details and unnecessarily painful diligence. Basically you get the job done reasonably well, but not perfectly, and life goes on.

These have been interesting perspectives.

This hasn’t really been my impression of how middle market sponsors operate, but I suppose a lot of these type of clients are smaller corporates?

Correct - middle market PE funds are not going to be your main clients, they need fast turnaround times that you aren't set up to provide (though you will occassionally get work from sponsors doing like $10-30mm joke deals). Your M&A/PE work is generally going to be random small-midsize operating companies buying and selling , and similarly on the cap markets side. These are the types of clients who would never in a million years be willing to pay biglaw rates for this type of work, and so the expectations are commensurately reduced.

That being said, keep in mind that attrition from midlaw is awfully high. After the "I won the lottery" feeling from bailing on biglaw wears off, you realize that you are now stuck doing mediocre work with a real random mix of people (and without the strong technical strengths of biglaw lawyers), often erratic and cost-conscious clients, and real difficulty making real $$$ unless you manage to bring in work.

[Anonymous User]

I’m not really calling BS, but I’m struggling to understand what not working after 5:30 works like when you’re doing deals? It seems odd to me that these firms could both be doing the kind of work that allows them to pay associates 250k+ and then also have clients that aren’t more demanding in terms of responsiveness/turn arounds.

Maybe all the folks in this thread are in litigation though?

I'm the above poster who talked about 1700-1800 hours. I am a corporate lawyer. The clients I work with are significantly slower moving than biglaw clients. This is in large part because we have little-to-no private equity work and very few F500 or publicly traded clients. Almost all of our clients our mid-sized institutions located in much slower parts of the country (i.e., not major cities, California, or the northeast).

As for compensation, we charge about 70% of biglaw's rates. Combine the compressed associate compensation, the significantly lower-than-biglaw partner compensation, our very low overhead (we don't have a massive global footprint, don't lease the highest class (and cost) spaces possible, and aren't shelling out on tons of crap like patagonia vests for associates or whatever), and our low turnover, and we get to where we're at. Partners can make good money that puts them out of the reach of 95% of in-house compensation but is also a clear step below biglaw, and associates can make enough money where they go (1) the trade off is worth it at the associate level for the better QoL and (2) I'm pretty much guaranteed partner down the line so I'll get to have a good QoL my entire career and also outstrip anything that isn't biglaw or Deputy GC/GC at a very large company.

I'll also +1 the above longer post.

[Anonymous User]

I’m not really calling BS, but I’m struggling to understand what not working after 5:30 works like when you’re doing deals? It seems odd to me that these firms could both be doing the kind of work that allows them to pay associates 250k+ and then also have clients that aren’t more demanding in terms of responsiveness/turn arounds.

Maybe all the folks in this thread are in litigation though?

I'm the above poster who talked about 1700-1800 hours. I am a corporate lawyer. The clients I work with are significantly slower moving than biglaw clients. This is in large part because we have little-to-no private equity work and very few F500 or publicly traded clients. Almost all of our clients our mid-sized institutions located in much slower parts of the country (i.e., not major cities, California, or the northeast).

As for compensation, we charge about 70% of biglaw's rates. Combine the compressed associate compensation, the significantly lower-than-biglaw partner compensation, our very low overhead (we don't have a massive global footprint, don't lease the highest class (and cost) spaces possible, and aren't shelling out on tons of crap like patagonia vests for associates or whatever), and our low turnover, and we get to where we're at. Partners can make good money that puts them out of the reach of 95% of in-house compensation but is also a clear step below biglaw, and associates can make enough money where they go (1) the trade off is worth it at the associate level for the better QoL and (2) I'm pretty much guaranteed partner down the line so I'll get to have a good QoL my entire career and also outstrip anything that isn't biglaw or Deputy GC/GC at a very large company.

I'll also +1 the above longer post.

70% rates doesn't capture the difference. There are just enormous differences in the business model. When you are across from firms with 4:1 leverage, every call is like 2 partners, 3 counsel and 6 associates from their side, and like 3 partners, 1 counsel and 1 associate from your side (and your partners bill the same rates as their counsels). Whenever specialists get pulled in its like 1 partner, 1 counsel and 1 associate from their side, and 1 partner (doing minimal work) from your side. Before every interaction they send you an elaborate issues list, and it looks like they have 8 people reviewing every document turn. You do the exact opposite, minimizing the amount of work product produced, and only having a couple of sets of eyes on documents.

Biglaw is great for maximizing rainmaker comp, producing absolute top flight legal work, and training juniors. Midlaw is excellent for providing reasonable comp with good work-life balance, and doing reasonably high level legal work at a much lower price point for clients and matters where the absolute best isn't necessary.

