What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw? Forum

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What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Feb 24, 2020 2:51 pm

For those of you who work in Biglaw, what is it about the job/career track that you find fulfilling? What do you get excited about with respect to your job, other than money?

I’m just curious to hear what others have to say. I have been in Biglaw for three years and find it massively unfulfilling. I don’t take any particular pride in the tasks or projects I am assigned, and I am just going through the motions at this point. Partners don’t want to train young associates, so I don’t feel like I’m learning either.

I used to work in house, which was so fun - being a part of building something, and feeling like we’re all a team in it together. I would like to hear about some different perspectives in Biglaw, in case I am just completely missing something.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Feb 24, 2020 3:21 pm

V10 restructuring midlevel. It's all money (which isn't even that great in NY after tax hits and cost of living) and comparatively feeling more fortunate than people in other professions whenever I hear about their downsides. Have made "friends" among clients and our financial advisors but at the end of the day don't really care about any of them. Handful of coworkers who will remain friends going forward but other than that, fuck this place. Don't really care about the deals/cases I'm on other than their value as "currency" if I ever choose to lateral or move to something related.

1. Money
2. Money
3. Money
4. General white collar job security when I hear about mass layoffs hitting some other profession/industry
5. Sitting down in an air conditioned office when I talk to doctor friends who are on their feet all day
6. Support staff whose sole purpose is to make my life easier when I talk to boutique lawyers or government workers

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Feb 25, 2020 12:03 pm

Thanks for the response. I don’t understand how/why some people make it all the way to partnership. Money is nice but when there’s nothing fulfilling about the job itself, it makes the days torture.

I guess you’re onto something, trying to focus on the other little benefits - getting to expense stuff with friends (allowed/encouraged at my firm), have my own office, great coworkers, pretty good work-life balance...it could definitely be worse.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Feb 25, 2020 12:16 pm

I think one of the worst parts for me is that I walk into my office, look at my degrees, and reflect on how much work and education I've sank into helping rich people avoid paying taxes and drain companies of assets (private equity clients). I can't imagine how I'd explain it to my younger self.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Feb 25, 2020 12:47 pm

Midlevel in chi. I make a lot of money, sometimes i work shitty hours, sometimes i don't. When I don't I have the money to pretty much do whatever I want. My wife doesn't have to work if she doesnt want to and that makes me feel good.

I think the difference is that about 65% of the time I find my work very interesting. 20 percent of the time i find it dull and the rest i find mind numbing.

I have yet to find someone making close to the money we do and work good hours without having some insane amount of risk included in their job.

If you are looking for moral fulfillment, you are in the wrong gig. Try adding pro bono. Switch practice groups if you don't find your practice mentally stimulating. If you are not interested in your work at least half the time, I think you should look for a change.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Feb 25, 2020 1:27 pm

I’m hard pressed to think of anyone I know who truly finds it fulfilling.

On the other hand, the number of biglaw attorneys I know panicked about mortgage payments, loan repayments, their kids’ college tuition, etc. (list goes on and on) is countless.

Long story short I think most biglaw attorneys, including partners, stay because of golden handcuffs.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by JusticeChuckleNutz » Tue Feb 25, 2020 1:43 pm

Anonymous User wrote:Thanks for the response. I don’t understand how/why some people make it all the way to partnership. Money is nice but when there’s nothing fulfilling about the job itself, it makes the days torture.

I guess you’re onto something, trying to focus on the other little benefits - getting to expense stuff with friends (allowed/encouraged at my firm), have my own office, great coworkers, pretty good work-life balance...it could definitely be worse.
What kind of stuff does your firm allow you to expense with your friends? Do you just like spin it as business development? Asking for a friend...

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Feb 25, 2020 3:36 pm

OP here - To clarify, I’m referring to intellectual fulfillment, definitely not expecting any moral fulfillment out of this. In prior jobs, I have found the continuous learning and puzzle-like aspects of corporate legal work to be fun. I also really enjoyed law school.

This is different though - It’s not intellectually stimulating, and I’m not really learning much (as a junior, lots of form filling, administrative work and searching messy records, our admin support it quite bad here). Partners don’t want to review my work or provide any training either.
JusticeChuckleNutz wrote:
What kind of stuff does your firm allow you to expense with your friends? Do you just like spin it as business development? Asking for a friend...


Literally any activity/meal/drinks up to a specific dollar amount per event. It’s all considered business development. At some point in the future, that person might be a client or decision maker who could hire us.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by ohsaycanyousee » Sun Apr 26, 2020 6:17 pm

Working with really intelligent people. There are no dumb people. Seriously. Not a single one. Where else in the world can you find no dumb people?

