How long to get fired? Forum

[Anonymous User]

One month into biglaw. I have concluded that it is not worth the money to me to have a job where, on short notice, people can tell you that you are expected to work late into the night, work all weekend, cancel plans, etc. - and also, a job where when you're working and what task you're doing is 100% visible to everyone. My issue isn't working hard (I worked very hard in law school and racked up conventional honors and awards, Coif, journal, clerkship, etc) but with the lack of control over your time, lack of autonomy in the work, and the level of intrusiveness and surveillance.

I am turning in good work product and no one has said anything negative about the work I've done. I am nice to everyone and have a good attitude and generally stay under the radar without drawing attention to myself. I am billing 50ish hours a week. However, I am going offline and not working at times when I have been told to be online and working (to be clear, these are times outside normal business hours). So essentially, defying orders.

How hard is it to get fired? And say they did make the decision to fire me - how long would it take for the wheels to actually turn and make it happen? Could I make it through a year or two years of biglaw this way? Does anyone have advice on how to do this without pissing people off or overly drawing attention to yourself?

I am also interested in hearing about lit exits, although I know that topic has been extensively covered.

[jotarokujo]

One month into biglaw. I have concluded that it is not worth the money to me to have a job where, on short notice, people can tell you that you are expected to work late into the night, work all weekend, cancel plans, etc. - and also, a job where when you're working and what task you're doing is 100% visible to everyone. My issue isn't working hard (I worked very hard in law school and racked up conventional honors and awards, Coif, journal, clerkship, etc) but with the lack of control over your time, lack of autonomy in the work, and the level of intrusiveness and surveillance.

I am turning in good work product and no one has said anything negative about the work I've done. I am nice to everyone and have a good attitude and generally stay under the radar without drawing attention to myself. I am billing 50ish hours a week. However, I am going offline and not working at times when I have been told to be online and working (to be clear, these are times outside normal business hours). So essentially, defying orders.

How hard is it to get fired? And say they did make the decision to fire me - how long would it take for the wheels to actually turn and make it happen? Could I make it through a year or two years of biglaw this way? Does anyone have advice on how to do this without pissing people off or overly drawing attention to yourself?

I am also interested in hearing about lit exits, although I know that topic has been extensively covered.

wow...are they like monitoring microsoft teams or something? So glad none of the firms i've been at used teams or any instant messaging. I thought that was more of a thing in finance

I'd say you have a 90%+ chance of lasting 2 years and probably a 75% chance of lasting 3 full years. After that it's a 50/50 each year you stay

[hangtime813]

It's only been a month so it is very early into your biglaw career, but essentially you have to be "on-call" all the time. The available associates are the ones that get fed billable hours so while you are billing 50 right now, it might be harder to do that in the long run especially if your practice group has a bunch of other eager beavers.

[Anonymous User]

How hard is it to get fired? And say they did make the decision to fire me - how long would it take for the wheels to actually turn and make it happen? Could I make it through a year or two years of biglaw this way? Does anyone have advice on how to do this without pissing people off or overly drawing attention to yourself?

I am also interested in hearing about lit exits, although I know that topic has been extensively covered.

I was fired after a year. About not pissing people off, you can't get fired unless you piss people off lol.

You'll see the signs and they'll rack up. And then it will be very sudden.

I was fired after 1 year and 1 month, and I got a little less than 2 months' severance.

About life after getting fired: if you're applying to jobs with the federal government, clerkships or biglaw, you'll have to disclose whether you've ever been fired and explain why.

I clerked three times and now I'm in bigfed. So it hasn't held me back. But there's no point in making life difficult for yourself. Better to apply for exit opportunities now and resign of your own volition.

[Anonymous User]

I think this largely depends on your practice group. In my specialty lit group, there are often associates who spend a good 5+ years without whole assing the job. They do good (but not the best) work, bill the firm's minimum, say no/avoid volunteering, get average reviews, etc. They certainly won't make partner, but the firm makes money and they don't cause problems on their teams. Of course, there will be occasions where even these people will work long/odd hours, but they only do that when it's strictly necessary.

[Barry grandpapy]

I've seen people pushed out within 10 months. But they usually have a combo of terrible, typo-ridden work product in addition to being a very bad fit (unprofessional/super weird/some other combo). Short of something really egregious (like harassment or just never responding to emails), I'd say the fastest they'd push you out is about 10 months. If you totally check out they'll basically PIP you six months in during a mid-year review, then severance you out after a follow up (probably a 1-2 month PIP and 2-4 month severance - depends on the firm).

