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I am exhausted. I’m a third year and recently finished a few bad months. Things are finally looking up, but I’m still really tired. I love my job but just wish I could do “my job but less.” This job has slowly taken a toll on my health and I am starting to feel completely burned out.

I know it may be time to pull the plug entirely but was wondering if anyone has thoughts on how the firm might perceive a request to go part time. I don’t have kids yet, so may not have a great excuse. I would gladly take a pay cut. But I understand that that pay cut may not be enough to justify a reduced hours commitment. I also understand the risks related to exceeding a part-time target and not getting a true-up, and I know that if I walk into a review with this request, I need to be prepared for the firm to ask me to leave. Is there anything else I should be thinking about?

Based on anecdotal conversations with reduced hour more senior counsel role attorneys in big law firms, you still would have to set boundaries. Some of them have established solid expectations that they are unreachable after hours. Others are more easily run over to “take one for the team”. In your circumstances, I would try saying no to work before officially asking for “reduced hours”. I’ve seen plenty of competent “full time” big law associates get full scale pay and bonus at 1600 or so hours a year, while there are some “reduced time” folks billing not much less than that (1400-1500 hours) but taking home a lot less in pay.