Alternatively, many people -- and some quite recently -- post about how miserable they are in their BigLaw jobs.

I suppose my questions are not unusual but I wonder if anyone who has worked/currently works in BigLaw can provide some perspective:

1) Is biglaw particularly miserable in NYC or just miserable everywhere?

2) Are there any places that make biglaw more palatable? particular firms? particular practice areas? Or is this something generally predicated upon whether you work for a heathen of a partner?

3) Strategies for advancing politically within the firm such that you dont become expendable / are given responsibility and respect?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15928830)

2. Lower ranked firms require fewer hours but there is less job security and worse (read: non-existent) exit options. In this economy you want a partner that feeds you hours early and often. Working sucks but not as bad as not working.

3. Have an immediate family member as a Fortune 500 CEO or do good work and bill 2400+ hours.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15928833)

Yeah try going HYPMSCMichigan->T7 LS->V13 and then posting!

Wait did I just out myself

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15929657)

-- fuckthehaters

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15929708)

be good at the job

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15928927)

It's worse in NY. I have classmates who started in NY and moved to the west coast and they all report a better lifestyle in CA. I have banker friends who say the same thing. It would seem there is a tangible difference in culture that is reflected in work demands.

2) Are there any places that make biglaw more palatable? particular firms? particular practice areas? Or is this something generally predicated upon whether you work for a heathen of a partner?

All firms can suck. I'm sure some suck more on average, but I wouldn't pick a firm hoping to your hours will be slightly better. There are certainly practice areas that are significantly better than others. But they tend to be small and ITE are probably hard to get and risky to have. Between litigation and corporate, litigation seems to be better in that there is less last minute bullshit. But litigation still sucks.

3) Strategies for advancing politically within the firm such that you dont become expendable / are given responsibility and respect?

I do almost all my work for one partner who I made "friends" with as an SA. He is fairly important, so I am lucky in that respect. Since it happened so early for me, I can't really give you any good advice other than to produce a good work product, but that goes without saying ITE.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15929239)

I'm at a V20 in a decidedly secondary market, and my sense is that I really do have it better than my classmates who went to the city. That the hours are better is a given, but--judging only by what I know from my friends, and by my limited interactions with my own firm's NYC manpower--the attitudes outside of NYC are much more relaxed. There's a real sense of self-importance among NYC biglawyers.

2) Are there any places that make biglaw more palatable? particular firms? particular practice areas? Or is this something generally predicated upon whether you work for a heathen of a partner?

It's all about the group. 100%. If you're talking biglaw, then realistically the hours expectations are virtually the same everywhere. Agree with the above poster that litigators can manage their time better (know far in advance what the deadlines are going to be, and the mythical "emergency TRO" is a joke and never a real issue).

3) Strategies for advancing politically within the firm such that you dont become expendable / are given responsibility and respect?

Know everybody. You need to have your name out there, not just in the firm but in the community (although I might have a skewed perspective here, since presumably you can't be "known" by the community in a major market).

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15929645)

As for surviving, at my firm the trick is to have a "good" reputation - in other words, be the kind of associate that the partner can assign work to and mostly forget about it. And also it helps to be willing to completely subordinate your personal life to the firm, and tell everyone when you're doing it. But that's also a recipe for burning out, so...

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15929944)

1) Hours are worst in NYC. People will have to work past midnight everywhere, but NYC is the only place you hear stories about people who worked from Fri morning straight through until Mon at 2 am, when they took a cab home to sleep for 4 hours and headed back into the office at 6:30. That said, NYC is also the only market that really has enough work and clients one would actually expect to pay biglaw billing rates. That means that real NYC firms have more security in theory, but that security is reduced by the greater degree of greed and workaholicism in NYC, from what I can tell. And firms that are trying to pretend that they have NYC clients and work (e.g. Latham) are land mines across the entire job market for 2Ls who can't tell the difference. You will also get better training in NYC if you aren't too specialized (so doing one kind of healthcare company's M&A stuff is not good), and that will help a lot with exit options (i.e. when you have an interview that isn't a bullshit firm interview and actually have to talk about what you know and can do).

2) I've seen CA and TX up close. TX is the best, but it's entirely a function of being plugged into the right partner/group. TX is the only place I've seen where a significant minority of biglaw attorneys appear to live a 8-7 lifestyle for at least half the year (presumably still billing 40-50 a week). The flip side is that a lot of Texas work is smaller scale and the billing rates are lower, and clients still bitch more. Junior associates are particularly squeezed in TX b/c they really can't afford you and are basically waiting until they really can't handle it themselves before you get brought in. Overall, it's much more of a mid/shitlaw practice where clients expect partners to do all of the work. This means the training is worse. You're much less likely to be in the room for the term sheet negotiations or to take the first crack at marking up the main agreement, and you are much more likely to draft fill-in-the-blank ancillaries for five shitty deals, rather than doing more and learning more on one deal. This is 95% driven by your supervisors and their attitude about training and integrating you, but it's very common to meet 3rd and 4th years in TX that know far less than most 2nd years on the coasts.