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by ohsaycanyousee » Fri Jan 01, 2021 4:12 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Dec 25, 2020 2:58 am
If youre ugly and short, biglaw is your best bet to finding a hot gold digger. If youre attractive, go be a CEO or actor and enjoy your youth.
Lol, you have a much better shot at biglaw than at becoming a CEO or an actor (unless you are talking about a "CEO" who still lives at his/her parents house and has some vague business plans drafted about the "next big thing," or an actor making minimum wage as an extra and holding down a side job as a Starbucks barista).

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Wild Card » Fri Jan 01, 2021 5:12 pm

lol this thread should be locked and stickied. there's really not much else to say.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Jan 01, 2021 5:16 pm

Just want to echo this. I love looking at my HYS law degree only to open an email that asks me to copy and paste some stuff and then put it in an excel spreadsheet. So worth the three years.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Jan 01, 2021 5:47 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Tue Feb 25, 2020 1:27 pm

On the other hand, the number of biglaw attorneys I know panicked about mortgage payments, loan repayments, their kids’ college tuition, etc. (list goes on and on) is countless.

Long story short I think most biglaw attorneys, including partners, stay because of golden handcuffs.
Yep, my loans will be paid off at the 2yrs mark and relatively under control after one year. After that, I'm leaving for something else, whether that be Big Fed, Clerking, or In-House. I don't hate the job per se. A good bit of it's interesting in my role (not a corporate generalist or litigator subject to junior years of due diligence/doc review), but life is short.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by objctnyrhnr » Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:25 pm

This thread feels like it’s full of juniors. Being entry level or close to it anywhere won’t be that enjoyable. However/by contrast, if one has stuck around somewhere for say 6 years, it just can’t be through pure grit—something about the gig must be cool.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Dcc617 » Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:34 pm

objctnyrhnr wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:25 pm
This thread feels like it’s full of juniors. Being entry level or close to it anywhere won’t be that enjoyable. However/by contrast, if one has stuck around somewhere for say 6 years, it just can’t be through pure grit—something about the gig must be cool.
Speaking from personal knowledge/experience or just out your butt?

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by objctnyrhnr » Sat Jan 02, 2021 8:09 am

Dcc617 wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:34 pm
objctnyrhnr wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:25 pm
This thread feels like it’s full of juniors. Being entry level or close to it anywhere won’t be that enjoyable. However/by contrast, if one has stuck around somewhere for say 6 years, it just can’t be through pure grit—something about the gig must be cool.
Speaking from personal knowledge/experience or just out your butt?
Not the latter, that’s for sure. In my post I was specifically just appealing to common sense. The job is too intense and all-encompassing, and the pressure to perform at least decently is too high, to just gut it out for the paycheck alone all the way up to senior associate. It’s just not realistic to think otherwise. Therefore, if one is a biglaw senior associate, I think it follows that one probably at least doesn’t mind the work. That’s my opinion but also grounded in my own experience.

And since you asked, I’ll bite. I’ll be a tad unspecific about my creds/situation for obvious reasons.

I went to the lowest ranked law school I got into, call it a t15-t25, on a full ride. I did this with the intention of pursuing a path in a specific type of gov/pi. Honestly, as a 0L, it was threads like this that made me think I’d hate biglaw and I should do everything I could to avoid it and set my situation up so I wouldn’t need it (eg not take out loans for tuition). So that’s exactly what I set out to do.

I could have done the SA thing but I didn’t; didn’t participate in OCI or anything. Instead, I landed a fedclerkship in a fairly competitive market. After that, I did pursue the path that I had always intended to pursue. I did that for a couple/few years before quite frankly just getting a little bit bored. I wasn’t necessarily feeling like my colleagues all possessed the same intensity as I did and I felt that too high of a percentage of the cases/assignments/deliverables were too similar to one another.

After a bunch of informational networking, it became fairly clear that my next step should be biglaw (and perhaps that I should have done it all along, and not listened to the naysayers griping about their experiences online).

I’m now a mid/senior lit associate at a v25-v35. And yeah, I love the work at least 75% of the time. I have found comfort, oddly, in a perpetual state of being in an adversarial posture. I have consistently found success in my assignments and correspondingly I get a ton of leeway to argue cases, do depos, client contact, formulate strategy, etc.

Sure, sometimes it’s too much in volume. Sometimes judges or opposing counsels will do weird and unpredictable things and a vacation will be partially derailed. Sometimes you put in 10 hours both weekend days. But for me, the dislike of those situations applies only to the situations themselves and NOT to the substantive work. And as I grow more senior, I have gotten to know which partners I work best with, and get to know the cases on which I like working, I can strategically turn down work (sometimes...) without burning bridges.

So yeah, I do really like biglaw. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else right now. And I dread the day where I age out of the ability to perform in my current role at a billing rate for which clients will pay, and then I will have to either deal with partnership and all that entails (in a best case scenario I suppose, if i get lucky enough that it’s offered to me) or alternatively return to something like gov/PI.

