So you want to be a NY Corporate Associate? Forum

[Rahviveh]

i would think you can cop an equivalent consulting/f500/banking or whatever job salary wise coming from an M7. i guess not. i see those dudes on linkedin sometimes and im just like WHY?????

The truly desirable buyside options out of mba programs aren't open to the typical JD MBA with little to no business experience.

[lawlorbust]

i would think you can cop an equivalent consulting/f500/banking or whatever job salary wise coming from an M7. i guess not. i see those dudes on linkedin sometimes and im just like WHY?????

The truly desirable buyside options out of mba programs aren't open to the typical JD MBA with little to no business experience.

Yes, but c'mon, these "truly desirable" options are not available to 85% of an incoming M7 business school class, period.

[Leonardo DiCaprio]

whats M7's equivalent of "enjoy DLA Piper" in terms of employment outcomes

[Rahviveh]

whats M7's equivalent of "enjoy DLA Piper" in terms of employment outcomes

Anything involving the big 4. Fake corporate strategy and marketing jobs for people who can't do math, usually women. Honestly even post MBA ibanking is extremely TTT

[moonman157]

But creeping around the building after office hours is not the way.

Where I worked, it was not at all weird for me to stick around until 8 or 9 pm if I had something I needed to finish. I did it only a couple of times during the summer, but it did provide useful information. If it's weird where you are, then obviously don't do it.

The more general point remains: learn what you can when you can, and don't waste being in the building, whenever you happen to be in the building (for a callback or for an SA gig). Keep your eyes and ears open. Don't do anything that would make people think you're weird, but learn what you can.

The best way is to go out drinking with associates. Once they've had a couple, they don't lie anymore.

This too.

Bolded probably tells you more about the firm's specific culture than any information you would actually get during those hours

[lawlorbust]

But creeping around the building after office hours is not the way.

Where I worked, it was not at all weird for me to stick around until 8 or 9 pm if I had something I needed to finish. I did it only a couple of times during the summer, but it did provide useful information. If it's weird where you are, then obviously don't do it.

The more general point remains: learn what you can when you can, and don't waste being in the building, whenever you happen to be in the building (for a callback or for an SA gig). Keep your eyes and ears open. Don't do anything that would make people think you're weird, but learn what you can.

The best way is to go out drinking with associates. Once they've had a couple, they don't lie anymore.

This too.

Bolded probably tells you more about the firm's specific culture than any information you would actually get during those hours

I really can't tell whether you mean this to be good or bad for that firm's culture, but it's definitely a plus in my book that a firm will be honest with you about how many hours you have to put in. However shitty the Cravath lifestyle is, at least they're upfront about that. I was a SA where (a) it was obvious that attorneys were unhappy and (b) there was a HR department that forced kool-aid down your throat. Three weeks in, I was pretty confident I wasn't going back.

[star fox]

i would think you can cop an equivalent consulting/f500/banking or whatever job salary wise coming from an M7. i guess not. i see those dudes on linkedin sometimes and im just like WHY?????

Those jobs are all very demanding as well.

[tomwatts]

But creeping around the building after office hours is not the way.

Where I worked, it was not at all weird for me to stick around until 8 or 9 pm if I had something I needed to finish. I did it only a couple of times during the summer, but it did provide useful information. If it's weird where you are, then obviously don't do it.

The more general point remains: learn what you can when you can, and don't waste being in the building, whenever you happen to be in the building (for a callback or for an SA gig). Keep your eyes and ears open. Don't do anything that would make people think you're weird, but learn what you can.

The best way is to go out drinking with associates. Once they've had a couple, they don't lie anymore.

This too.

Bolded probably tells you more about the firm's specific culture than any information you would actually get during those hours

I really can't tell whether you mean this to be good or bad for that firm's culture, but it's definitely a plus in my book that a firm will be honest with you about how many hours you have to put in. However shitty the Cravath lifestyle is, at least they're upfront about that. I was a SA where (a) it was obvious that attorneys were unhappy and (b) there was a HR department that forced kool-aid down your throat. Three weeks in, I was pretty confident I wasn't going back.

