1 = you're a fancy little girl

5 = enh, bros in any corporate job deal with the same

10 = biglaw is hell fraud

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33895736)

This is 2012, I'm a midlevel at a V5 in MFH. It is Thursday evening.

8:30 pm - I just received comments from Seller's counsel to some asset purchase agreement.

8:45 pm - Client sends me and a junior partner (let's call him Chris) an email asking for a revised draft by 6am, and then asks us to schedule an all-parties call at 9am to discuss the markup.

9:00pm - Chris asks me to give him my markup by 5am, so he can sign-off before we send to the client. Chris says he's going to check out and catch some sleep so he can review my work at 5am. Sucks, but whatever.

10:30pm - Chris calls me on my mobile asking me where I am. It is loud. I tell him I am pushing out this APA (and I think he is a scumbag for lying to me about catching sleep when he just went out for drinks). He tells me he is with a client at some bar and thinks I should join. I remind him about the deadline. He says I should stop by for 30 minutes.

11:00pm - I arrive at the bar. The client is some guy I've worked with before, and he sucks balls. Chris orders another bottle of whiskey. I try to limit my intake but client busts my balls so I drink.

1:30am - they finally let me leave. WHAT. THE. FUCK. I'm buzzing, tired and panicking because we don't have much time left.

2:00am - I make it back to my office, chug a red bull and start jamming.

4:58am - I have finished the markup, done as much proofreading as I can, and send the draft off to Chris and tell him I am going to wait until 6:00am for him to revert back (in case he is sleeping) or else I will send off to client.

5:05am - Chris calls me thanking me for my hard work and tells me to get some sleep and be ready for the 9:00am call.

8:15am - I wake up, take a quick shower and start walking to the office. I check my blackberry. Among the numerous calender invite acceptances, a couple BS marketing emails from legal translation or discovery service firms, I see an email addressed to me from Chris with no subject. I assume it is going to be a "thank you" email and pull out a cigarette to smoke.

The email is written in all caps. "ARE YOU TOO LAZY TO EVEN PROOFREAD YOUR WORK THERE ARE NUMEROUS TYPOS THIS IS EMBARRASSING WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT YOUR INABILITY TO RUN A SPELL CHECK"

Before and after the call I double check my work, terrified I might find some glaring horrific typo or mistake. I can't find shit. I take a printout to Chris, apologize for the mistake, but can he please point them out to me. He points to the Recitals and one of the defined terms. "There" should be "Their" and "niner" should be "nine." I ask if that is all, and he says "yes, but you should double check just to be sure!"

About 1 week later...

He sends me a text message asking me to pay $50 or so to help cover the client drinks that night. I guess he was over his budget or something. I ignore his text.

Two days later..

He sends me the same exact text "Hey! It was a fun night, let's do it again soon! Oh, would you mind chipping in $50 to pay for the night? Obviously I'm taking most of the burden" I can't believe what I am seeing, so I just decide to screw it and give him his $50.

6 months later...he writes me the best damn review I've ever gotten.

Lol, biglaw.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33895919)

The only jobs I can think that may be comparable are startups, investment banking and MBB consulting.

And it's not just the hours. It's the way we degrade and belittle each other. How we never compliment each other but go ape shit on each other for the tiniest of mistakes. How we intentionally set each other up for failure, rather than creating conditions to succeed.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33895950)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33895952)

Of course certain typos can be dangerous, like incorrect internal cross-references, using defined terms which aren't actually defined anywhere, etc. But a double "the the" in a 200 page document, enh I could careless.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896038)

Oh what a biglaw scholar!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896169)

With contracts sometimes you go back through an old contract and you're like, well, fuck, we're in default on $7 billion of debt and we have been for years, better fix that. It's super-rare for it to actually matter though, it's just kind of embarrassing

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33897506)

Same story about the "and" being mixed up with "or" costing a client millions, although that is a serious fuck up.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896659)

The case you're talking about is Canada, 2006.

Canada, 2006.