So there’s a counter example to what feels like are a bunch of unhappy junior associates in this thread. Biglaw certainly is not for everybody and that’s why so many self-select out of it. But for those who do thrive in the environment (ie those possessing unique and not necessarily otherwise-ideal personality traits conducive to performing well for a long time in biglaw), it’s a good gig beginning in about the third year if not sooner.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Jan 02, 2021 8:30 am

objctnyrhnr wrote:
Sat Jan 02, 2021 8:09 am
Dcc617 wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:34 pm
objctnyrhnr wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:25 pm
This thread feels like it’s full of juniors. Being entry level or close to it anywhere won’t be that enjoyable. However/by contrast, if one has stuck around somewhere for say 6 years, it just can’t be through pure grit—something about the gig must be cool.
Speaking from personal knowledge/experience or just out your butt?
Not the latter, that’s for sure. In my post I was specifically just appealing to common sense. The job is too intense and all-encompassing, and the pressure to perform at least decently is too high, to just gut it out for the paycheck alone all the way up to senior associate. It’s just not realistic to think otherwise. Therefore, if one is a biglaw senior associate, I think it follows that one probably at least doesn’t mind the work. That’s my opinion but also grounded in my own experience.

And since you asked, I’ll bite. I’ll be a tad unspecific about my creds/situation for obvious reasons.

I went to the lowest ranked law school I got into, call it a t15-t25, on a full ride. I did this with the intention of pursuing a path in a specific type of gov/pi. Honestly, as a 0L, it was threads like this that made me think I’d hate biglaw and I should do everything I could to avoid it and set my situation up so I wouldn’t need it (eg not take out loans for tuition). So that’s exactly what I set out to do.

I could have done the SA thing but I didn’t; didn’t participate in OCI or anything. Instead, I landed a fedclerkship in a fairly competitive market. After that, I did pursue the path that I had always intended to pursue. I did that for a couple/few years before quite frankly just getting a little bit bored. I wasn’t necessarily feeling like my colleagues all possessed the same intensity as I did and I felt that too high of a percentage of the cases/assignments/deliverables were too similar to one another.

After a bunch of informational networking, it became fairly clear that my next step should be biglaw (and perhaps that I should have done it all along, and not listened to the naysayers griping about their experiences online).

I’m now a mid/senior lit associate at a v25-v35. And yeah, I love the work at least 75% of the time. I have found comfort, oddly, in a perpetual state of being in an adversarial posture. I have consistently found success in my assignments and correspondingly I get a ton of leeway to argue cases, do depos, client contact, formulate strategy, etc.

Sure, sometimes it’s too much in volume. Sometimes judges or opposing counsels will do weird and unpredictable things and a vacation will be partially derailed. Sometimes you put in 10 hours both weekend days. But for me, the dislike of those situations applies only to the situations themselves and NOT to the substantive work. And as I grow more senior, I have gotten to know which partners I work best with, and get to know the cases on which I like working, I can strategically turn down work (sometimes...) without burning bridges.

So yeah, I do really like biglaw. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else right now. And I dread the day where I age out of the ability to perform in my current role at a billing rate for which clients will pay, and then I will have to either deal with partnership and all that entails (in a best case scenario I suppose, if i get lucky enough that it’s offered to me) or alternatively return to something like gov/PI.

So there’s a counter example to what feels like are a bunch of unhappy junior associates in this thread. Biglaw certainly is not for everybody and that’s why so many self-select out of it. But for those who do thrive in the environment (ie those possessing unique and not necessarily otherwise-ideal personality traits conducive to performing well for a long time in biglaw), it’s a good gig beginning in about the third year if not sooner.
I actually second this from a transactional perspective. There are times when I really hate the pile of shit I have to complete by tomorrow (most of which were given to me yesterday), but after a few years I have come to enjoy the substantive part of it.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by nixy » Sat Jan 02, 2021 11:01 am

objctnyrhnr wrote:
Sat Jan 02, 2021 8:09 am
Dcc617 wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:34 pm
objctnyrhnr wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:25 pm
This thread feels like it’s full of juniors. Being entry level or close to it anywhere won’t be that enjoyable. However/by contrast, if one has stuck around somewhere for say 6 years, it just can’t be through pure grit—something about the gig must be cool.
Speaking from personal knowledge/experience or just out your butt?
Not the latter, that’s for sure. In my post I was specifically just appealing to common sense. The job is too intense and all-encompassing, and the pressure to perform at least decently is too high, to just gut it out for the paycheck alone all the way up to senior associate. It’s just not realistic to think otherwise. Therefore, if one is a biglaw senior associate, I think it follows that one probably at least doesn’t mind the work. That’s my opinion but also grounded in my own experience.

And since you asked, I’ll bite. I’ll be a tad unspecific about my creds/situation for obvious reasons.

