Lawyers HATE their lives: some data Forum

[TheSpanishMain]

Wow, few people stick around the same big firm for more than a few years? That must be because those people hate their jobs. I'm sure the firm would be happy if all associates stuck around past the fifth year.

Also, posting an article in which the author immediately and proudly declares that she is a boomer? Talk about not knowing your audience.

Heh. Man, you guys really want to believe the dream, eh? Despite all evidence to the contrary?

Ok.

Who believes the dream, though? Or rather, whose dream is BigLaw Associate?

Everyone I know who has either taken a BigLaw job or wants one fully expects it to suck and plans to bail as soon as they afford to. Your stats showing that a bunch of people quit after a few years would only show everyone is delusional if you're assuming that everyone who takes a BigLaw job expects to make partner.

[Johann]

like congratulations if you're delusional enough to think you don't hate yourself, but, actually there's no but, just congratulations. though im skeptical that it's sustainable.

Hold on. You actually think that virtually everyone "hates themselves"? Joking aside, if you are serious, you really need to take a step back and self assess. I don't hate myself. Most people I know don't hate themselves. That sounds pretty unhealthy.

Forget this thread and our disagreement.

You sound like you could really use a better support network. I wish you all of the best, friend.

Tell me what was so riveting about your life last week? Almost everyone with a rational brain thinks at least 45/52 weeks suck a year.

[Person1111]

I'm a junior biglaw associate and I like it fine. The work can be stressful and the hours are more uneven than I prefer, but generally I like my co-workers and find the work reasonably interesting. Maybe that makes me an idiot.

I think it helps that:

(1) I work in a smaller office and put a lot of emphasis on picking a place where I liked the culture (and turned down more "prestigious" firms in the process);
(2) I have a trivial amount of debt and know that I can leave whenever I want;
(3) I think I am reasonably good at my job, given that I am a clueless junior associate;
(4) I take genuine pleasure in doing high-quality work and going out of my way to impress people (which is why I have trouble with the TLS "don't do anything to stick out" wisdom - it just is totally alien to how I approach my job and my life).

But most importantly, I think it helps that I don't expect every moment of my day to be fascinating. I expect that there will be stressful and unpleasant times. That doesn't mean I have a crappy job; it means that I have a job.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Tell me what was so riveting about your life last week? Almost everyone with a rational brain thinks at least 45/52 weeks suck a year.

This is pretty sad.

[fats provolone]

search your feelings. you know it to be true

[Cobretti]

I really think at least half of this is more correlation than causation. Obviously the hours and stress of biglaw only make the situation worse, but the population going into biglaw are going to be significantly higher than average intelligence which is highly correlated with mental illness. you know... people like this:

like congratulations if you're delusional enough to think you don't hate yourself, but, actually there's no but, just congratulations. though im skeptical that it's sustainable.

Tell me what was so riveting about your life last week? Almost everyone with a rational brain thinks at least 45/52 weeks suck a year.

[fats provolone]

price of genius etc

[shock259]

Junior here. I know that NYC biglaw isn't sustainable for me long-term, but that doesn't mean I hate my life. Some of the work is interesting/engaging, and I (against the odds) like the people I work with. Money is nice, too. So, I'll do this for a few years and see what I want to do further on down the road when I get there.

[fats provolone]

yea it's really not that bad and it's not forever. it's kind of adorable how op has come back here bellowing about how much better off he is for not taking shitty advice given to him by anonymous internet strangers four years ago that basically everyone here now would agree is shitty. life must be awesome

[dabigchina]

Lawyers HATE biglaw. And by that I mean, they hate it in much larger numbers and with more hate: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/ ... nhappiness
-37 percent of associates at big law firms quit their firms by the end of their third years of practice.”[5]
-45% of those working at 101–250 lawyer firms and 55% of those working at law firms with more than 250 lawyers either expected to or were actively planning to change jobs within the next two years.[6]
-Female associates leave private practice at almost twice the rate of comparable male associates.[7]

plenty of white collar professional services firms use the churn and burn model. that's just how the industries are run. turnover in public accounting is even higher (6 people out in my start class of 20 are still with the firm 3 years out). I'll let you do the math since you are a MBB bro and can therefore math like steven hawking.

[gatesome]

Smart people are more depressed, and smart people kill themselves more often.

Smart people are also more likely to be lawyers, doctors, dentists, etc.

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
- Hemingway

In much wisdom there is much sorrow; he who stores up knowledge stores up grief.
- Ecclesiastes 1:18

[Bronte]

May we see the stats now about how MBB consultants love life? It's rich that OP wrote a popular LSAT study guide and has now come back to do a bunch of doom-and-gloom shitposting.