“This agreement shall be effective from the date it is made and shall continue in force for a period of five (5) years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five (5) year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/business/worldbusiness/25comma.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33900925)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33903014)

Correction: A caption in Business Day on Wednesday with an article about a contract dispute between two Canadian companies that turns on the placement of a single comma and could be worth $1 million Canadian dollars, misidentified the location of the disputed punctuation. It is the third comma shown in the copy of the contract - not the second.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33907894)

I am in London, 2011, it is a Thursday. I just finished a client meeting and am on my way to Heathrow to fly back to NYC. My parents are also on a plane on their way to NYC to spend time with me, help me move. The movers are coming on Saturday morning.

I'm in a car when partner (let's call him Steve) calls me asking me if I'm already on the way to the airport. I say yes. He hesitates, and asks if I wouldn't mind staying for a few more days for some more in-person drafting sessions. I tell him about my parents and the move. He says "oh...well in that case, yeah, why don't you fly back, I might have needed you here but uhm...never mind it's OK don't worry about it."

I get on the plane, text my parents that I'm at the airport.

I land in JFK, turn on my blackberry as we're taxiing to the gate. Lots of emails. One of them reads, "hey I'm really sorry but I need you to stay at the airport, call Debrah (secretary) and get the next return flight back to London."

I end up asking my parents to move my shit for me and to enjoy NYC without me. I fly back to London. We show up to drafting session the next morning with client but counterparty doesn't show. Counterparty says they need some time to discuss internally. We are told to fly back home. Deal dies a day or two later.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896003)

He says "oh...well in that case, yeah, why don't you fly back, I might have needed you here but uhm...never mind it's OK don't worry about it."

just the passive aggressive - want to TELL you to stay but doesn't have the guts to actually order you is a strong touch to the story. you get the hyper aholes, and this type in professional services...

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896175)

Annoying but clients dick around all the time. Brits aren't even that bad, some of us have to deal with the Chinese, Russians and Arabs. Not sure partner did anything wrong here, he let you know what was up and you made your decision. This is the nature of professional services, just be glad you don't deal with this shit for 80k at some audit firm.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896349)

1. Wednesday before my first Thanksgiving at the firm (and I love Thanksgiving at home): "What time are you planning to come back?" "My flight gets in Sunday night." "Hm, well, we were planning to work on Friday on Project XYZ and could really use you around..." *pays a shitton to get back early Friday morning; plays secretary bitch for like half a day running people's changes who aren't even in the office; spends rest of the weekend alone in apartment*

2. I worked ~38 straight hours Thurs-Fri. Dropped hard copies of the draft off at the senior associate's and partner's houses, went home, crashed, didn't even set an alarm. Saturday morning I wake up without the alarm, see an email that the partner was stopping by my apartment unannounced to drop off a mark-up on the way to his daughter's hockey game. Look out the window, and he's pulling right up. I throw on who knows what, meet him downstairs, he laughs when he sees me disheveled and unshowered, and hands me the draft, and then I get to run changes.

3. For whatever reason, partners want a mock-up S-1 for a pitch. I'm an M&A associate and have never seen an S-1 and am junior enough that I don't really know what it means -- I was doing mostly private deals at the time. I don't even know where to find them, but the partner tells me about EDGAR and looks at me like I'm from Mars. I spend the entire fucking weekend on this thing. It was one of my first assignments after I lateralled and I wanted to do a decent job. I get it to them late Sunday night, don't hear anything, and then the one tells me days later that they just wanted a cover page for the company with a stack of paper behind it -- just for appearances, and no one was going to look at it. It occurred to me a few years later that they were just hazing me, but this guy has ended up sending me business now, so whatever.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896412)

Also, OMFG I had something nearly identical to your #3 happen to me, except it wasn't a joke. They truly wanted a "mock" S-1 shell for an IPO pitch.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896431)

lol

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33900159)

2. Requested, as a senior associate, the ability to do a part time schedule for the next year. I wanted Friday through Sunday off twice a month in order to travel home and visit mom. Was denied. Spent much of that year covering for a woman who took her fourth maternity leave in five years, who didn't work Fridays, and who was out for the Sabbath all Saturday. Spot the differences between me and her?