Yeah, in my case, what I saw was that almost nobody else on my floor was there late. A lot of people were taking work home, but the firm claimed that there was no facetime requirement outside of regular business hours, and I actually verified that, which was reassuring.

[BmoreOrLess]

i would think you can cop an equivalent consulting/f500/banking or whatever job salary wise coming from an M7. i guess not. i see those dudes on linkedin sometimes and im just like WHY?????

I have no idea about Consulting/F500 summer programs, but I know MBA ibanking summer associates get fucking killed and are actually competing for jobs. One of my friends barely saw her newly wed husband the entire summer while he was doing one during his MBA. I guess someone could look at a comparatively cushy SA in biglaw as a better option?

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Very few people like it. 1-5%. Maybe 10-15% tolerate it. Most won't admit it except to close friends. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt. If you met me at OCI (I do a lot of recruiting, largely as the token frat boy that's willing to take the group out for a few more drinks and a dinner after the reception), I'd tell you how awesome it is. Don't believe me.

This is right, and if a SA asks me, I'll dissemble. Everyone does. Nobody is going to tell some 22 year old fresh off his 4 drink lunch their deepest regrets about their situation, for very obvious reasons. We owe you nothing, and we don't want that getting to the partners and attributed to us, which it would if we told you. So I'll lie to you. I'll say I had a great weekend. I went to the beach. I had brunch with friends. I was really at my desk at home or in my office.

I hope you stay miserable for as long as you keep hoodwinking starry-eyed naive 2Ls, you dickless house associate chucklefuck.

If you can't tell the truth, avoid the question. If you can't avoid it, stay the fuck away from summers. For someone who hates their job so much, you sure do seem awfully willing to piss away your last shred of dignity and make haughty, sneering comments like "we owe you nothing."

[Leonardo DiCaprio]

fatality! FINISH HIM!

[Danger Zone]

Oh yeah, it's great advice to tell someone to complain about their job while at work to their brand new mentees. That makes perfect sense.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Oh yeah, it's great advice to tell someone to complain about their job while at work to their brand new mentees. That makes perfect sense.

There are a world of options between lobbing grenades and volunteering to be the partnership's shit-eating Trojan horse frat boy liaison designed to show the SAs how many brunches and weekend beach excursions the indentured seniors are having.

[Danger Zone]

Did someone lie to you or something about this job? You've got a massive chip on your shoulder and it's NAGL.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Did someone lie to you or something about this job? You've got a massive chip on your shoulder and it's NAGL.

OP tells the detailed tale of how his bosses treat him (and everyone else) like total shit, then smirks about how he does his best to con uninformed but well-meaning 24-year-olds into the same shit job that made him so miserable by trying to convince them that he's having SO MUCH FUN! on his nights and weekends, but somehow it's ME who has the problem?

God I hate lawyers.

[speed_the_loot]

Removed.

[jingosaur]

whats M7's equivalent of "enjoy DLA Piper" in terms of employment outcomes

Anything involving the big 4. Fake corporate strategy and marketing jobs for people who can't do math, usually women. Honestly even post MBA ibanking is extremely TTT

+1 I unfortunately learned this the hard way.

[Cynic]

^
What did you learn the hard way?

[crit_racer]

I'm a biglaw associate here to offer a counterpoint.

I do corporate work for one of the big silicon valley firms (Wilson/Fenwick/Cooley/Gunderson), and have had a different experience than OP w/r/t exit options. He is totally right about how boring the work is, how long the hours can be (though I don't think ours are quite as long), etc. But, in SV, it is very common for associates to exit to business side options. What OP describes is a very formulaic sounding career path, and he speaks in absolutes about what types of candidates banks and PE shops will accept. But, at least in SV, that really isn't the case. Here, credentials matter way less and it is much more about how you know. If you are a chill, likeable bro, you can find something good (whether it's staying in law or leaving law).

I'm still at the firm, but I see exit memos all the time for people leaving to non-law roles, law roles at cool startups, etc.

