AlanShore wrote:rickgrimes69 wrote:monkey85 wrote:Ajax666 wrote:I love it when people reply with useless information as if they're sitting on top of a high chair. I'm just trying to get a perspective as to what biglaw life is throughout the entire career of anyone who sticks it through. I never said I'll make partner, I never even said I will be a lawyer. Im just curious, and I imagine this information would be useful to anyone else reading this thread gunning for biglaw. Hell maybe it will discourage some folks. In any case, no reason to jump to conclusions.
I know general odds of making partner are <5%; again, I'm just curious as to what life is like as a biglaw attorney. Detrox has been helpeful, Im hoping he or anyone else will continue to chime in.
Here is your real BigLaw for productivity:
- Junior Associate: minimum 1800 hours - hope for 2400 hours, both for experience and job security
- Mid-level Associate: try to maintain and up that a little so that you don't get canned, or lateral out in your 5th-6th year
- Senior Associate: push closer to 3000 if you want partner or lateral out, assuming the opportunity hasn't passed you by
This is pretty much dead on. Two of the associates I worked with who were gunning for partner billed over 2000 hours
in six months. One of them has billed around 400 hours in a month multiple times.
yikes......
It's more impressive to consistently find 2500-3000 hours of billable work for those 8 years. If you say that you get .85 billable hour for every hour worked (a fair estimate because of the efficiency returns for billing so many), you still get 70 hours a week worked for 50 weeks out of the year to bill 3000. Doctors do 10 hours a week more than this in 3-6 year residencies, for 1/3 or 1/4 of the pay. We've got it easy if we hit biglaw.