[Anonymous User]

I'll just caution against any poster believing biglaw does inherently "better" work, unless you're talking about just having the eyes to capture a couple more misplaced commas or misspelled words. Then, sure. Biglaw does inherently better work. If you're talking about substantive issues, guess who has more time to crack open a secondary source and learn? The associate/partner billing 1700 hours or the associate/partner billing 2200 hours? The biglaw training by volume certainly makes you very good at certain "process" elements of the job, but it's a very slow way to build broad substantive knowledge.

That's all I'll say about this, as I don't want to lead this thread down the road of endless bickering.

[Anonymous User]

I’m not really calling BS, but I’m struggling to understand what not working after 5:30 works like when you’re doing deals? It seems odd to me that these firms could both be doing the kind of work that allows them to pay associates 250k+ and then also have clients that aren’t more demanding in terms of responsiveness/turn arounds.

Maybe all the folks in this thread are in litigation though?

I'm the above poster who talked about 1700-1800 hours. I am a corporate lawyer. The clients I work with are significantly slower moving than biglaw clients. This is in large part because we have little-to-no private equity work and very few F500 or publicly traded clients. Almost all of our clients our mid-sized institutions located in much slower parts of the country (i.e., not major cities, California, or the northeast).

As for compensation, we charge about 70% of biglaw's rates. Combine the compressed associate compensation, the significantly lower-than-biglaw partner compensation, our very low overhead (we don't have a massive global footprint, don't lease the highest class (and cost) spaces possible, and aren't shelling out on tons of crap like patagonia vests for associates or whatever), and our low turnover, and we get to where we're at. Partners can make good money that puts them out of the reach of 95% of in-house compensation but is also a clear step below biglaw, and associates can make enough money where they go (1) the trade off is worth it at the associate level for the better QoL and (2) I'm pretty much guaranteed partner down the line so I'll get to have a good QoL my entire career and also outstrip anything that isn't biglaw or Deputy GC/GC at a very large company.

I'll also +1 the above longer post.

70% rates doesn't capture the difference. There are just enormous differences in the business model. When you are across from firms with 4:1 leverage, every call is like 2 partners, 3 counsel and 6 associates from their side, and like 3 partners, 1 counsel and 1 associate from your side (and your partners bill the same rates as their counsels). Whenever specialists get pulled in its like 1 partner, 1 counsel and 1 associate from their side, and 1 partner (doing minimal work) from your side. Before every interaction they send you an elaborate issues list, and it looks like they have 8 people reviewing every document turn. You do the exact opposite, minimizing the amount of work product produced, and only having a couple of sets of eyes on documents.

Biglaw is great for maximizing rainmaker comp, producing absolute top flight legal work, and training juniors. Midlaw is excellent for providing reasonable comp with good work-life balance, and doing reasonably high level legal work at a much lower price point for clients and matters where the absolute best isn't necessary.

Can you name some of these MidLaw firms that offer this? It sounds like a lot of these places are a better long term deal than BigLaw, but it's not that easy to identify solid MidLaw firms from the outside.

[lavarman84]

Correct - middle market PE funds are not going to be your main clients, they need fast turnaround times that you aren't set up to provide (though you will occassionally get work from sponsors doing like $10-30mm joke deals). Your M&A/PE work is generally going to be random small-midsize operating companies buying and selling , and similarly on the cap markets side. These are the types of clients who would never in a million years be willing to pay biglaw rates for this type of work, and so the expectations are commensurately reduced.

That being said, keep in mind that attrition from midlaw is awfully high. After the "I won the lottery" feeling from bailing on biglaw wears off, you realize that you are now stuck doing mediocre work with a real random mix of people (and without the strong technical strengths of biglaw lawyers), often erratic and cost-conscious clients, and real difficulty making real $$$ unless you manage to bring in work.

As a public interest lawyer, I can't even imagine referring to $300k per year as not making real money. But I get that life is different when you're used to making mid six figures and build your life around that.

[Anonymous User]

I'll just caution against any poster believing biglaw does inherently "better" work, unless you're talking about just having the eyes to capture a couple more misplaced commas or misspelled words. Then, sure. Biglaw does inherently better work. If you're talking about substantive issues, guess who has more time to crack open a secondary source and learn? The associate/partner billing 1700 hours or the associate/partner billing 2200 hours? The biglaw training by volume certainly makes you very good at certain "process" elements of the job, but it's a very slow way to build broad substantive knowledge.

That's all I'll say about this, as I don't want to lead this thread down the road of endless bickering.

