Fifth years and above in biglaw, what's been the worst year? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Interesting how some people think first year was the worst whereas some think it's worse as you get further along, where do you fall?

[Anonymous User]

IME it was a bit of a U curve, where first year was definitely the worst but senior associate years (5 but moreso 6 and above) are also pretty bad.

First year meant a lot of sleepless nights, working on extremely boring stuff, not knowing what I was doing, and the firm I was at was particularly filled with toxic folks so lots of screaming, demeaning, etc., even moreso than biglaw generally. Being new also generally means not knowing how long things take, how cases unfold, where busy spots might arise, and even once you do start to learn that super junior associates rarely have much insight into decision-making so you're generally in the dark. Also the economy was still a bit shaky and I hadn't built up a big nest egg yet, so there was the cloud of financial ruin hovering over me at all times. This was unequivocally the worst year of my adult life.

2ish to 5ish was still biglaw, so not great, but it wasn't horrible in the grand scheme of things. Still have to deal with the occasional truly awful partner, or unreasonable deadlines, but work was plentiful and I was cheap enough that I could do the junior stuff and experienced enough that I got to do more senior stuff (especially towards the end of this range). Also I had a much better ability to control my own calendar, to he extent possible, and knew generally how long things would take and could plan my life better. The economy was pretty good during these years for me, so in general the vibe was "do your job well and things will be fine."

5+ started to get worse again, though not as bad as the first year. I didn't want to gun for partner but it took a while to find a decent in-house spot so I had to play the game until I could leave. There was a lot more pressure to always be billing (the unstated expectation was that seniors would be well above 2000), generating hours when things were slow, donating increasing amount of time to nonbillable matters (firm committees, recruiting, business development, pro bono if an important partner wanted you to). Also I started to get priced out of doing a lot of projects myself and spent a lot more time managing juniors, which dialed back a lot of the flexibility and control I had as a midlevel, since it was never certain if/when juniors would deliver something usable and on time, and I'd end up with a lot of fire drills trying to fix situations that had gone awry. The vibe was more "do your job, but also do the job of the people below you and above you." 5th year wasn't that bad in this regard but 6th year certainly was. Senior associates gunning for partner and very junior partners tend to be the busiest attorneys in any biglaw firm and so there's a lot of stress at these levels. Even though partnership tracks have been extended and firms keep on more super-senior associates than they used to, there's still a lot of winnowing that goes on at these levels if you aren't checking every single box.

OTOH by that time I had a pretty sizeable nest egg and could afford to be out of work for a time, and had developed a somewhat transferrable skillset so there wasn't nearly the background level of panic that I had experienced as a first year. Eventually jumped in house rather than continue to deal with all of that.

[Anonymous User]

Second year is the first because you still have no idea what is going on but you no longer have the "first year" protection and people expect you to be somewhat competent.

[Moneytrees]

Interesting how some people think first year was the worst whereas some think it's worse as you get further along, where do you fall?

First couple of years are the worst - every assignment is painful because you don't know what you are doing.

Years 3-4 aren't too bad.

Starting in your 5th year, if you are intent on remaining on partner track, things get tough.

[Anonymous User]

I had the opposite experience of the previous posters. Sure, the work got easier as I got more experience, but that also came with more responsibility and too few (read: no) underlings, which absolutely crushed me Y4 (and was made worse by an incredibly fast-paced trial). It wasn't until Y5 that I truly took to heart that it is up to me and only me to manage my workload. My hours are still high, but down 10-20% from my Y4 peak. Maybe others learned that lesson earlier.