There comes a time in every big law firm lawyer’s career when things take a turn for the deeply serious. After two or three years, someone turns to you and says “okay – you own this,” and suddenly you’re no longer a glorified secretary or paralegal or guy/gal Friday – you’re an actual lawyer.
That’s when most biglaw attorneys think seriously about fleeing for their lives.
For me, the moment of truth arrived after a meeting near the top floor of the skyscraper at 70 Pine Street in Lower Manhattan, one of New York City’s iconic spires.
Nowadays we all know AIG as a smoking crater owned by the US government, but back then it felt pretty good to get waived past the guard in their Art Deco lobby and take the special elevator all the way up to the executive suite, stroll into the boardroom and help myself to a cheese danish.
My job that morning, as I understood it, was to play the part of a little second year along for the ride. I was accompanying an of-counsel from S&C, who actually knew what was going on. I worked hard to look the part, act serious and important and try my best to figure out what they were talking about.
The meeting lasted a couple hours – something to do with deciding on a structure for a deal involving the purchase and simultaneous sale of some smaller companies in the insurance business. The guy doing most of the talking was Howie Smith, AIG’s CFO. I smiled and played along.
Afterwards, we admired the view out the window – eighty-five floors up – traded gossip about Hank Greenberg’s palatial mansion, and chatted with Howie Smith’s son, Mikey, who was visiting the office and wanted to become a lawyer. Then we stepped back into the fancy elevator for the ride back down.
As the doors closed, I felt a chill. The of-counsel handed me a heap of papers.
“Okay, she snapped. “You own this deal.”
I gaped at her, uncomprehending. Didn’t she realize I was a mere child? A babe in the woods? Totally unprepared for such weighty responsibilities?
“Uh…really?” I sputtered.
She was already gazing at the flashing lights indicating descending floors, unaware of my existence.
That was that. I was screwed.
I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
It’s one thing to be a first or even a second year corporate attorney. Pretty much anyone can handle setting up closing tables and “running changes” and setting up meetings and “taking a stab” at drafting this or that. But then someone turns to you in an Art Deco elevator and hands over the whole mess.
Generally speaking, that’s your clue to run for the hills.
I know – you still have loans, and each and every paycheck is one more step towards freedom, but let’s get serious – you either are one of those people who can turn into a biglaw senior associate, or god forbid, a partner – or you’re not. You can’t fake it – and someone in a position of power is going to figure it out eventually.
I don’t know what the precise equivalent of that elevator ride is for litigators. Maybe it’s “owning this deposition” or “owning this brief.” I honestly have no idea. But you’ll know it when you see it. Whatever it is, if you’re not really one of them, and you’ve been faking to get by – well, that’s your clue to hit the highway.
Of course, it’s always possible you are one of them.
I knew a guy at Sullivan & Cromwell, a few years ahead of me, who clearly fit the bill. After our first day working together, it was apparent I was in for hell, but when he didn’t seem to need me at 7:30 pm, I slipped out of the office and made it home. I was walking my dog in a mood of mournful introspection when the cell phone rang. An icy trickle of sarcasm leaked from the receiver.
Yep, it was him.
“Umm…Will? You comin’ back?”
“Right away.”
And back I went. We stayed up the entire night while he ran around like a speed freak, mumbling to himself and ordering me to alter documents, print them out and fax the whole mess to Bahrain, London, Beverly Hills, Budapest, Paramus, wherever.
This was a fourth year associate, “running his own deal.”
Nowadays this guy’s a partner, and from the reports I’ve received, even at S&C he’s considered a little nuts.
For me, it was that night – and the long unbroken chain of nights like it that followed – that drove home the reality I’d never be someone who “ran my own deals.”
To become a senior associate, you have to drink a fair amount of Kool-Aid. It means taking the plunge – going in deep, and actually assuming responsibility for very very serious things. You turn into the person who calls terrified first-years and sarcastically tells them to get their asses back in for another all-nighter. You become the person who curses everyone else for being useless and not working hard enough. You become the guy faxing side agreements to Bahrain at 5 a.m.