When you are against STB or DPW M&A or whatever, they are definitely doing better work. Their partners are getting paid millions of dollars a year to produce perfect documents and drill down very deeply into every possible issue. They also fight tooth and nail over every possible point to make the documents as favorable as possible for their clients. Rando v50? Could be producing mediocre works. But the old white-shoe biglaw places with PPP are definitely where you go for the best legal work in their speciality areas (or, alternatively, you go to a mega-high PPP boutique).

[Anonymous User]

DUPLICATE

[Anonymous User]

I’m not really calling BS, but I’m struggling to understand what not working after 5:30 works like when you’re doing deals? It seems odd to me that these firms could both be doing the kind of work that allows them to pay associates 250k+ and then also have clients that aren’t more demanding in terms of responsiveness/turn arounds.

Maybe all the folks in this thread are in litigation though?

Comes down to many factors, that are not always obvious (which is why so many biglaw partners will tell you that its impossible):

1. Clients tend to be smaller. A lot of insane deadlines and expectations come from midlevel in-house pencil pushers trying to impress the boss. Much less of an issue when you are dealing directly with the CEO and GC.

2. Partners are making a lot less money and tend to be lazier. They have no interest in spending their Sunday marking up documents and hating life.

3. Opposing counsel (often biglaw) has lower expectations from you. They see you have a small team, limited leverage, limited expertise and lower motivation levels. Everyone involved gets that you don't get paid enough to be pulling all nighters and operating under massive stress.

4. Similar to #4, opposing counsel will often volunteer to do a lot of the heavy lifting. They will put together the steps memo, irrespective of whether they are buyer or seller. They will pull multiple specialists in to do the heavy lifting in tha regard as well.

5. Clients, understanding your rate structure, expect a lot less. They get that all nighters aren't happening and that deals will be slower.

6. Partners push back on unreasonable requests. They aren't making enough money to subject themselves to pain, and get that their associates will promptly quit if they start working biglaw hours.

7. The types of matters clients send your way are designed to work with #1-6 above, and other similar considerations. Your deals aren't making the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The crazy PE funds that are full of STB guys and hire STB, and expect their lawyers to answer emails at 3am and turn documents instantly, aren't hiring you. Blackstone isn't hiring you. Everyone gets that you are relatively cheap, relatively competent, and are willing to put in a decent days work, but not much more than that. Life goes on. You aren't paid enough to make this job your end all be all.

8. Also, the whole practice of law is done differently. Less leverage, fewer reviews of documents, more of a focus on producing a reasonably good document than a perfect one, less concern about what you have done in the past 20 deals, less concern about annoying nitpicking details and unnecessarily painful diligence. Basically you get the job done reasonably well, but not perfectly, and life goes on.

These have been interesting perspectives.

This hasn’t really been my impression of how middle market sponsors operate, but I suppose a lot of these type of clients are smaller corporates?

That being said, keep in mind that attrition from midlaw is awfully high. After the "I won the lottery" feeling from bailing on biglaw wears off, you realize that you are now stuck doing mediocre work with a real random mix of people (and without the strong technical strengths of biglaw lawyers), often erratic and cost-conscious clients, and real difficulty making real $$$ unless you manage to bring in work.

This is kind of a bleak outlook. After the biglaw feeling wears off, you have time to spend with family and friends, make a decent living in a lower cost of living place. It is true that you are negotiating against less sophisticated and sometimes erratic, random people and yes, people complain about bills. But that is the trade off. You either work big law with the accompanying crazy lifestyle, or choose midlaw with the accompanying easier by comparison life style and give up on some $$$. after about the age of 35 (assuming straight through) then continuing to make real money in big law becomes quite difficult also unless you manage to bring in work (ie. make share partner in big law and continue working crazy hours).

So yes, people leave (I doubt any more than big law) and there are downfalls of midlaw, but I think the happy people in midlaw have made up their mind to find life meaning outside of work. Happy people in long term big law find their life meaning in their job.

[Anonymous User]

I'll just caution against any poster believing biglaw does inherently "better" work, unless you're talking about just having the eyes to capture a couple more misplaced commas or misspelled words. Then, sure. Biglaw does inherently better work. If you're talking about substantive issues, guess who has more time to crack open a secondary source and learn? The associate/partner billing 1700 hours or the associate/partner billing 2200 hours? The biglaw training by volume certainly makes you very good at certain "process" elements of the job, but it's a very slow way to build broad substantive knowledge.

That's all I'll say about this, as I don't want to lead this thread down the road of endless bickering.

Oh the old misplaced comma trope. OK buddy, whatever it takes for you to be able to sleep better at night. I'm sure your 100 lawyer firm with 4 offices in the tri-state area can do a better job substantively than your counterparts at a v10 who have been eat, sleep and breathing this kind of work to the tune of 2,600+ hours a year while you decided 7 years ago to take your foot off the gas so you can enjoy your nights and weekends.