CA can be the worst of both worlds, particularly if you work with start up companies. The additional factor in start ups is how seasoned the principals are on the client side. If you're a 1st or 2nd year working with a first-time CEO who isn't a former CFO, it's basically the blind leading the blind. And CA corporate practice will still have the occasional multi-billion-dollar deal, and b/c people aren't in the habit of doing billion-dollar deals there's a lot more wasted effort and stressing. I did a public company M&A deal where I billed 100+ hours for two weeks and slept a total of roughly 30 hours in that period. And my training wasn't as good as it would've been if I was working with people who did 12 of those deals a year.

3) You aren't safe until you work closely with multiple clients who pay their bills that you could plausibly take from the firm. I would say 3rd year is the absolute earliest possible time to achieve this, and the vast majority haven't by 5th year. That said, being a favorite associate of a partner with a big book of business is a much stronger position that being a favorite associate of a weak partner, or just being the 4th associate staffed on every deal doing the most menial bullshit work.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15930381)

I got canned at my NYC firm, but knowing what I know now, I don't think I'd go back to NYC without a substantial raise about market. NYC is just not worth it...too expensive, and too many shithead clients.

The fact of the matter is that even making just 100k here I am so much beter off...I'm going to be buying a house, and am out of the office by 7 most nights.

I'm now in a small office, and get to do a huge range of transactional work, it's only been a bit over a year, but already there are two partners who pass on all their work to me. I can't imagine biglaw being better than this.

My biggest piece of advice would have to be to stay out of NY. I love NY, i've lived there before law school. I'm not some hater. but the life of biglaw in NYC is just awful...inexcusably awful, really considering there are awesome opportunities elsewhere.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15936681)

Most of the tiime you'll be the third or fourth associate on a deal.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15937648)

ITE, and at my firm, it isn't that miserable.

Transactional work has the most unpredictable schedule. A lot of lititgators work very relaxed schedules. Nutella used to claim she worked 10:30-7:30 lots of days and I see many people doing that. Some niche practice people have very good schedules and substantive skills that make them better that faceless corp/lit drones.

A lot of the shittiness ITE is the constant fear of getting fired, and the often shitty work experience that does not make you a better lawyer (combined with the fear/reality a lot of people will be pushed out before they get any good experience).

I agree with the poster above who said biglaw is full of whiny bitches, but I the shitty professional development/fear of firing issues are legit gripes.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15937160)

It's true, like someone said above, and like i think that partner said, that there are a lot of incompetent people disillusioned with biglaw. But there are reasons that it sucks even beyond that. Plus a lot of incompetent people are 'incompetent' because they can't force themselves to care about the kind of shit you have to care about in biglaw.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15937195)

(2) There are firms and practice areas that are better than others (see #1), but it really all comes down to the folks you work for. 80-90% of my old firm was pretty good about work/life balance, but the other 10-20% may have been Cravath. It's tough to find what the percentages are and who is on the wrong side of the ledger until you can get honest answers from associates. Might be able to do that as a summer with enough alcohol.

Painting with a broad brush, stay away from big-time transactional work such as M&A work and project finance. Look at the clients you will be working with in your practice area for a sense of the hours you will be working. If you represent NY investment banks, you will not see much daylight. Litigation is seen as being more predictable most of the time, but going to trial = no life at all. Plus, that trial could be in Tulsa. Goodbye home for 2 months.

(3) Pick a practice area quickly. Get up to speed on the work in that area such that you become the person in your class that is known for doing X work. This generally means staying away from litigation, since almost any new associate can do doc review and legal research.

I'll put a plug in here for regulatory work (FDA/health, environmental, etc.). It isn't very sexy, but I have found that it provides a good balance of big and small clients (the latter is key for associates wanting good experience), enough work (government isn't getting smaller, at least until the tea party takes over, and they enforce regs even when the economy is down), decent in-house opportunities, and a fairly predictable work schedule.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15937290)

NYC may seem worse b/c people brag a lot more about working and share war stories about staying up late, but the expectations are the same in biglaw anywhere (~2000).

as far as advancing "politically" be competent and become the client's primary contact. this happens in the first 2-3 years. they don't fire people who the client likes.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1410479&forum_id=2#15937389)