TL;DR--don't go to NY

[jbagelboy]

Very few people like it. 1-5%. Maybe 10-15% tolerate it. Most won't admit it except to close friends. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt. If you met me at OCI (I do a lot of recruiting, largely as the token frat boy that's willing to take the group out for a few more drinks and a dinner after the reception), I'd tell you how awesome it is. Don't believe me.

This is right, and if a SA asks me, I'll dissemble. Everyone does. Nobody is going to tell some 22 year old fresh off his 4 drink lunch their deepest regrets about their situation, for very obvious reasons. We owe you nothing, and we don't want that getting to the partners and attributed to us, which it would if we told you. So I'll lie to you. I'll say I had a great weekend. I went to the beach. I had brunch with friends. I was really at my desk at home or in my office.

I hope you stay miserable for as long as you keep hoodwinking starry-eyed naive 2Ls, you dickless house associate chucklefuck.

If you can't tell the truth, avoid the question. If you can't avoid it, stay the fuck away from summers. For someone who hates their job so much, you sure do seem awfully willing to piss away your last shred of dignity and make haughty, sneering comments like "we owe you nothing."

aw c'mon dude. its his job.

[jbagelboy]

I'm a biglaw associate here to offer a counterpoint.

I do corporate work for one of the big silicon valley firms (Wilson/Fenwick/Cooley/Gunderson), and have had a different experience than OP w/r/t exit options. He is totally right about how boring the work is, how long the hours can be (though I don't think ours are quite as long), etc. But, in SV, it is very common for associates to exit to business side options. What OP describes is a very formulaic sounding career path, and he speaks in absolutes about what types of candidates banks and PE shops will accept. But, at least in SV, that really isn't the case. Here, credentials matter way less and it is much more about how you know. If you are a chill, likeable bro, you can find something good (whether it's staying in law or leaving law).

I'm still at the firm, but I see exit memos all the time for people leaving to non-law roles, law roles at cool startups, etc.

TL;DR--don't go to NY

this is why so many NY biglaw associates at csm/dpw/top firms are trying to lateral to SV.

[duppyconqueror]

This is a great thread. I have been reading this board very occasionally for the past few years, and this is one of best discussions I’ve seen on here.

I'm a sixth-year litigation associate in a niche practice group at a v50 in NYC. Some people have asked for a Biglaw litigator’s perspective. I will offer my own, perhaps as a counterpoint to the OP – I am generally quite happy, although at the end of the day, I also have serious concerns about partnership prospects and exit options. Also, admittedly I have not been at the type of high-pressure firm that the OP is at. Anyway, I’m happy to answer questions if people have them.

My background: I graduated from a top 5 UG with a liberal arts major, and decided to pursue doctoral work in that subject, also at a top 5 institution. Several years into my graduate program, I began to realize that the academic job prospects were bleak – in the 21st century, the tenure-track teaching post at a major research institution or idyllic small liberal arts college has become the academic version of winning the lottery. I was scared of being the scholarly equivalent of a contract attorney for years to come. As a former high school and college debater, and as someone whose graduate studies were already somewhat related to law, and mostly, as someone who wanted $160k a year, law school seemed like the obvious choice. I ended up at a T2 in NYC with a full scholarship. At the time, I reasoned that due to the rigorous academics of my UG and grad programs, I would be smarter and harder-working than the other students at the T2; so why go into debt for a T14? This was in pre-recession days when I had little reason to doubt the employment statistics proffered by the law schools, and I personally knew more than a few T2 grads who were at firms like Skadden, Weil, Latham, etc. What I found out at my T2, of course, was that there were plenty of reasonably intelligent people who were also extreme strivers/gunners, and that succeeding in law school, in terms of grades, was not really in line with my intellectual proclivities. Then, during the summer/fall of OCIs, the financial crisis set in. It was a pure sh*tshow. Firms pulled out of our OCI; some people had summer offers rescinded; several firms went under; current summer associates were no-offered; mass layoffs of current associates were beginning. I was not that near the top of my class, but I interview extremely well, and I considered myself lucky to have two SA offers at v50 firms; I accepted the offer at the firm that had not just laid off dozens of associates. Many people much higher up in class rank than myself ended up with nothing.

