At some point you have to get out of here. The question is when – and whither.
A vacation might help, if you could achieve the impossible and take one. My client pulled off a week – seven whole days! – at a Caribbean resort, only to return feeling like a condemned prisoner.
“It made things worse,” she lamented. “Now I remember the outside world.”
Sometimes it’s better to live without that distraction.
You’re in it for the money. Biglaw creates money to toss into the maw of a bank. But no one can stand this abuse forever. Change – any change – might be good, right? How about another firm? Working in a different building – working with different people – different acoustic ceiling tiles, different vertical blinds, different sound-absorbent beige carpeting, different cheap wood veneer bookshelves, different anonymous windows to stare out… Anything different counts as change, doesn’t it?
The omnipresent worry: out of the frying pan, into…someplace worse.
Could anyplace be worse?
Isn’t that what you said about law school?
Another client took the leap and fled his firm – couldn’t take it any more. Guess what? It was worse. Two months later he was begging to return to the frying pan.
Yes – it actually happened. He returned to his old firm, proving forever there are places worse than the-frying-pan-you-know. There’s the-frying-pan-you-don’t-know.
This guy was a fifth year groping for an exit from hell. Nights and weekends of endless grind congealed into a determination – no más. Anything was better than this. This – whatever this was – was killing him.
An escape hatch appeared in the form of a nearby firm (five blocks away) celebrated for “associate satisfaction.”
(He didn’t realize at the time that “associate satisfaction surveys” actually measure relative levels of associate intimidation – intimidation with regard to filling out “associate satisfaction” surveys. A melted cheese sandwich provides “satisfaction.” Working in biglaw typically does not.)
My client was in the throes of acute law-induced discomfort, and the switch sounded feasible. A partner from his current firm was now working at the new place, talking it up. He took the leap.
Literally within minutes of switching firms, my client knew he’d made a mistake. They didn’t even pretend – there was no question of being taken out for lunch. The piling on of work began the first hour. Other associates avoided his eyes when he passed them in the hall. He worked straight through the first weekend, then every weekend that followed. Eventually, he missed his best friend’s wedding – partner’s orders – to spend all day taking notes at a meeting that partner couldn’t be bothered to attend.
That was the breaking point. He called a partner at his old firm – swallowed what he laughingly referred to as his “dignity” – and pleaded for his job back.
Two weeks later, he’s in his former office, at his former desk – more certain than ever there’s no escape.
At least at this hellhole – the original hellhole – he works for a partner who isn’t an especially bad person (in biglaw terms.) Sure, the work is piled on without mercy, but there isn’t as much arbitrary torment. That’s a fine distinction, but it can be crucial – the gulf between working for (1) an egotist who never gives your existence a second thought; or (2) a sadist who makes sport of inflicting pain. Option (1) is the “lifestyle” job.
My client still works fourteen hour days and nearly every weekend. He still hates what he does. But now he appreciates his “lifestyle” job.
So what next? Stay in the frying pan? Try another frying pan? The legal profession provides an array of frying pans to choose from (or it used to, back when jobs existed. At this point, you should probably shut up and be glad you have a frying pan so you can keep making loan payments.)
A client at a big Midwest firm says she’s losing her mind. One day she looked around the table at the assembled staff of the “Securities Litigation Group” and thought: I don’t like these people. I don’t want to work with these people. I don’t want a life containing these people.
She’s got a clerkship coming up. But then what? How do you stay and “build a career” when you don’t like anyone you work with? She refers to them as “those douchebags.”
She could leave Chicago and move back to New York. That was the plan, until, while researching New York City firms, she stumbled upon a passage, on one firm’s website, extolling their “emergency child care services.” The concept made her queasy.
Because what – really – are “emergency child care services”? “Child care services” would mean a friendly, convenient daycare center downstairs – but this is America, and friendly, convenient daycare centers are an evil plot hatched by wild-eyed European socialists, right? No firm would ever pay for actual childcare. Only “emergency” childcare. Well, the most common “emergency” at a law firm is the weekly “emergency” of being kept all-night or all-weekend working for some lunatic. That would be when the “emergency childcare” swings into action.