I went to the lowest ranked law school I got into, call it a t15-t25, on a full ride. I did this with the intention of pursuing a path in a specific type of gov/pi. Honestly, as a 0L, it was threads like this that made me think I’d hate biglaw and I should do everything I could to avoid it and set my situation up so I wouldn’t need it (eg not take out loans for tuition). So that’s exactly what I set out to do.

I could have done the SA thing but I didn’t; didn’t participate in OCI or anything. Instead, I landed a fedclerkship in a fairly competitive market. After that, I did pursue the path that I had always intended to pursue. I did that for a couple/few years before quite frankly just getting a little bit bored. I wasn’t necessarily feeling like my colleagues all possessed the same intensity as I did and I felt that too high of a percentage of the cases/assignments/deliverables were too similar to one another.

After a bunch of informational networking, it became fairly clear that my next step should be biglaw (and perhaps that I should have done it all along, and not listened to the naysayers griping about their experiences online).

I’m now a mid/senior lit associate at a v25-v35. And yeah, I love the work at least 75% of the time. I have found comfort, oddly, in a perpetual state of being in an adversarial posture. I have consistently found success in my assignments and correspondingly I get a ton of leeway to argue cases, do depos, client contact, formulate strategy, etc.

Sure, sometimes it’s too much in volume. Sometimes judges or opposing counsels will do weird and unpredictable things and a vacation will be partially derailed. Sometimes you put in 10 hours both weekend days. But for me, the dislike of those situations applies only to the situations themselves and NOT to the substantive work. And as I grow more senior, I have gotten to know which partners I work best with, and get to know the cases on which I like working, I can strategically turn down work (sometimes...) without burning bridges.

So yeah, I do really like biglaw. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else right now. And I dread the day where I age out of the ability to perform in my current role at a billing rate for which clients will pay, and then I will have to either deal with partnership and all that entails (in a best case scenario I suppose, if i get lucky enough that it’s offered to me) or alternatively return to something like gov/PI.

So there’s a counter example to what feels like are a bunch of unhappy junior associates in this thread. Biglaw certainly is not for everybody and that’s why so many self-select out of it. But for those who do thrive in the environment (ie those possessing unique and not necessarily otherwise-ideal personality traits conducive to performing well for a long time in biglaw), it’s a good gig beginning in about the third year if not sooner.
I think this underestimates people's ability to stay in situations they dislike, or the reasons they feel compelled to do so. (Law school debt, for instance.)

Also it moves the goalposts a lot - "something about the gig must be cool" is very different from a senior associate "at least doesn't mind the work" which is also kind of different from it working only if you possess "unique and not necessarily otherwise-ideal personality traits."

Don't get me wrong, obviously some people can and do thrive in biglaw, and it's great that you do, and other people maybe don't thrive but survive reasonably happily. But I think that's more about the specific people fitting a fairly narrow mold than the job being objectively cool.

The takeaway that maybe people shouldn't reject biglaw out of hand based on internet complaints is fair. But while it may be "common sense" that people can't gut it out till senior associate just for the paycheck, it's equally common sense that if so many consistent complaints get made about biglaw, for the same reasons, a lot of people do and will find it miserable.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by eastcoast_iub » Sat Jan 02, 2021 12:18 pm

.
Last edited by eastcoast_iub on Sat Jan 02, 2021 12:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: What do you find fulfilling about Biglaw?

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Jan 02, 2021 12:21 pm

Unhappiness is the result of reality not matching your expectations. Your BigLaw experience is all about expectations. If you cannot handle losing some freedom to do whatever you want on nights and weekends without interruption, and to maintain a normal routine of working out, hobbies, etc., you will not last in BigLaw.

Who you work with and the nature of your practice is also critical. A terrible senior associate/partner can make you hate your life even if you're not crazy busy, while being crazy busy can be palatable if you are working with people who are friendly, respectful of your time/don't create false emergencies, and recognize your sacrifices now and again.

That said, some frontline client-facing practices (M&A, bankruptcy and debt finance are the top ones that come to find) have hours that can be so awful/unpredictable that even if you work with the best people in the world you will hate your life.

Personally, I have come to accept that the unpredictability of BigLaw is worth the paycheck. I am married with kids, so work is not causing me to miss out on a lot of social events that I would otherwise be going to. I also extended my BigLaw shelf life by switching from one of the frontline groups mentioned above to a specialist group, which has way better hours (and more predictable hours). The downside of this is that exit options and chances at partnership are more limited, but I'm fine with that. $350-450K a year indefinitely in an of counsel/non-equity partner role is achievable and would be more than enough for me.

The last thing I will say is that I think about the money like this: every year that I make this amount of money is like 2 years (or more) of salary of what I might reasonably expect if I went to the government or some other lower-stress position. This will allow me to retire much earlier than pretty much anyone I know outside of BigLaw. I am in my thirties and my net worth is already over $1 million.

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