Eventually, if lightning strikes – at least in the old days when lightning still struck – you turn into the partner who terrorizes everyone around you. You enter the heart of the beast.
But that probably won’t happen.
My point is this – at some juncture you realize these people really are big firm lawyers – they’re in it for real. You also realize – probably – that you’re not.
You don’t make partner at a place like S&C just because you’re smart and you work hard. You make partner because you’re one of those people.
If you’re like most of us, you’ll know deep down that there’s never going to be a day when you are in any way, shape or form prepared to “run your own deal.”
That’s the moment when you acquire “the stink of death.” The stink of death is unmistakeable, cannot be masked by any perfume, and permeates the entire firm. You are marked for slaughter.
I acquired the stink of death at the end of my second year when that lady in the elevator told me I “owned” her deal and we both realized I had no intention of owning anything except my profound desire to get the hell out of Sullivan & Cromwell.
I was in over my head, not so much because I wasn’t smart or motivated or whatever. It was mostly a matter of my not giving a damn about that deal, or the firm, or staying up all night, every night, doing something immensely complicated that made my head hurt for clients who, even in those days, seemed as deeply sinister as they were unimaginably rich.
My sole desire at that stage in my legal career – which is to say, riding in that elevator – was to pay off my loans, go home, and play with my dog.
If you want to be the guy who sticks around for years three, four, five, six, seven and on into eternity, you need a little more fire in the belly than that.
You might have to be kinda nuts.
Okay – maybe that’s unfair. Not all senior associates and partners at big law firms are nuts.
But you might as well wrap your head around the reality that you probably will not turn out to be one of those people – and that not being one of those people might not be such a bad thing.
Maybe, like most of us, you’d rather not “own this deal.”
You’d rather run for your life.
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This piece is part of a series of columns presented by The People’s Therapist in cooperation with AboveTheLaw.com. My thanks to ATL for their help with the creation of this series.
If you enjoy these columns, please check out The People’s Therapist’s new book, Way Worse Than Being A Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning
I also heartily recommend my first book, an introduction to the concepts behind psychotherapy, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy
(Both books are also available on bn.com and the Apple iBookstore.)
Will — Where were you when I was suffering through countless years (I’m ashamed to say how many) in Biglaw’s vice before I truly grasped that I was not cut out for that life? When I thought I was a failure for not grasping the intricacies of those ridiculous deals that had no purpose except legal tax dodging and puffing up numbers for a handful of executive bonuses? When fear, not desire to be a partner, kept me working round the clock? When mild-mannered me turned into a monster before my eyes, snapping at everyone in sight, at the office and at home? And when I finally had enough and quit, berating myself for the next two years for being a failure for not being able to cut it (though I’d lasted, gulp, 18 years)?
What a waste. I wish I had even one of those years back.
Reading your column should be required for every first-year law student, and again two months into starting a Biglaw job. Maybe even any legal job.
This post is spot on. For litigators, the “own it” moment is not covering a hearing, taking a depo, or writing a brief, each of those tasks is easy. Being given a $400,000 case and being told to “run it” is another story.
The problem is that whether a transactional attorney or litigator, every project that you have been given until the “own it” moment has been ripped to shreds: Either it wasn’t good enough, or you took to long, or you failed to come up with a bs argument when you were clearly on the wrong side of the law. In other words, your first few years are spent being constantly criticized by partners, clients, and judges, and if you happen to get any sleep, you spend it worrying about what you screwed up and when you will get fired.
When the “own it” moment comes, you have no ability to “run with it” because you cannot make a decision. Every day up until this point has been filled with self doubt, paranoia, and second-guessing every decision.
Most attorneys are smart, hard-working, self-concious, risk-averse people who do not “take charge.” They are the speech writer, not the politician, the war gamer, not the general. It is only a small minority that are so full of themselves and bat-sh!t crazy that “make it.”
Thus, most partners are not really smart, hard-working, or good “legal minds”; they are bull-sh!tters that yell a lot and get their way through force of personality, not legal acumen.