She imagined someone driving out to her house to stay with her kids. That was scary enough, until she asked herself the next question: Who? Who does a law firm choose to provide “emergency” childcare? A sweet older Jamaican lady from an agency? In her dreams. More likely, a hard-bitten, moonlighting secretary from Staten Island, or a heavily indebted twenty-something hipster taking a break from doc review. She pondered the scene: “Hey, kids. Your mom will be pulling another unplanned double all-nighter. I’ll be staying with you again this weekend. Who wants to hear a bedtime story?”
Maybe it’d be better to stay in Chicago with the douchebags. The frying pan she knows…
Yet lawyer after lawyer tells me the same story: they don’t want the frying pan they know. Any frying pan – even an equally bad frying pan – would suffice. Just, please – make it a different frying pan (and maybe give me a week or two off – a week or two without a Blackberry, a week or two without partners, a week or two without law – before I hop into the next frying pan.)
One client concocted creative, near-convincing rationales to prefer another firm – it’s smaller and supposedly gentler (although smaller means fewer partners so she might get stuck working for a beast – and might not be able to go back to a big prestige firm after leaving to a smaller firm), the hours might be better (although they’ll probably be the same), and they take smaller cases, so there won’t be as much document production (although there’ll still be document production, with fewer people to help out.)
She knows that’s window dressing. The truth? If she stays where she is, she’ll lose her shit. Then she’ll get fired.
It is an indisputable fact that a new place – any new place – is not the old place. You have to do something. At very least, you have to try.
Of course you know the actual problem isn’t this place. It’s biglaw.
A client surprised me the other day. Last year, she fled a nightmare firm – a legendary sweatshop – for a new place. So far, things are marginally better. They give her work and ignore her. She keeps a low profile and (so far) can work evenings to avoid weekends. So far as she’s concerned, this amounts to “satisfaction.”
But now it’s getting slow. She recognizes the signs, and wonders how much longer they’ll keep her around.
I expected to talk with her about networking, headhunters, changing cities – the stuff she talked about last time she needed to flee a frying pan. She didn’t.
“If this job falls through, I’m through,” she announced.
“Meaning, what? You’ll look for something at another firm?”
“No. I mean that’s it for law.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. She’d had enough. I don’t know what that means, in practical terms – I don’t think she does, either. She’s batting around the idea of becoming a headhunter or taking some sort of job at an e-discovery contractor.
There comes a point when you review all your options – all your options.
Frying pan. Frying pan. Frying pan. Fire.
Given the state of frying pan, “fire” might be worth a shot.
========
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 can also heartily recommend my first book, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy
(Both books are also available on bn.com and the Apple iBookstore.)
I don’t appreciate you referring to civil work as “The Law.” There are plenty of people who do criminal work and find both the hours and the type of work quite satisfying.
With that minor correction though, I agree completely with what you said. I’ve changed from wanting to work at a big firm to interviewing with and interning with DOJ/DA’s offices. And I love it. So thank you.
For someone who seems to be all about embracing agency, you seem to be awfully defeatist about life in law. It’s definitely not for everyone, but there are those of us who both like the law, like counseling our clients, and like learning about a new client/business every 6 months. And, maybe it’s because I’m a litigator and not in the NY office, but I’m also not quite sure what this no-vacation-work-all-the-time-for-sadists thing is about. At my top 5 firm I take at least one big (1-2 week) trip, a few ski weekends, a few napa weekends, and a few random you-have-to-travel-for-work-so-stay-the-weekend weekends. None of the bankers or doctors or consultants or small business owners I know have that kind of flexibility in their early 30s.
It is all about a tradeoff. I left Big Law for In-House and I gave up money and security for a better lifestyle that is truly better. There are some significant perks to Big Firm that I want to highlight above and beyond money – one is security. If you work for a Big Firm it is unlikely to go under (not true for struggling industry companies) and if they decide to let you go you probably get 3-6 months severance to search for another job. You get top of the line healthcare, 6 month maternity leaves (a month paternity), sometimes even profit sharing. Moving away from Big Firm means 12 week unpaid FMLA, crappy health insurance and no bonuses. In Big Law, you have clients who are happy for your advice because they pay top dollar for it (instead of being told that legal just shuts down pet projects). Just something to remind you (and your readers) as they constantly complain about Big Firm. I may have won back my nights and weekends but I also gave up quite a bit.