[fats provolone]

May we see the stats now about how MBB consultants love life? It's rich that OP wrote a popular LSAT study guide and has now come back to do a bunch of doom-and-gloom shitposting.

directed toward people who possibly posted here four years ago and would get laughed off tls today

[BmoreOrLess]

Lawyers HATE biglaw. And by that I mean, they hate it in much larger numbers and with more hate: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/ ... nhappiness
-37 percent of associates at big law firms quit their firms by the end of their third years of practice.”[5]
-45% of those working at 101–250 lawyer firms and 55% of those working at law firms with more than 250 lawyers either expected to or were actively planning to change jobs within the next two years.[6]
-Female associates leave private practice at almost twice the rate of comparable male associates.[7]

plenty of white collar professional services firms use the churn and burn model. that's just how the industries are run. turnover in public accounting is even higher (6 people out in my start class of 20 are still with the firm 3 years out). I'll let you do the math since you are a MBB bro and can therefore math like steven hawking.

Turnover is definitely similar in basically any realm of financial services.

[Voyager]

May we see the stats now about how MBB consultants love life? It's rich that OP wrote a popular LSAT study guide and has now come back to do a bunch of doom-and-gloom shitposting.

yea it's really not that bad and it's not forever. it's kind of adorable how op has come back here bellowing about how much better off he is for not taking shitty advice given to him by anonymous internet strangers four years ago that basically everyone here now would agree is shitty. life must be awesome

Heh. This place is no different than it was 7 years ago when I first encountered it. Same responses, just different people.

[Young Marino]

Not surprised to see these statistics. A lot of law students can barely handle the stress of law school, let alone a real job. It's like their brains can't allocate stress between things that are important (exams, job search) and things that aren't (secondary journal, cold calls). Each day is a parade of fires.

It's not just lawyers though. I lived with a pre-med in college who started crying because she couldn't decide if she should pass/fail an elective in her senior year.

Voyager, I think you're being trolled.

Lol. Yea man stressing about getting cold called and what journal your going to be on next year is the biggest waste of energy in the world. But, I mean, I would be drinking all the time too if I was working hundreds of hours a month.

[bearsfan23]

I didn't think Voyager could make a worse thread than his "everybody should go to Business School and work for McKinsey" one, but he did.

I don't really see what your goal is here but congrats dude

[TheSpanishMain]

May we see the stats now about how MBB consultants love life? It's rich that OP wrote a popular LSAT study guide and has now come back to do a bunch of doom-and-gloom shitposting.

yea it's really not that bad and it's not forever. it's kind of adorable how op has come back here bellowing about how much better off he is for not taking shitty advice given to him by anonymous internet strangers four years ago that basically everyone here now would agree is shitty. life must be awesome

Heh. This place is no different than it was 7 years ago when I first encountered it. Same responses, just different people.

I'd still like a response if you're not too busy being smug.

[Rahviveh]

May we see the stats now about how MBB consultants love life? It's rich that OP wrote a popular LSAT study guide and has now come back to do a bunch of doom-and-gloom shitposting.

Voyager: From TLS Reading Comp Hero to mckinsey/F500-balling, CIA-agent-dating, sailboating anti-biglaw crusader

[prezidentv8]

Voyager: From TLS Reading Comp Hero to mckinsey/F500-balling, CIA-agent-dating, sailboating anti-biglaw crusader

Also sprinting past SBL to the title of "Prez's favorite poster who is not himself."

Sorry SBL. You're still a pretty chill bro, bro.

[jbagelboy]

since this is essentially a copy-paste from your other thread, I'll leave my response to a few of your points here as well:

Bare attrition stats are deceptive too. The risks associated with high turnover are totally industry dependent, you know this, and it's always been part of the partnership/apprenticeship model. Its not like consulting firms or investment banks have strong retention; you left your job after a couple years as well. I left my consulting firm to go back to school. It would inefficient for every starting analyst or associate to stay in their position; that's the industry model.

It's a totally inapposite comparison to Boeing or Target Corp or Kaiser or Caterpillar or Box or hundreds of other industries where retaining talent is a key management goal and training new people is costly and inefficient. Many partners will encourage a promising/high billing associate to leave to clerk, join the US attorneys office, or go in-house -- and some of these people will return as partners, which is hidden by the attrition data. Tl;dr your example lacks comparative force to white collar services like law where >90% retention would be absurd.

It's worth mentioning from the supply side, most fresh attorneys join large firms specifically to receive the training, pay down their debt and exit. I grant you, 70% attrition is too high and exposes some industry wide problems with the biglaw model, but most people plan on leaving, you're mistaking causation and correlation when you assume everyone is so miserable that they decide to quit once they've started. Only a few firms encourage every associate to become partner (i.e. Munger) and even there you're expected to leave for years to pursue academic or public service interests for a while.

So I don't think attrition and a few business insider phone surveys qualify as a sufficiently rigorous measure of how much drastically more miserable attorneys are in their jobs than everyone else.

[BankruptMe]

I met some lawyers last week.

The small lawyers were not really happy

The big firm lawyers were not happy

Only like 1 or 2 lawyers out of about 15 were really happy about practicing law.

[84651846190]

DO NOT GO TO LAW SCHOOL

[TheoO]

Jokes on law, I hated my life way before all of this.

[BrooklynLaw16]

Jokes on law, I hated my life way before all of this.

^^The whole "don't go to law school because you'll be miserable" rationale drops out of the picture if life already sucks shit.