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Biglawyer here, seeing a lot of posts on this board about how biglaw is worth the pain as an ends to get in house and am very confused. I just got off the phone with one of our associates that works in house at one of the big sexy tech companies (think google, yelp, etc). As is normal, biglaw associates become your firms clients after. The lady from our firm who went in house was billing around 2100 or so at our firm and has called multiple times to beg for her job back because she even has less time to spend with her family with her increased in house hours. She is far more stressed and has to constantly deal directly with business people who just view her as a nuisance slowing down the deal. She was not married before she left our firm but her boyfriend left after he had enough of the in house hours. She also gets paid less.

Confused as to why biglaw is worth it to all these 0Ls here. Know multiple other people who returned to biglaw due to how bad in house is.

Everyone at "big sexy tech companies" gets worked to death so that's not surprising

LegalReality wrote:Biglawyer here, seeing a lot of posts on this board about how biglaw is worth the pain as an ends to get in house and am very confused. I just got off the phone with one of our associates that works in house at one of the big sexy tech companies (think google, yelp, etc). As is normal, biglaw associates become your firms clients after. The lady from our firm who went in house was billing around 2100 or so at our firm and has called multiple times to beg for her job back because she even has less time to spend with her family with her increased in house hours. She is far more stressed and has to constantly deal directly with business people who just view her as a nuisance slowing down the deal. She was not married before she left our firm but her boyfriend left after he had enough of the in house hours. She also gets paid less.

Confused as to why biglaw is worth it to all these 0Ls here. Know multiple other people who returned to biglaw due to how bad in house is.

that sounds like an outlier to me. one of my family has worked in-house for over a decade at three different companies, and most of the attorneys seem to have much better work-life balance than what I have seen described for big law. but maybe it depends on the company.

Is that normal though? There's a lot of M&A'in goin on in the tech sector and there's always some new legal challenge popping up, but would it be the same for, say, a tractor manufacturer? Would John Deere's in house team have it easier? Honest question, I really have no idea.

Ricky-Bobby wrote:Is that normal though? There's a lot of M&A'in goin on in the tech sector and there's always some new legal challenge popping up, but would it be the same for, say, a tractor manufacturer? Would John Deere's in house team have it easier? Honest question, I really have no idea.

lol its funny because my family member worked for a tractor/construction company. he was relatively high on the totem pole, and ended up working quite a bit due to securities issues and M&A (which was happening pretty steadily even in that industry at the time, mainly over part manufacturers)

I guess I should have stated I know four other people our level who work in house that also work more hours than I do in biglaw. The fact that some shitboomer works less doesn't really mean much to me since there are also shitboomer partners who bill 1200 hours.

Companies who hire associates are looking to stay lean and gain an advantage by making you work even more hours than you currently work for them. GC's I come across are the most stressed, unavailable overworked people. I know less people happy in house than at my firm.

anyone considered the possibility that lawyers are unhappy wherever they are because lawyers tend to be unhappy people in general? there is a strong genetic component to unhappiness levels, and lawyers tend to be on the unhappy end of the spectrum

I would dig more in-house people talking about their experience...

LegalReality wrote:Biglawyer here, seeing a lot of posts on this board about how biglaw is worth the pain as an ends to get in house and am very confused. I just got off the phone with one of our associates that works in house at one of the big sexy tech companies (think google, yelp, etc). As is normal, biglaw associates become your firms clients after. The lady from our firm who went in house was billing around 2100 or so at our firm and has called multiple times to beg for her job back because she even has less time to spend with her family with her increased in house hours. She is far more stressed and has to constantly deal directly with business people who just view her as a nuisance slowing down the deal. She was not married before she left our firm but her boyfriend left after he had enough of the in house hours. She also gets paid less.

Confused as to why biglaw is worth it to all these 0Ls here. Know multiple other people who returned to biglaw due to how bad in house is.

That's fair. I should emphasize that I haven't meant to suggest that the reasons I've been giving for why people want biglaw, as they relate to going in house, are accurate, just that, from reading widely here, they seem to match the perception (held by some people, anyway).

(This may make less sense because I thought I was responding to glorifying biglaw at first.)

I work on the same floor as the in-house counsel at a middle-market financial services firm. I have no idea as to compensation but the hours rarely exceed 50 for any of them.