This. I was miserable in Big Law and could have probably written more than a few of the entries on here. I ultimately left Big Law and took a 10% pay cut (and poorer benefits/fewer raises/lower bonuses) to lower my billing requirement by 100 hours/year. Big Law salaries are supported by billing many hours at a high billing rate. The only way to escape is to take a pay cut.
To prepare to take the cut, I was putting something like 50% of my take home towards my student loans. It wasn’t comfortable but it guaranteed that I would be able to avoid golden handcuffs. At the time, I was convinced that I would leave law entirely in 6 months but the lower billing goal (and working for good people) has convinced me to stay three more years now.
I’ve never worked in a biglaw firm, but what happens if an associate just says no, I am busy this weekend, or no, I am on vacation that week, so I won’t be able to do that project. Do you immediately get fired? If that’s true, then you must not really have much to offer to the firm in the first place. In a situation where the associate had some real value to offer to the firm, I do not see why the firm would fire someone for that.
Am I hopelessly naive?
Dear god you are so naive I want to buy you a hot chocolate and wrap you in a scarf. You have 500 top 5% of the class unemployed attorneys begging for your $130k job so they can pay off their soul crushing debt. Yes they will happily fire you and hire a new monkey to torment.
To a certain extent, you can say “no.” You’ll piss people off, but they probably won’t fire you. I quite literally had conversations with partners where I told them to fire me if they didn’t like what I was doing, and they didn’t. (In fact, when I quit, those same people begged me to stay.)
But most associates are too afraid to say no, and, to be honest, in a lot of cases it just isn’t worth the hassle.
People are afraid because there are consequences. Telling a biglaw partner to fire you if they don’t like what you’re doing WILL get you fired 99% of the time. Maybe not on the spot, but shortly after. As for having a lot to offer the firm, if you know what a junior associate does for for the first few years at big law, it’s not rocket science. The core of it is putting in the hours. If you’re not going to put in the hours, then no, you don’t have a lot to offer. If you think the firm hired you because you’re some sort of legal genius out of the 1000s of top law school grads out there, you’re delusional.
I used to love your articles, but they have seemed unnecessarily one-sided lately. “Emergency childcare”, at least as provided by both of the BigLaw firms I worked at (one a “noted” sweatshop), was there as a benefit for attorneys and staff to use in the event that your regular, weekday childcare fell through. It actually was a lovely thing that meant one didn’t stress about what to do if you had a court appearance and your regular babysitter was out sick.
Not all BigLaw firms – or BigLaw lawyers – are evil and narcissistic. You seem to believe that either not-caring or sadistic are the only two options. Many are, instead, busy, harried, but still trying-not-to-be-jerks. Yes the job is demanding. Yes the clients (of whom I am now one) occasionally need things to be done on very short notice. But an awful lot of the day-in, day-out practice in BigLaw involves people who for the most part like and respect each other, and are trying to find the balance.
+1. Will almost certainly knows what “emergency childcare” means, because Sullivan & Cromwell probably offered it. (Oh, it does: http://nyjobsource.com/sullivancromwell.html . Though to be fair, maybe it was implemented after Will left.)
Emergency child care is great, because it means that if there’s a snow day and your kid isn’t going to school, you can bring her to the office instead of burning a vacation day or leaving her home alone. (These things happen in other jobs, Will. News alert: the “rest of the world” isn’t all rainbows and unicorns.)
And +100 on the rest of the comment, Kristen. I work at a BigLaw “sweatshop” but my hours aren’t terrible, I have most weekends reasonably free (which includes working from home for, say, < 5-10 hrs between Friday night and Monday morning), and I see my daughter pretty regularly. Most people here are pretty nice.
I understand that Will had a bad experience, but no need to project onto the rest of us. And before he says " I see it every day " — of course you do; you're a therapist! The people who are your clients are generally going to be self-selectedly unhappy. Nothing wrong with that; it's just not a representative sample. (See Hermann's post a while back on ATL about cops who think everyone's a criminal, etc. Skewed samples.)