To be clear, I think even really, really bad associates should generally be able to last at least two years with some combo of being a) likeable and b) having meh hours. If you're fairly charismatic, I've seen juniors stroll in for lunch, leave by 2, and bill like 900-1300 and be totally fine for two years (it's surprisingly common). If you've got the charisma of a door knob, I also don't even think you'll get pushed out as long as you bill like 1600 by EOY 2, with year 1 being even lower (people dramatically overestimate how strict firms are about "minimum hours" in my experience, particularly for juniors).

All this to say I think you'd actually be surprised. I say just suck it up during the few legitimate firedrills (like closings or a client [not the mid/senior] chasing on something). They'll give you a pat on the back for those two weekends and the handffull of late evenings where you pitched in when it was really "urgent".

Even if you utterly phone it in I think most biglaw firms are so poorly run they probably won't even realize until one full year in, at which point they'll still PIP then follow up with severance. So ~1.5 years is likely the minimum as long you're not BOTH phoning it in and generally weird/unpleasant to be around.*

*Caveat, unless you're super unlucky and firmwide work dries up (e.g., Cooley/tech firms in the ECVC bust) -- that can nail anyone.

[Anonymous User]

I've seen people pushed out within 10 months. But they usually have a combo of terrible, typo-ridden work product in addition to being a very bad fit (unprofessional/super weird/some other combo). Short of something really egregious (like harassment or just never responding to emails), I'd say the fastest they'd push you out is about 10 months. If you totally check out they'll basically PIP you six months in during a mid-year review, then severance you out after a follow up (probably a 1-2 month PIP and 2-4 month severance - depends on the firm).

To be clear, I think even really, really bad associates should generally be able to last at least two years with some combo of being a) likeable and b) having meh hours. If you're fairly charismatic, I've seen juniors stroll in for lunch, leave by 2, and bill like 900-1300 and be totally fine for two years (it's surprisingly common). If you've got the charisma of a door knob, I also don't even think you'll get pushed out as long as you bill like 1600 by EOY 2, with year 1 being even lower (people dramatically overestimate how strict firms are about "minimum hours" in my experience, particularly for juniors).

All this to say I think you'd actually be surprised. I say just suck it up during the few legitimate firedrills (like closings or a client [not the mid/senior] chasing on something). They'll give you a pat on the back for those two weekends and the handffull of late evenings where you pitched in when it was really "urgent".

Even if you utterly phone it in I think most biglaw firms are so poorly run they probably won't even realize until one full year in, at which point they'll still PIP then follow up with severance. So ~1.5 years is likely the minimum as long you're not BOTH phoning it in and generally weird/unpleasant to be around.*

*Caveat, unless you're super unlucky and firmwide work dries up (e.g., Cooley/tech firms in the ECVC bust) -- that can nail anyone.

This may all be true, but if we take OP at face value they are not really mailing it in as much as they just don't want to jump every time the tyrannical senior associate says jump. I think OP can last much longer than 2 years billing 40-50 hours a week and doing average to above average quality work, but refusing to work random nights/weekends. It's not until you start reaching more managerial roles (i.e., more senior associate) when that will become an intractable problem. At that point, you own a larger parts of the matter, have fewer people who can sub in, and need to fill in for associates like OP, when needed.

[nealric]

So much of it depends on the economics of the situation. Back in 2008, they were letting go of even very good associates after 3 months. In 2022, you had to do something truly awful to get fired.

Beyond that, if you hit your hours you won't be on general management's radar. But if your non-responsiveness angers the wrong partner, you could get on the chopping block. Non-responsiveness can also result in low hours. Setting aside big economic downturns, most firms tend to cull associates around year 2. There will be smaller cuts for years 3-5 if the call is made they aren't progressing and/or their hours are consistently low.

For you, I don't think there's an issue with drawing some boundaries. While Biglaw would love you to answer out of the blue emails in 5 minutes at 3AM Sunday morning, not doing so isn't getting you canned. Likewise with emails at 10PM on Friday night unless you just skipped out on a known project. Keep in mind that communications are going to be a lot more random when you are brand new because you haven't yet been integrated into matters and are being handed one-off tasks. By years 2-3, you start becoming integrated into projects and can anticipate better when you might be needed. By years 5-7, you may become the "one who knocks" because you are the one managing the deadline and trying to find bodies to do it. If biglaw isn't for you, I think it still makes sense to stick it out for 2 years and then start looking unless the perfect opportunity falls into your lap.