Amen. So so very true.
Hmm…agree on certain points, disagree on others.
Most BIGLAW partners are smart but not brilliant, sure. I know I’m no Tesla. But the phenomenon you’re describing is hardly limited to the partnership. In general, many BIGLAW people aren’t geniuses, but certainly aren’t morons either. Indeed, many associates are smart, solid people, but just don’t have brilliance in them. And that’s fine, you don’t need to be Learned Hand to make it in the law.
In BIGLAW, at least, you need to be a touch of a politician, a touch of a businessman, smartly aggressive (unfortunately, this too often turns into overly aggressive), and be knowledgeable of your field of the law. Being a dick is not a prerequisite, though it seems to get you bonus points.
And when things like the scenario described above come down on you, you’ve got to own it. If it’s not for you, then this will show you that. And kudos if so; as long as you can pay your bills and provide for your family, do what’s best for you.
Word.
I admire Dr. Meyerhofer’s work, and I recognize many important elements of truth in this particular blog post, but I fear that it also reinforces some unfortunate fictions.
I am “one of them.” By the age of 28, I was arguing my own cases in court — making case-dispositive arguments, not just arguing the occasional motion. I was a BigLaw partner in my very early 30s. I’m now in my 50s, still in private practice, and in charge of just about every matter I work on.
Not everyone is like me. Not everyone is cut out to be “one of them.” Some of the people who work under me crave as much responsibility as possible as early as possible, but others do not. For me to be a good supervisor, it has been important not to assume that everyone craves maximum responsibility.
Even more tricky is that some of the people who do not crave maximum responsibility say that they do crave maximum responsibility. Those are the people who, Dr. Meyerhofer accurately says, have been “faking to get by.” A good supervisor not only figures out who those people are, but responds empathetically — not by criticizing them for being different from the supervisor himself or herself, but by tailoring their assignments to the level of responsibility they are truly ready to take on, and by engaging in more hands-on supervision (personally, or through another layer of supervision).
A good supervisor also helps them over time — nonjudgmentally — to think about their next career move, which is likely away from the ladder of private practice. The only people who truly deserve ire are the people who are faking it without the fire in their bellies, yet continue to insist that they should be regularly promoted up the ladder of private practice. A few such (clueless) people exist, but in my experience they are a small minority. Associates lack experience and the judgment that comes with experience, but generally they are far more self-aware than some partners would like to believe.
I don’t think Dr. Meyerhofer would disagree with much of what I just wrote. But I do think he and I disagree to the extent that he implies one has to be crazy, or soulless, or willing to work obscene hours on a regular basis to succeed in private practice. In almost 30 years in this business, I’ve never called an associate and told him or her to come back into the office at all, let alone to do so for an all-nighter. I’ve criticized the occasional colleague, quietly, for lack of value or lack of effort, but I’ve certainly never cursed everyone else for being useless and not working hard enough. Most of my colleagues add lots of value, and the clear majority of them work harder than I do. I’ve never faxed anything to Bahrain at 5 a.m.
Partners don’t have to behave that way. The myth that only people willing to behave that way are cut out for BigLaw partnership is a pernicious one. It encourages associates who DO want to make partner to behave that way. And it gives partners license to behave that way. Those of us who care about having good lives — not just good careers — in this profession should do all we can to discourage, not enable, such behavior.
Thank you. I believe every word you’ve written, but since I’m only a midlevel, the times I’ve said things like this I have felt like I didn’t have the credibility or experience to pull it off. It is good to know that someone senior in the business agrees about how to treat junior people in the profession.
When I was a secretary, back in the day, I had a boss like you who was a partner, and working for her was great, because even with us secretaries, she figured out what we liked to do, what we were good at, and what our aspirations were, and tailored our assignments to that. As a result, everyone loved working for her.
In biglaw, I have gotten the distinct impression that few if any partners follow this approach. In some ways, I don’t blame them–after all, it takes time and time is money–but in other ways, I do, because many of the senior partners did have bosses who mentored them and brought them up in the world and don’t feel the need to do the same for us.