Being an SA in the summer of 2009 was likewise stressful for most people. It was well known that dealwork (M&A, finance, capital markets) had ground to a halt at all but the most elite firms. At my firm, bankruptcy and litigation were keeping the lights on. As an SA, I glommed onto the litigation group, thinking that it was the best route to a full-time offer; I didn’t even do one corporate assignment all summer, which I regret (and in the end, it didn’t matter, because everyone got offers and none were laid off when they later joined the firm, as far as I know). I got an offer to join the litigation group.

The litigation group at my firm did mostly commercial and securities, with some white collar/gov’t investigations, IP, and adversarial bankruptcy litigation. So as a junior associate I worked on a healthy mix of matters. My first year was spent doing typical junior lit associate stuff – document review and one-off legal research/writing assignments. It wasn’t the most exciting stuff in the world, but the novelty of a relatively large paycheck made me perfectly content. When I was a poor graduate student, I didn’t have a smartphone, didn’t have a flatscreen tv, couldn’t take vacations, and was stretching my finances to live in a not-trendy outer-borough neighborhood of NYC – the $160k is not balling, but it’s a hell of a lot more than the $25k I had been living on in my mid-20’s!

Early on, I began to bond with a junior partner who was not that much older than me. It so happened that he handled all the litigation matters for a rainmaking transactional partner’s big client. Mostly it was small stuff (e.g., non-party subpoenas in securities cases), but then one day the client became involved in a major dispute (almost $1B at stake) with several other parties. They tapped the junior partner, and due to my strong relationship with him and also some staffing quirks, suddenly as a second-year I found myself as the lead associate on a major complex case in a niche area of litigation (think antitrust). I was given a lot of substantive assignments (e.g., first crack at drafting dispositive motions; interviewing witnesses and depo prep). Of course, I had to do a lot of crapwork too, like manage a massive document review; sometimes I was able to delegate to first years or even associates at my level, but I also had to review a ton myself. On the other hand, it allowed me to be the “document guy” on the case, and I thus became even more indispensable.

Toward the end of my second year, I realized that I was genuinely interested in the niche area that my big case involved, so I lateraled to another v50 that had a well-established practice group in that area. I have been generally happy with the work over the past few years. I have had the opportunity to take about 10 depositions (substantive ones, not document custodians), and defend several; I have argued discovery motions in court; I’ve drafted some summary judgment and other major motions; and I’ve had some good client interaction. Yes, there is still a lot of scut-work; even though document review and legal research are no longer major sources of hours for me, I always have to do some, and I have to spend a lot of time managing the junior associates who typically do it. So minute for minute, it’s not always, or even usually, an exciting or fun job. But I’ve been lucky to work for partners who value my opinion, and it is “fun” to strategize with them about litigation and client relations. My cases involve complex legal issues and fact patterns, and at its best (e.g., drafting a dispositive brief or preparing for oral argument), it is intellectually stimulating and I feel like I’m accomplishing something; at its worst, it is boring drudgery but there are plenty of people to commiserate with and the pay is relatively good.

I’ve managed to maintain a relatively ok work-life balance for Biglaw. I’ve never billed 2000 hours; I’ve come close a couple of years, but several years I’ve been significantly under. I know this has to change in short order if I want to make a serious run at partner. For a couple of years, I was “siloed” or “warehoused” by a partner who monopolized my time and wouldn’t let me be staffed on other matters, but he didn’t have enough work to get me to 2000. A couple of other years, I was just happy flying under the radar and recession-era bonuses weren’t large enough to motivate me to go above and beyond to hit 2000. Also, generally, I think it’s harder for litigators to bill high hours than for corporate associates, except when they are in the midst of depositions or trial. My sense is that corporate associates can bill for their epic 6-hour conference calls, and for the time they spend waiting around for opposing counsel to turn around a mark-up of a document (OP can correct me if I’m wrong about that). Whereas I have always gotten a lot of pressure NOT to bill for a lot of my sitting-around time. Of course, I know plenty of general commercial litigators at my firm who bill well over 2000 hours and who routinely come to the office early, leave late, and have no lives on weekends. I know litigators who bill 2300, 2400 hours. I just never felt like I had to do that, so I didn't, and I'm still here, I think because people generally like my work.

