Osler's Razor

I was going to write and say it is not that bad, but I can't. In my experience, most associates spend their lives at work. It is the people around them who pay the price.

If you marry someone who cares most about money and affluence, that marriage will be fine while you work for a big firm. You can give them that. But, if you marry someone who cares most about being good parents, family bonds, or passion for almost anything, it may be doomed.
 

The really stark thing about law firm life is the way the billable hour invades the psychology of the firm and its members. Every minute you are not billing, you become aware that it is costing you a minute with your spouse, children, or friends. So when you are at the firm you become hesitant to engage in "non-billable" social time because it costs you somewhere down the road. This makes the environment unpleasant. When you walk in to chit-chat, people often check their clocks or computerized timers with exasperation. The look on their face signaling, "I guess I have to stop billing and talk to this guy." This mentality makes the social aspect of your job unpleasant and leaves you to lean on the work for fulfillment. But wait! -- the work is soul-less and unpleasant too. Don't despair -- you'll only have to do it from 8:30-7:30 most days (unless someone sets an arbitrary deadline on you, in which case you'll be there all night). After 5 to 10 years doing this, your personality will have faded, leaving you boring and uninteresting. You'll also be angry about everything you gave up. And then you'll take over supervising the incoming associates. What a great boss you'll be, just like your boss was to you -- socially isolated and angry about it. It's no surprise that you don't understand why someone would want to spend Thanksgiving with their family -- your boss didn't understand why you wanted to either. And thus the chain of misery is passed down from one firm generation to another. A kind of inevitable inter-generational hazing that leaves everyone rich and angry. And there is nothing weirder than rich people who are angry about it.

And the life I describe is at the "laid-back" big firm. I shudder to think about life at a "sweat-shop."
 

I think it varies a lot from firm to firm... but how much?
 

It always makes me sad to see people sell themselves out for what, $160k? $200k? I don't remember any children saying "I want to do document review for a corporate acquisition when I grow up!" when I was younger. What happened?
 

What happened? $160,000-200,000! That's serious money!
 

Future Baylor grads shouldn't worry. If the current OCI results are any indication, there won't be many BLS grads in big firms in the coming years. All that practice court practical experience is really paying off. It's evident the firms really value all of that added work when they're making their hiring decisions. Baylor and Texas Tech are virtually the same school now - the only differences are that Tech is cheaper and they don't have PC. So don't despair BLS grads, you won't be a soulless big firm associate - you'll be a broke and desperate small firm associate which is better, I guess.

Truth = http://bigdebtsmalllaw.wordpress.com/
 

I love my 8-5 job. There is plenty of time for family, church, scouts, softball, friends, and even football on the weekends. I can't imagine trying to bill 2,300 hours in a year. I am friends with my co-workers, and we enjoy talking with each other about more than just work.

I don't get paid as much as a big law firm attorney--not even close--but I would put my quality of life against any of theirs. We don't go to Europe on vacation (do big firm attorneys go on vacation anyway?), but we can walk the dogs nearly any evening we choose. I must admit, though, that the dogs don't get walked nearly enough.

I find it ironic that the big firm promises a salary sufficient to have an enriched life but strips away the means to enjoy those benefits at the same time. And attorneys fall for it!

So, what should we choose--big house and nice toys that we don't have the time or energy to enjoy, or a modest house and time? Somehow the easy answer is the more difficult choice.
 

Anon 4:44--

Less bitterness and less hyperbolic rhetoric would make Big Debt, Small Law more credible.
 

Anon 4:44:

From what I can tell, the OCS is doing a pretty good job these days, and I'm glad for that. It is a very tough market-- even at top-10 law schools people are struggling to find jobs.
 

The Dream Life?

I can't speak to what happens in the big firm setting. The reason is that I never got an offer from one of those "big firms" that everyone seemed to be shooting for during fall OCI.

There came a point in time when I realized I really didn't like most of the people that came to interview me. I remember thinking "I hope I don't become like this guy!"

In the end, I decided to hang out the ole shingle and go for it on my own. To this day, I have no regrets. It makes me really realize and appreciate the value of all those long nights at BU LAW, especially during the third year. The freedom I enjoy in terms of hours is in a word, AWESOME. To put it simply, I work when I want to work. It's amazing how that makes work much more enjoyable.

I never, ever walk around feeling like some pee-on brief writer. Instead, I'm thinking about trial strategy and how I'm going to cross examine a particular witness at the upcoming hearing.

I set appointments when I want to, schedule them for next week when I'm leaving early to attend the local football game on Fridays, and oh yeah, did I mention that get to interact with NORMAL PEOPLE in my office on a regular basis? I think this has prevented me from "getting lost in the law," something I pledged to myself sometime around the middle of my second year of law school to never do.

I'm dating a local girl that is the sweetest thing and we have lunch almost daily (when I'm not having lunch with members of the local bar). And when lunch is going really great, I allow lunch to spill over for an extra 15 to 30minutes. Lately, however, we’ve been heading to lunch early to beat the lunch rush. I hope my boss doesn’t get tired of that too soon!

I leave work at work on the weekends and after I leave the office. I get to be a normal guy who happens to be a lawyer during the week. I can't imagine being a lawyer who happens to be a father, husband, and citizen.

Sure, I don't make all the money in the world. But I'm happy. I've even been brought to tears on several occasions at the sight of how my law degree has had a positive impact on the people I represent. And that’s just the thing, I represent people. It’s unbelievably rewarding. And while I admit that I don’t always get hugs and happy tears at the end of my cases, the times I do more than make up for the time I don’t.