LegalReality wrote:Biglawyer here, seeing a lot of posts on this board about how biglaw is worth the pain as an ends to get in house and am very confused. I just got off the phone with one of our associates that works in house at one of the big sexy tech companies (think google, yelp, etc). As is normal, biglaw associates become your firms clients after. The lady from our firm who went in house was billing around 2100 or so at our firm and has called multiple times to beg for her job back because she even has less time to spend with her family with her increased in house hours. She is far more stressed and has to constantly deal directly with business people who just view her as a nuisance slowing down the deal. She was not married before she left our firm but her boyfriend left after he had enough of the in house hours. She also gets paid less.

Not all in-house positions are created equal. Google and Apple, at least, are known for maintaining demanding environments for their in-house lawyers. I've also heard stories of in-house lawyers complaining that their quality of life was actually better in big law.

But I think there's a lot of variation. I have a friend who works in-house for a company (not a tech company) and her job consists mostly of surfing the internet and occasionally sending emails. She considers it heaven after three years in big law.

Also, never having to keep track of billables again

flawschoolkid wrote:I would dig more in-house people talking about their experience...

You're probably going to have to wait another 3 years or so for there to be a substantive in-house community on TLS.

flawschoolkid wrote:I would dig more in-house people talking about their experience...

Not my experience, but have a lot of friends who work for super/mid-majors and rarely work more than 50 hours a week.

I know a woman at my gym who is in-house and she is at the gym everyday for at least as hour, often two. So, she must have a pretty comfortable work schedule. The biglaw dudes come sporadically and often disappear for weeks on end, only to come back fatter.

Have a friend in house - gets every other Friday off. Also in house - no billables. The times ive tried to contact in house lawyers it's damn near impossible because they are at lunch or 4 day weekends or going to play 9 or 18 at 3:00 pm. Shit is chill in general for sure.

JohannDeMann wrote:Have a friend in house - gets every other Friday off. Also in house - no billables. The times ive tried to contact in house lawyers it's damn near impossible because they are at lunch or 4 day weekends or going to play 9 or 18 at 3:00 pm. Shit is chill in general for sure.

Sounds like the life

I met some in-house counsel this summer at recognizable, but not famous, companies. 9 - 4:30 and 9 - 5 were the hours I heard (brought it up in a discussion about kids).

The in-house counsel I know works at Multinational Manufacturing Giant. Works 8-6, but that's the standard for management for entire firm.

I worked in-house in my first summer. It was a nonprofit, so it was a little different, but the lawyers got paid pretty well by nonprofit standards and appeared to work basically 9-5 (maybe a little more, especially the General Counsel herself). They basically negotiated contracts for the company, and they handled assorted other legal issues that came up from time to time. The GC was (as is typical) a member of upper management, so she weighed in on company vision and such from a legal perspective.

It seemed like a pretty great job, frankly.

Some people like it because you tend to do more stuff than just in a law firm. More areas of the law, as well as strategic and business stuff. Also, you're part of a team. You sometimes lose that sense of team and camaraderie in a law firm.

My dad is general counsel for a mid-sized energy company. He usually works about 9-6. He will check his messages outside of work, but is not a slave to the phone. Sometimes he does have to work longer hours if something is going on, but it is definitely better hours then big law.

sarahh wrote:My dad is general counsel for a mid-sized energy company. He usually works about 9-6. He will check his messages outside of work, but is not a slave to the phone. Sometimes he does have to work longer hours if something is going on, but it is definitely better hours then big law.

Someone said something on-point that is relevant here:

The fact that some shitboomer works less doesn't really mean much to me since there are also shitboomer partners who bill 1200 hours.

The experience of someone's Dad—either in big law or in-house—isn't likely to be representative of what recent graduates will face.

rpupkin wrote:

sarahh wrote:My dad is general counsel for a mid-sized energy company. He usually works about 9-6. He will check his messages outside of work, but is not a slave to the phone. Sometimes he does have to work longer hours if something is going on, but it is definitely better hours then big law.

Someone said something on-point that is relevant here:

The fact that some shitboomer works less doesn't really mean much to me since there are also shitboomer partners who bill 1200 hours.

The experience of someone's Dad—either in big law or in-house—isn't likely to be representative of what recent graduates will face.

I know several lawyers who work in house at a Fortune 500 in my hometown, including some who graduated from law school in the past decade, who have much more reasonable work schedules than what is commonly cited for biglaw. One of them does believe that in-house isn't really better work/life balance than a firm, but she is like a super gunner so I would attribute that more to her personal desire to be working all the time than to any obligations imposed by the company (since her co-workers don't seem to feel the same way).

I have a cousin who is in house at a major automobile manufacturer.

I see her on Facebook regularly, and she goes to all major family functions. Looks to me like she has something approaching what we would call work life balance these days.