Additionally, I have been fortunate to have worked for generally humane people. Sure, there have been a couple of a**hole partners who have had no compunction about emailing me in the middle of the night or on the weekend with a wholly unnecessary question/assignment. Sure, I’ve had to cancel or modify vacations a couple of times, and cancel weeknight or weekend plans more than a few times. Sure, I have pulled all-nighters for work, and there have been periods when I am in the office until midnight for several days in a row. Sure I’ve been yelled at by partners and even clients. But these instances have been relatively few and far between. In general, I can leave the office by 7:30 or so, I can do work at home as necessary, and I very rarely come in on the weekends. And I do not find the work mind-numbingly boring, most of the time. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t rather be doing something else – of course I would. But I can’t think of anything else that I am currently qualified for that will pay me this amount of money.

I do not know if I want the partner lifestyle. The partners I’ve worked with work are true workaholics, and bill way more than associates. They are also constantly stressed about having enough business. That freaks me out. I am not sure I have the passion to force myself to do it. In-house options for litigators (at my level, at least) also haven’t appealed to me so far. I’ve actually gotten two in-house offers in the past year – one for a litigation position at a Fortune 10 company, one for a more generalist position. They both paid around $140k, and they both seemed boring as hell – same sh*t every day, no real room for advancement (at the F10 place, the senior people had been entrenched in their jobs for 10+ years). It depressed the hell out of me. At least at a top law firm, there is very sophisticated legal work, if you can get it. What I really don’t want, though, is to wash out of Biglaw and then have to try to make partner at a much smaller firm. To do what is necessary (hours-wise and business development-wise), but make a ton less money, is the worst of all worlds. So I am concerned for my future. But the point of my post is this: the past five and a half years as a litigator at large firm have been relatively enjoyable and interesting, and I don't regret it as of now, even if the future is uncertain.

[Cynic]

^
Just how bad is the academia job market for liberal arts subjects? Is it really lottery odds just to get an assistant professorship?...

[deepseapartners]

^
Just how bad is the academia job market for liberal arts subjects? Is it really lottery odds just to get an assistant professorship?...

You will not get a tenure-track professorial position with a freshly-minted liberal arts PhD unless:
(1) you attend a T6-equivalent in your specific subject of study;
(2) get lucky with your dissertation referee, i.e. they don't think you are coming for their job and accordingly try to sabotage your dissertation;
(3) decide to study a hot topic in your niche of academia;
(4) get to present and write a LOT on that niche you lucked into; and
(5) you send out hundreds of incredibly long applications all across the country, ready to move to literally anywhere at a moment's notice.

I worked part-time at a post-doctoral academic center at my Ivy UG. We selected 5-7 postdocs a year from literally 4000 applications, and each year 1 or 2 of those postdocs would have to ask us for an extension on their fellowship so they could continue to job-search. You could not come up with a less efficient job market if you started from scratch with the devil's help.

[goodoldmacintosh]

I'm a biglaw associate here to offer a counterpoint.

I do corporate work for one of the big silicon valley firms (Wilson/Fenwick/Cooley/Gunderson), and have had a different experience than OP w/r/t exit options. He is totally right about how boring the work is, how long the hours can be (though I don't think ours are quite as long), etc. But, in SV, it is very common for associates to exit to business side options. What OP describes is a very formulaic sounding career path, and he speaks in absolutes about what types of candidates banks and PE shops will accept. But, at least in SV, that really isn't the case. Here, credentials matter way less and it is much more about how you know. If you are a chill, likeable bro, you can find something good (whether it's staying in law or leaving law).

I'm still at the firm, but I see exit memos all the time for people leaving to non-law roles, law roles at cool startups, etc.

TL;DR--don't go to NY

This is really interesting. Is it the general consensus that non-law business exit options are a true option out of SV firms? Curious to hear others' opinions