One more thing: I’ve been singing while showing of late. NO, I’m not really any good. But my girl is convinced that I could sing those deep-voiced Randy Travis songs for a living if I wanted to.

I’m alive!

The Dream Life? I’m living it.
 

Correction to the last post: Singing while showering of late
 

As regular readers of the Razor know, I am a partner in an Amlaw 100 law firm. I don't like to mention it's name here for a variety of reasons.

The hour numbers bandied about in your original post were the same numbers I heard 20 years ago in law school.

Neither I nor most of the people at my firm (or most others I'd wager) put up numbers like that on a regular basis.

The key to success at a big firm (or any firm) is to get control of your own destiny by finding and retaining your own clients!

Many of my classmates that went to big firms in 1990 did find themselves working long hours and investing a lot of time in getting their careers on track. But after 4-6 years, their lives had become much more manageable. They had either left the big firms or gotten their own clients and had much more control over their own destinies.

Young (or newly graduated) Doctors and other professionals go through the same experience... intense, long hours at first that later level out. Same in many other jobs.

I believe its the same in academia too. Those first few years as a Professor sound really pressure packed. You have to get used to teaching, get used to faculty/staff dynamics and you have to publish or perish.

The Prof may make it look easy, but I know he's packed in some long hours what with Practice Court, publishing articles and a book!

(I did not start work at a big firm, I started with a small IP boutique.)

Those of us who stayed with (or moved into) big firms see trade offs. Yes, the social aspect can be lacking. On the other hand, my favorite part of practicing law is building teams for big cases. Its fun to sit down with one or two or three other lawyers and paralegals strategizing a case.

I also get to travel - something I relish. Right now I am in St. John's, Newfoundland where I will be speaking to Canadian IP lawyers tomorrow on trade dress issues. This is a major benefit of big firm life.

The people who get crushed at big firms are the owns who only "grind away" on other people's files. If you end up at a big firm, develop contacts, follow up and work to get control of your own schedule.
 

IPLG--

That rings true. However, it is so much easier to have a book of business when you move in laterally than when you are an associate and no one wants you to build you own book of business, because it will take away from theirs.
 

I practice in a 3-person firm, and I love it. I feel like I broke the mold by going to work as a Public Defender after graduating from Baylor, and then working for a small firm. I loved being a public defender, and I truly love my job now as a private attorney. My one big stress? My law school loans from Baylor. Hindsight is 20/20 but if I had to do it all over again, I would have looked closer at the tuition and lack of public interest loan repayment at Baylor, and chosen another law school. But I would have lost out on an excellent education. Suffice to say, it's a sad state of affairs when an excellent education costs $100,000+. I know Baylor has improved it's public interest opportunities in recent years. I just hope the professors have moved beyond the notion that the law school is a feeder for big firms.
 

Anon. 4:24, judging by the original post it looks like at least one prof has moved beyond that view!
 

I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but can you really call it "excellent" when there are no added employment benefits? Sure, you can pat yourself on the back when it's all said and done, but when that deferment period ends and Sallie Mae comes calling, does it really matter?

I've heard from people that actually got callbacks at BLS that SMU students who are nowhere near law review routinely get callbacks. Under this "excellent" education theory (which I'm guessing is due to PC), SMU grads should be 2-3 years behind us and, therefore, less desirable to employers. Meanwhile, the only people getting offers/callbacks are people in the top 5-10%.

Give me Texas Tech's lower stress, lower tuition, and equal or better career prospects over this "excellent" education any day of the week.
 

If you're going to law school as a fast track to making lots of money, Baylor isn't your place. The alumni network isn't nearly big enough, the skill set you develop isn't quite appropriate, and it's not widely known once you get out of Texas. That said, some Baylor grads make tons of money (e.g., Darrell Keith, Jacob George Straub, future D.A. of Robertson County), but they make it the Baylor way: filing lawsuits and (in theory) trying cases.

But if you, like me, go to law school for some leftist reason, like making the world a better place for your clients, or for some libertarian reason, like wanting to obtain professional independence, Baylor is exactly the place for you. Case in point: Jacob George Straub, future D.A. of Robertson County. Even in some provincial hinterland like Maryland, I feel confident in my ability to practice law if I have to hang out a shingle. I'm ready. My SMU brethren probably aren't just yet.

My two cents about biglaw. I'm currently working as a temp doc reviewer for a big plaintiff's firm in Downtown Baltimore. (See paragraph one above.) The office hours, firm-wide, are 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. Ironically, the powers that be did a study and found it more profitable to limit hours like that. Maybe you can blame it on the nature of plaintiff's work, but it's something to think about.
 

Jeremy

Because plaintiff's side work is usually done on a percentage contingency fee, there is no value in working lots more hours, because you aren't charging by the hour.

Big firms more typically are mostly on the defense side and charge by the hour, not the case, which creates the need to work the long hours.
 

9:55 anon:

My only disagreement is that I'd add the word "perceived" in front of the word "need." If big ol' defense firms hadn't spent so much unnecessary time fighting med mal suits, maybe tort reform wouldn't be so popular right now. (Spending so much time increased defense costs, made settlement cheaper, doctors settled more quickly and for higher amounts, insurance companies started charging higher premiums to cover higher settlements.) I'm not saying that's the sole cause; I'm just saying it's a cause.

The powers that be where I work usually suggest that, by limiting the lawyers to 9-to-5, they automatically limit the massive bureaucracy of support staff to 9-to-5. And they don't have to compensate lawyers or support staff for the extra hours worked (through higher salaries or overtime pay). I'd also argue that the lawyers are more productive, both quantitatively and qualitatively, since they're less burnt out.