It’s interesting, since I’ve been having the “What’s next?” conversation a lot lately with various people. These are very smart, driven, highly credentialed lawyers who are good at what they do, and actually like the work. But they absolutely cannot stand the firm “lifestyle.” So, they wonder, what do they do next?
Frankly, I don’t have a lot of advice to offer, other than consider striking out on your own, but I think the profession might be at/approaching an inflection point, where other ways of practicing (and still making money) bubble up. Most Biglaw partners have their heads in the sand about technology and other trends that are going to decimate their current business model, and word’s starting to get out about what terrible places they are to work (and what a crappy career law is for a lot of people).
I don’t have an answer, but it’s an interesting time, to be sure.
If you want to discuss, stop by my website: http://thegirlsguidetolawschool.com. (But only if you’re not a jerk.)
I don’t think you often see things this bad outside of litigation. I’d be curious as to how Mr. Meyerhofer experiences his practice of advising litigators versus, say, tax or trust and estates types. Of course, there are a lot fewer of those jobs in biglaw, and they are harder to get and to make partner in.
Sorry, associates, but Will has it right. I spent 17 years at BigLaw, 10 as a partner.
While you may bravely stand up to a partner to explain why you can’t work a particular evening or weekend, don’t think that won’t have repercussions later in your career. If no where else, it will come up as your department agonizes over who to put up for partnership. The partner you “stood up to” will undoubtedly recount the incident. In that conversation, you proved the firm was not “the highest priority in your life.” (A ridiculous standard but one I heard articulated on such occasions.)
As to whether BigLaw partners are egotists or sadists, I offer another alternative: people desperate for stress relief. Sadly, I spend many years working for a partner who openly expressed the belief that “the best way to deal with stress is to inflict it on other people.” (He falls dangerously close to the sadist camp.)
I can’t say whether Will advises litigators or T & E lawyers. I was a transactional lawyer.Time pressure is enormous in this field – especially the M & A and LBO side.I know he’s calling it right for those lawyers.
My BigLaw firm considered providing emergency childcare on the premises but backed off because of the multiple regulatory hoops. Curious as to whether it’s changed since my departure to the “fire” of being General Counsel of a Fortune 300 company, I checked its website today. While it trumpets its “Women’s Initiative,” there’s nary a mention of emergency childcare.
As to LTL’s comment that his weekends are “reasonably free” because he only works 5 – 10 hours, all I can say is that you’ve been drinking the Kool Aid too long!
Working at BigLaw can be heady, but life is out there passing you by. Don’t sell your soul for the stuff of work.
“You can bill your time, but you can never buy it back.” – Anonymous
To avoid the frying pan/fire dichotomy, there is a simple answer – pay down your loans and save as much money as you possibly can your first 5 years out of law school. If you have a BIGLAW job paying $130-160k plus a five-figure bonus, this isn’t that hard. Over $100k in loans can be gone in the first three years if you just contribute to your 401(k) and put the rest towards your loans. Once you’re free of the loans, then you put the money you were paying toward them into your savings/retirement. Another two years of this and you’ll have six figures in the bank – at 30 years old.
At 30, your life is still mostly in front of you. Marriage, kids, house in the ‘burbs (if you want those things), are still quite available. Yet unlike your 25-year-old harried self, you will have options because you will be debt free and have a nest egg. You can move to a lower cost-of-living city (yes, there are cities outside of NYC, Chicago, LA and DC).
In-house opportunities are quite common in lower-cost-of-living cities. No, these aren’t “hip” places (e.g., fly over states) so competition will be lower. Yet there’s nothing that says you can’t move to one for a couple of years to get valuable in-house experience, and then move back to a more desirable location with both BIGLAW and in-house experience. Who knows, you might actually like it in flyover country and decide to stay.
Having six figures in the bank doesn’t actually make life any better. It just sits there being destroyed by inflation and yielding 0%. Although it prevents you from complaining that you have debt and you can no longer complain that you don’t have any money.
And living in a lower cost of living city doesn’t make life any better. Except for the commute. On a low-traffic day it takes me seven minutes to drive to work.
This is so spot on, especially that life is out there passing you buy. I remember my epiphany, looking up and realizing that I sat down at this desk when I was 24 and looked up realizing I was suddenly turning 32, with a slightly bigger office, a modest mortgage, a couple failed relationships and a ton of people calling me a “superstar” and working on my business case for partnership, but not much else.
