Are business law and biglaw inseparable? Forum

AP-375 · Post by **AP-375** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 8:54 pm

I work in a business firm with approx. 100 attorneys in a smaller market. It is a very well-respected firm, both in terms of its prestige and its working environment. Place is a ghost-town at 7:30 AM, and pretty quiet by 6 PM.
I think you can definitely find what you are looking for.

jwaters · Post by **jwaters** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 9:00 pm

AP-375 wrote:I work in a business firm with approx. 100 attorneys in a smaller market. It is a very well-respected firm, both in terms of its prestige and its working environment. Place is a ghost-town at 7:30 AM, and pretty quiet by 6 PM.
I think you can definitely find what you are looking for.

Thanks for the reply. Since you actually have some experience could you answer a few more questions.
Does your firm focus on a wide array of business law topics or just focus on a few things?
What does your typical day look like, and what sort of cases do you work on?
Did you concentrate on business law classes in school, and if so what classes do you think were especially applicable in the real world?
Did you go to a T14 or more of a regional school?

Sorry for all the questions but it would be a big help.

AP-375 · Post by **AP-375** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 9:05 pm

Didn't mean to mislead you. I'm a 0L, working as an assistant, hoping to learn as much as I can and make some good connections.
But, I can still answer one of your Qs. The firm has probably 15 different practice areas, all business, and many attorneys who are very specialized. A typical day for most of the attorneys here seems pretty decent, like 50 hours or less.

jwaters · Post by **jwaters** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 9:11 pm

AP-375 wrote:Didn't mean to mislead you. I'm a 0L, working as an assistant, hoping to learn as much as I can and make some good connections.
But, I can still answer one of your Qs. The firm has probably 15 different practice areas, all business, and many attorneys who are very specialized. A typical day for most of the attorneys here seems pretty decent, like 50 hours or less.

Sorry for the confusion lol. Thanks for the help though.

Veyron · Post by **Veyron** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 9:14 pm

jwaters wrote:I'm interested in just the general field of business law... contracts, mergers, etc. but really have no interest in working for a huge firm in NYC/DC/Cali. Is it possible to work in the area of commercial law without having to do the biglaw thing, or are the two inseparable? To be more specific I mean could I work for a medium-sized firm that focuses on business law in a city like Nashville, Louisville, Memphis, etc. that wouldn't have the extremely long hours and other bs that comes with biglaw?

You are thinking about transactional law. There is a whole other field of law out there called litigation. It tends to dominate in smaller markets. Medium sized firms (to the extent that they exist) often specialize in it.

Noval · Post by **Noval** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:34 pm

There are also smaller firms in smaller markets.
In-House...
International Corporate Law...

& more.

Best step for you is to enter a small/midsized firm in Corporate Law and then move on to better opportunities once you have built a reputation and experience.

ScaredWorkedBored · Post by **ScaredWorkedBored** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:49 pm

Most attorneys practice some type of transactional law. Most businesses don't need or can't pay for biglaw representation.

nealric · Post by **nealric** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 2:36 pm

I work in a business firm with approx. 100 attorneys in a smaller market. It is a very well-respected firm, both in terms of its prestige and its working environment. Place is a ghost-town at 7:30 AM, and pretty quiet by 6 PM.
I think you can definitely find what you are looking for.

This is what would be referred to as regional biglaw or midlaw. These firms do exist, but they are certainly not easy. Those that hire newbies are in some ways harder to get than biglaw, because they tend to hire the top of the class of the local school, and tend to ignore the T14 (the T14 tend to ignore them too). They also tend to have small summer classes.

Other smaller firms do transactional work, but it's very rare for them to take someone fresh out of law school.

So, to answer the OP, biglaw and transactional work aren't inseparable, but it is very difficult for a new law school graduate to get started in transactional work unless they start in biglaw.

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