Dear The Rapist,
I was fortunate to work for a partner who gave me responsibility and helped me to become better by giving me helpful hints on how to improve. (I chose the firm because of this partner who I had worked with during 2L summer, as I had offers to go virtually anywhere as a 3L).
He had the third largest practice in the entire BigLaw firm based on billings/collections. I was his righthand man, and he used me for counsel (personal and professional) as much as I used him. I loved working with him. We shared a great secretary.
Unfortunately, he was not a politician in a firm full of back-stabbing, jealous, old-fashioned greedy partners. He was experimenting with a part-time in-house position and still maintaining his practice as a partner, with me as his backup. I loved it and the clients loved me as the principal contact when he was not available. His practice (“our” practice) was growing and remained the third largest generator of billings/collections in the entire firm. Two other partners (one a junior partner) decided to try the combination in-house/lawfirm hybrid model. Despite each of them maintaining and in fact growing their practices (and having monster billings), the partnership did not like the model of a partner doing both in-house and lawfirm work, and severely penalized these partners on compensation. The partnership basically forced these partners to chose – and all three choose to go in-house. Well, as a fifth year associate I was in no position to assume the clients and had to find new billing partners for each client. Unfortunately, the only suitable billing partners were dickheads and they each fought one another trying to corral each client, with me in the middle of these turf squabbles.
So I chose to bag Biglaw and went in-house with one of our clients. The lawfirm eventually lost most of the clients and the attendant humonguous billings. All because of the greed and envy of less-successful partners who did not have the opportunities available to my mentor and the other two partners who wanted the hybrid in-house/lawfirm model. They killed the geese that laid the golden eggs and wound up putting the departed partners and an associate (me) into suboptimal situations that did not allow us to utilize all of our skills as in-house counsel as compared to being part-time in-house and part-time private practice.
As an in-house, I negotiated terms that allowed me to have an outside solo practice and I continued to do a lot of work for many of the clients, but it was not the same as having lawfirm resources (and my mentor) available.
This was, IMO, an example of a net lose-lose situation brought on by envious, vindictive partners who could not handle the fact that more successful partners could have much larger practices than theirs and while doing it on a part-time basis.
This type of politics is the principal reason I soured on BigLaw and will never go back. It’s too bad; had we stayed and been allowed to continue the hybrid practice model, we could have all been much more productive, happier, and made the firm a lot more money. Now we are all in-house (except one who runs a practice group at another BigLaw firm but is very unhappy doing it and has gotten divorced as a result). Other than the one guy who went back to Biglaw, we are all working well below our rated capacities, doing pretty well on the money front but not as well as if we ran the hybrid practice model in a Biglaw framework, and we’re still bitter that our hybrid practice model was ruined by an envious, small-minded group of subpar partners who shot themselves in the foot economically by forcing us to choose fulltime in-house or fulltime private practice or leave.
Wow. I’d make a terrible senior associate. I hate the taste of Kool-aid – it repeats on me; getting my high-powered surly resentment on each day is a heavy garment to wear and it takes a special kind of sociopath to enjoy new and unusual ways to terrorize the minions .
We all knew it, but is is really good to see it written by someone who has been there.
Why are we always talking about Biglaw? What about other lawyers who are non biglaw?
As a litigator I could never understand why transactional lawyers get stressed. Try being in the combat zone every day then you will know what stress is.
As someone who is ex-military, it irritates the shit out of me when other litigators call it something like “being in the combat zone.” I have friends with TBI and PTSD, and know people who were killed in action. Spare me your bullshit military metaphors, because you have no idea.
hey, cannon fodder. speak when spoken to. DISMISSED.
Geez, lighten up dude.
Amen, Anonymouse.
Good post. I’m at regional MidLaw – humane, normal people, but today was one of the many days during any given year when I realize “JESUS H CHRIST I HATE BEING A LAWYER, OTHER LAWYERS AND MY PRACTICE AREA. And all other practice areas.”
