Wait to possibly get fired or lateral? Forum

[Anonymous User]

BL third year. Work has been off and on busy since I started at the firm. I know in significant part it’s been due to most partners not being very busy consistently. In past reviews the comments have mostly been to the effect of “good work for the most part, maybe come in more [office has three day a week policy].” Things stayed the same this year. The last year again was very slow overall, even though my group has lost about five lawyers since I started due to voluntary departures.

In a way, I feel like this is a unicorn job, but I also despise the frequent scrutiny about hours and have no doubt they won’t keep me on forever like this. I am also one of only three associates in the group now, so for staffing/billing purposes they may see that they need me-ish until if/when things pick up again.

Should I wait to get laid off and take possible severance? Or be proactive and try to lateral now? I would be fine at review saying they could even pay me slightly less than what they are now (which is already held back by a year) just to stay on, given that WLB is so good, and changing firms is stressful. But I also cringe at the idea of facing the hours music for a third year in a row.

[Anonymous User]

This could have been the exact same post I would have written a few years ago.

What do you actually want to do with yourself? To you want to go in-house? To you want to try and make partner?

If you want to stay at law firms, I'd lateral out. Being in a busy group isn't always fun, but imo it beats being in a slow group where the firm will penalize you for no fault of your own. Plus you legit won't learn as much about your practice if you don't have a ton of work.

If you want to go in-house sooner, just ride the wave until you find a good landing spot.

[Anonymous User]

This could have been the exact same post I would have written a few years ago.

What do you actually want to do with yourself? To you want to go in-house? To you want to try and make partner?

If you want to stay at law firms, I'd lateral out. Being in a busy group isn't always fun, but imo it beats being in a slow group where the firm will penalize you for no fault of your own. Plus you legit won't learn as much about your practice if you don't have a ton of work.

If you want to go in-house sooner, just ride the wave until you find a good landing spot.

Unemployment is pretty great. I've collected 1k a week currently for the past 26 weeks while doing a unpaid position which is itself prestigious. It was a win win.

[BigLawer]

This could have been the exact same post I would have written a few years ago.

What do you actually want to do with yourself? To you want to go in-house? To you want to try and make partner?

If you want to stay at law firms, I'd lateral out. Being in a busy group isn't always fun, but imo it beats being in a slow group where the firm will penalize you for no fault of your own. Plus you legit won't learn as much about your practice if you don't have a ton of work.

If you want to go in-house sooner, just ride the wave until you find a good landing spot.

Unemployment is pretty great. I've collected 1k a week currently for the past 26 weeks while doing a unpaid position which is itself prestigious. It was a win win.

Does unemployment really pay over $50k a year?

[TigerIsBack]

This could have been the exact same post I would have written a few years ago.

What do you actually want to do with yourself? To you want to go in-house? To you want to try and make partner?

If you want to stay at law firms, I'd lateral out. Being in a busy group isn't always fun, but imo it beats being in a slow group where the firm will penalize you for no fault of your own. Plus you legit won't learn as much about your practice if you don't have a ton of work.

If you want to go in-house sooner, just ride the wave until you find a good landing spot.

I disagree and think even if you want to go in-house you should probably lateral. Going in-house requires more autonomy than being in BL (where your documents get reviewed by like 3-5 layers of people). In-house there may be no review depending on what you're working on and I also think it will be harder to land an in-house gig if you can't speak knowledgably about your practice and skillset (because you just don't have as many reps as your classmates at busier firms yet).

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

OP what do you mean by “very slow”?

People who bill like 1600 as second years will probably get a comment about being slow but are generally not in trouble if everything else is fine. But someone who bills 1000 as a second year is probably getting “the talk before The Talk”; i.e. spike your hours immediately or pack your shit. The extent to which that should concern you inversely correlates with the ease of getting a new job. (I recommend everyone periodically talk to a recruiter and just get a sense of how they feel about market volume even when you *don’t* think you’re about to be fired. I probably made tens of thousands/saved myself tons of potential grief based on things I unexpectedly learned in casual 10-minute conversations, and the more senior you get, the more likely you are to come across a better job even when you’re not actively looking for it.)

In general I recommend billing the minimum you can get away with as a first year and in most cases as a second year too (it might be the last time for a while that you have a reasonable schedule). But starting as a third-year, (A) you usually lose any slack you might have had as a second-year and if your hours are way lower than others in your group, people will start wondering what’s wrong with you and (B) if you’re at a firm with an hours minimum, you’ll be heavily incentivized to hit it unless you’re gonna bill under 1600-1700 (which isn’t something you can sustainably do anyway unless you hop firms every 18 months).

Also, why did you get held back a class year?