Let me tell you, when you look at your life — your whole life — and the only part of it that seems to be on track is your job, and even that pretty much sucks to you, it’s time to move on.
jonlaw2 – having six figures in the bank does one thing – it gives you more options. As I noted, lower cost-of-living cities aren’t the hippest places in the world, but they do generally offer a better quality of life. No, they don’t boast the same level of attractions as NYC, LA or DC, but if you’re working at a BIGLAW firm in any of those cities, you’re probably not able to take advantage of those attractions anyway.
Living way below your means in cities where money flows freely (both in and outside your firm) isn’t easy by any means. But if you want to avoid putting on the golden handcuffs, financial discipline is essential. Besides, spending a fortune on a great apartment, designer clothes, etc… won’t improve your chances of making partner in BIGLAW. It’s all about your book of business (or the partner for whom you’re working’s book of business).
To echo Will’s advice (it is his site after all), BIGLAW associates must determine whether the lifestyle they have is really what they want. The amount of peer and family pressure to stay in BIGLAW is enormous. Yet that pressure forces associates to bury their dreams to make someone else happy. Success is not being what others believe you should be.
“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be” – George Sheehan
If your problem is lack options, then six figures will help.
If your problem is lack of purpose, meaning, or lack of any real direction in life, then six figures in the bank will not help. It will just sit there.
Granted, it will help you later in life, in the sense that you will be able to afford six months of nursing home care rather than homelessness when you suffer from dementia, so that’s a plus.
Hopefully having six-figures will give you the mental fortitude to take the necessary time to ascertain your purpose/meaning of life and develop a direction to get there. If you still can’t/won’t make a decision, then I agree that six figures (or even seven figures) will be of little help. In fact, I would daresay that for some people, six figures will not be seen as enough money to make a decision. Such people are trapped in a binary decision quandry – either suck it up and stay miserable, or quit the law and be destitute in a year or two. There is a third option, but you need the courage to see it.
“In fact, I would daresay that for some people, six figures will not be seen as enough money to make a decision. Such people are trapped in a binary decision quandry – either suck it up and stay miserable, or quit the law and be destitute in a year or two. There is a third option, but you need the courage to see it.”
In a lower cost of living area, six figures would last you five years, at least.
So, there’s another benefit to low cost of living areas. In NYC, that money would be burnt in a matter of months.
You can do nothing for years in fly-over country!
Agreed. The whole point is to clear your mind of clutter to allow you to think about what you want to do with your life. This is exactly what many BIGLAW refugees do – if they have confidence in themselves to quit without anything else lined up.
Biglaw may be hell. But the exit options are worth it, if you can hold out a few years.
My class of 2006 grad friends that got Biglaw have parachuted out to Hedge funds, in house at major corps, US Dept of Justice, SEC etc…..
Those of us who got small/mid law are hanging on by a thread….working hours that are almost as bad for 25% of the pay, a no match 401k, and are paying 50% of our large healthcare premiums. What is even more galling is that I often find myself representing a defendant where a co-def is represented by Biglaw. As I work, I often think “they are making 5x my pay.”
You think Biglaw is bad? Please. I would sell my first born to get that.
Don’t envy BIGLAW. Many of my colleagues in-house have 3rd tier law degrees. What was critical to their landing an in-house position is experience, not BIGLAW on their resumes. Most started in small companies to get experience, then lept to BIGCORP either by acquisition or based on their specialty. One in-house area that is almost always “hot” is government contracts and regulatory compliance. Very few people in-house understand how to do business with government customers, and those that even have an inkling run screaming from the building if they’re asked to do any government deals. Yes, the government is cutting back on its spending, but it always needs to buy new products and services. Employment, antitrust, trademark/IP and professional services are also commonly in-demand specialties for in-house counsel.
The key to landing an in-house counsel position is to demonstrate that you can think along practical business lines, and you will always find a way to say “yes” (or leave it up to the client to take the risk after being fully informed). No more 5-10 page memos to answer a simple question (a 2-line e-mail is long enough when answering a question). As in-house counsel, you can’t let perfect be the enemy of good.