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I was just curious about this, since I continually here about people gutting themselves for their job.

Is there a field of law where you would typically expect to work 50-60 hours per week, instead of 70-80+?

Space Law

Not that pays well

Small-medium sized town personal injury lawyers typically do 9-5.

Broseidon wrote:Small-medium sized town personal injury lawyers typically do 9-5.

^This +1. Also, this is where the real money is at. Although from my experiences the hours are more like 10-12, 1:30-4 and still collect a minimum 500k yearly paycheck. You can do 40 hours of work on a personal injury case and walk out with anywhere from 500 dollars to 1m+ for your fees, all depending on the facts, severity of injury, and insurance limits and legal assistants / paralegals do all the work. Although getting cases with that high of limits are really rare. Most settlements will likely be sub 100k and larger cases will be limited by people's insurance being under 250k.

I would also say that any attorney who knows how to market and brand themselves in any market and can hire their own cheap labor to do the work. This is the only way you're going to afford to purchase lake houses, vacations, etc.

Every area of law other than extensive litigation will require few of your hours if you are not the one doing the work. Law is like business. Own / manage the business and make others do the work. Profit.

If you're looking for fewer hours, you'll want to look at government jobs. Most of them are limited to 40hr work weeks, and because there's no billable hours, it's a far more relaxed 40hrs.

Most government jobs will cover the same types of law that private firms handle. Government entities get sued for personal injury, contract issues, etc. There are a few areas that are more suited to government roles though, like criminal law or sometimes environmental law, depending on where you're practicing.

1) Go somewhere regional on a full ride.
2) Gun hard for PMF
3) End up not practicing law, but make a nice amount of money (60-70k) anyway.

Then killself because you realize you could have done just as well, if not better doing an MPA in a year and a half for a lot less agony.

TheGreatFish wrote:If you're looking for fewer hours, you'll want to look at government jobs. Most of them are limited to 40hr work weeks, and because there's no billable hours, it's a far more relaxed 40hrs.

Most government jobs will cover the same types of law that private firms handle. Government entities get sued for personal injury, contract issues, etc. There are a few areas that are more suited to government roles though, like criminal law or sometimes environmental law, depending on where you're practicing.

Why work 40hrs week making 50k a year when you can just market the shit out of your little law firm and out maneuver the larger more established firms and essentially work 30hrs a week and make double that.

Sure, the legal market is crowded, but so is almost every industry. If you want to make money and make something of yourself get in the water and try to swim. Most law firms are full of old white guys who don't like to put themselves out there and can't market themselves out of a wet paper bag. Get out there and hustle and push them into retirement.

A lot of people would go for these government jerbs that are lower stress, 9-5 jobs. Only one little problem though. Can anybody guess it?

Broseidon wrote:A lot of people would go for these government jerbs that are lower stress, 9-5 jobs. Only one little problem though. Can anybody guess it?

No legal job is 9-5.

typ3 wrote:

TheGreatFish wrote:If you're looking for fewer hours, you'll want to look at government jobs. Most of them are limited to 40hr work weeks, and because there's no billable hours, it's a far more relaxed 40hrs.

Most government jobs will cover the same types of law that private firms handle. Government entities get sued for personal injury, contract issues, etc. There are a few areas that are more suited to government roles though, like criminal law or sometimes environmental law, depending on where you're practicing.

Why work 40hrs week making 50k a year when you can just market the shit out of your little law firm and out maneuver the larger more established firms and essentially work 30hrs a week and make double that.

Sure, the legal market is crowded, but so is almost every industry. If you want to make money and make something of yourself get in the water and try to swim. Most law firms are full of old white guys who don't like to put themselves out there and can't market themselves out of a wet paper bag. Get out there and hustle and push them into retirement.

It's not that they are old and white, it is that they are lawyers. People who go to law school aren't on average the most creative nor business minded folks.

typ3 wrote:

Broseidon wrote:A lot of people would go for these government jerbs that are lower stress, 9-5 jobs. Only one little problem though. Can anybody guess it?

No legal job is 9-5.

Meant it as a metaphor breh

Broseidon wrote:

typ3 wrote:

Broseidon wrote:A lot of people would go for these government jerbs that are lower stress, 9-5 jobs. Only one little problem though. Can anybody guess it?

