Brain Atrophy in Big Law?
Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 9:44 pm
It seems like Big Law is, for many years, mostly composed of long but unpredictable hours; psychological stress between losing one's job, having poor exit options, not getting promoted, not pleasing superiors, not perfecting work product, dealing with spousal issues, etc.; and copy-editing. And it seems like the vast majority of effort toward "legal thinking" is done by superiors. Can we clarify how much brain atrophy is really an issue for fresh big law associates compared to those going to trial in big law above them or fresh associates going to trial in smaller firms? Is there a meaningful difference in brain atrophy between litigatory (made it up and didn't feel like rephrasing) and transactional big law junior associates?