Yep, that about says it. I do quality work blah blah blah because I am motivated by duty, obligation, responsibility, fear of unemployment and lack of better ideas about what to do with life at this point. A year or so ago something inside of me finally died – I no longer give a shit about a lot of things (like hope or dreams) and it has made me a better lawyer because I stopped resisting the system. Kill me, whatever, who cares.
But if I never saw anything law-related again in my life I would not miss it for one second. The only thing I really care about owning is my absolute belief that I do not want to be this and this is not who I am.
Ditto. And then the realization hits that you still have loans to pay and aren’t qualified to do anything else and are stuck in a miserable hell-hole.
At this point, I am just going through the motions and working not to get fired. I have no desire to be a partner. I have no desire to try any more cases. Been there, done that, wound up in the hospital twice.
There used to be a time when a smart, hardworking associate had a career at a firm, when people respected the nerdy appellate division people who wrote brilliant briefs and served as a knowledge resource for the rest of the firm. Sadly there is no room for that in today’s “profession.”
It seems that you need to enjoy being a dick and yelling at people during the day and be a huckster of legal services at night to “make it.”
Pretty much exactly how I feel, friend. Wish I knew you so we could go get coffee or something.
Love this article. Now, I have something in writing to send along to all the aspiring law school students who want my opinion on the law school their looking at/the area of law they want to practice/or whether their “smart enough” to make it through law school. Unless they have that certain twinkle in their eye, I tell them all the same thing–run for the hills!
I’m happy to say that I got out of litigation after 6 years of practice. I always worked for small firms, so my ahha moment wasn’t when I “owned” a case. That came early and I was naive enough to think it was my chance to really prove myself and make a difference. Ha!
That moment came later, when my law firm had split up and I was working all “my cases” on my own. Turns out that, similar to @MS, I freaking hated everyone I came in contact with now that my co-workers were out of the picture. Other attorneys and court staff were grumpy and nasty and my clients were litigious, whiny babies who didn’t want to take responsibility for their actions and decisions. So, I quit.
I’m happy to say I now pay my bills putting together continuing legal education conferences. It’s still stimulating and most people I deal with see it as a fun activity. Plus, there’s nothing to “win.”
Well that was right on. I know the feeling. Good post.
Read together, the posts on this site are enough to make anyone run screaming from the practice of law. Unfortunately, there will always be more people to take their place.
I’m sorry to say that I have had the “aha” moment as both a litigator and a transactional attorney, confirming very early on that there was really nowhere in the legal profession for me to hide….
I’m usually a huge fan of your posts and often find myself agreeing with most of your points, but this time I think you’re well of the mark.
Rather than demonstrate that you don’t want to be a Biglaw senior associate or partner, you seem to demonstrate that you simply don’t want to be a lawyer. Or at least a lawyer with any real responsibilities. That’s probably fair because the law isn’t for everyone and there are a lot of people who get into it for all the wrong reasons and end up hating it from day one.
However, that is not to say that those who like being lawyers, or like “owning it” have something wrong with them. Nor does it mean that you have to become a horrible person in order to be a successful lawyer (though there is a much stronger argument to be made that you have to be a horrible person to be a successful Biglaw partner).
Most lawyers, those who are solo practitioners, work for small or medium sized firms, or those who work for the government and non-profits, often end up “owning” their own cases and deals pretty early on and throughout their careers. They often work with little to no supervision and with much greater consequences (i.e., losing the money of people who really need it — not to mention jail), while at the same time leading normal happy lives.
That’s fine and well, but not what my article is about. The law schools are pouring thousands of baby lawyers out into the world who don’t know why they went into the profession and many, many of them are being dumped into the huge firms, where they go through an experience much like mine. That’s the point of this article. I wrote another article, called I ♥ Law, about happy lawyers. Perhaps that’s the article you’ll find not “well of the mark.”
Wow. Thank you. You have no idea (or maybe you do) how helpful it is to hear someone pluck my own thoughts from my head and write them (much more eloquently) for all to see. I got here naively, remain here currently by choice, but constantly remember the words of a former mentor: “don’t let them tell you who you are.”