No legal job is 9-5.

Meant it as a metaphor breh

Well I should say, unless you have your own firm. In which case, you can work whenever the hell you want as long as you manage your underlings/slaves/plantation workers properly.

Yea. In college I summered at a small PI/Med Mal firm (~6 lawyers) in a relatively small town (35,000 people in the NYC suburbs). On average they worked 9-5/10-6. Dudes were a legit firm too, not ambulance chasers.

typ3 wrote:

Broseidon wrote:A lot of people would go for these government jerbs that are lower stress, 9-5 jobs. Only one little problem though. Can anybody guess it?

No legal job is 9-5.

Not true. Plenty of law firm jobs are 9am to 5am.

ajr wrote:

typ3 wrote:

Broseidon wrote:A lot of people would go for these government jerbs that are lower stress, 9-5 jobs. Only one little problem though. Can anybody guess it?

No legal job is 9-5.

Not true. Plenty of law firm jobs are 9am to 5am.

^lol 5am.

typ3 wrote:Why work 40hrs week making 50k a year when you can just market the shit out of your little law firm and out maneuver the larger more established firms and essentially work 30hrs a week and make double that.

30hrs a week to build your own firm? I think we could better help the OP by giving realistic advice.

TheGreatFish wrote:

typ3 wrote:Why work 40hrs week making 50k a year when you can just market the shit out of your little law firm and out maneuver the larger more established firms and essentially work 30hrs a week and make double that.

30hrs a week to build your own firm? I think we could better help the OP by giving realistic advice.

Once you've established your firm, you might be able to work 30 hrs per week, but it'll be a decade at least before you get there.

I hate this whole "start your own company so you don't have a boss / don't have to work hard" bullcrap. If you work for yourself you should have the toughest boss you've ever had. Otherwise, you (probably) won't succeed.

Depends on your market and how saturated it is / amount of advertising you do / its effectiveness. No it doesn't take a decade. When the legal floodgates opened to advertising in the 80's things changed quite a bit. It's all about casting as wide of net as you can and having the best placement in directories. You won't work 30hrs a week off the bat, but it's not unrealistic once you get systems of operation in place and have the cashflow to hire employees.

Things have shifted a little bit with the web, if you know what you are doing with content marketing instead of SEO you can win on the web for first calls at the moment.

Some gov offices have billable hour requirements, too. The one I worked at did(state gov. office). Granted, it was less than biglaw (about 1800 hours) but they do have them and they have to track their time in 6 minute increments. I was surprised. The attorneys often were still working after 5 and sometimes did weekends, as well. So if that's important to you, make sure you check on how it really works at the office you're looking at.

It actually depends on you entirely how much you want to work.But I think Personal injury solicitors,criminal injuries compensation solicitors can be a good option.
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dingbat wrote:

TheGreatFish wrote:

typ3 wrote:Why work 40hrs week making 50k a year when you can just market the shit out of your little law firm and out maneuver the larger more established firms and essentially work 30hrs a week and make double that.

30hrs a week to build your own firm? I think we could better help the OP by giving realistic advice.

Once you've established your firm, you might be able to work 30 hrs per week, but it'll be a decade at least before you get there.

I hate this whole "start your own company so you don't have a boss / don't have to work hard" bullcrap. If you work for yourself you should have the toughest boss you've ever had. Otherwise, you (probably) won't succeed.

I know a lady who has her own "firm" working for about 30h / wk doing strictly PD conflict/overflow cases and she does alright for herself. Granted, she was a public defender for like 5-ish yrs.

I work for an insurance company and none of the attorneys in our compliance department works more than 40 hours per week. I don't know how much they make but as a law clerk, I would make $40,000/yr if I was full time and I assume they would do better than that.

Trust and Estates.

This is what I hear from a T&E lawyer friend. Boring boring work, but dead clients = no urgency.

DocHawkeye wrote:I work for an insurance company and none of the attorneys in our compliance department works more than 40 hours per week. I don't know how much they make but as a law clerk, I would make $40,000/yr if I was full time and I assume they would do better than that.

Since you're in NE/IA/SD area the staff attorneys make around 50-60k. The general counsel who will go to trial etc make around 90-104k depending on experience. You can't move up beyond this pay grade though and the hours at this pay are not 40.