3. Was driving to Mom's funeral with my wife and got a call from a partner telling me to pull over and have my wife drive so that I could do a call and then turn a doc from my laptop tethered to my phone while on the highway.

Bonus: Same partner responsible for much of this made my buddy work on his wedding day.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896535)

She wasn't a weak-ass bitch?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896558)

2. 4

3. 10

The last one is just cruel, not even my V5 would touch you for funerals man, and we had a reputation as a sweat shop...

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896611)

I would reserve a 10 for the female lateral partner who had a stress induced heart attack in the lobby of her firm. Within hours the other partners had carved up her clients and cut her out of deals. She came back within a week to find her practice gutted and was pushed out that same year.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896635)

TBF, those weren't really "Her" clients if they betrayed her like that.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896649)

While I was in biglaw, one partner I worked with died of a heart attack, another had a stroke and is permanately disabled now and a handful of associates I knew have had miscarraiges, got cancer, died or otherwise had to quit for medical reasons (all in their 30s).

I've had moments where I would pass out in the shower, puke my guts out from stress related digestion problems, numerous dizzy spells, etc. Hell I even started sleep-walking. It was going to kill me one day.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896701)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33901036)

This involved my absolute favorite partner to work for.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896584)

Just some survival tips, assuming you want to make it for a few more years, next time you decide to leave the office for anything other than picking up takeout, tell your deal team you'll be out of office for something urgent but will be back asap. The key is to lie. Don't tell them you're going to the gym, say you need to go pick up some prescription meds or some shit. Also say you'll only be gone for about half the time you expect to be gone for.

So you should have said, "hey I need to run to pharmacy to pick up some prescriptions, it'll only be 20 minutes." If they question you on the 20 minutes when you get back, say the pharmacist was away and it took 15 minutes to track her down.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896634)

To be fair, I was the one usually having to remind boomer partners to check out of the docs.

"Oh, how do I check it back in?"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896674)

And I'm like bro, I'm an 9th year I'm going to bill this time, except of course I never do lol.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896712)

3.5 hours - Review closing formalities; confirm receipt of closing deliverables; compile execution sets of closing deliverables; prepare closing bibles for distribution to working group; correspond with working group re closing deliverables logistics.

Hide the ball lol.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33896737)

Before I fully grasped how important it was that every brief for every case make reference to this case, he had me do "research" for a very vague set of facts that loosely resembled the CA Supreme Court case (but could apply to 1000 other cases) and when I came up with the 1000 other cases (after about 12 hours of research), he sat me down and gave me a long lecture about the importance of thoroughness and then pulled out the heavily highlighted copy of the case he always had with him.

It was for something completely inane like the value of extrinsic evidence in interpreting a contract.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33900460)

Found out later he wrote a note about that case for his law review. LJL.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33901880)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33901697)

I didn't make the rules, it's a meat grinder and there's really only one way to survive and that's to conform to the rules.

Did billing thousands of hours worth of due diligence exercises improve my skills as a lawyer? Maybe marginally, I'm lightning quick and can churn out high quality first drafts of DD reports and various agreements in significantly less time than my counterparts from lower ranked firms...but is it worth it? Unless you're gunning for partner, hell no.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33902957)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33904669)

TLDR: Don't do biglaw in MFH; Most of the rest of the US is much more sane and reasonable.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33905349)

It's the week before Christmas. Bunch of people on vacation and I agreed to cover for someone. Big thing blows up for a client, who realizes that they have nobody in town the last week of the year, so need updates to like 15 different documents. Senior associate calls me and asks if I can help out on it, I say, I'm super swamped on a project that I have where a bunch of things are due that week and that I really have to work on it for most of the night (this is literally the only time in my career I ever even tried to turn something down).

She sounds frustrated but says ok. Then asks if I can do 1 of the 15 documents. I say sure, it shouldn't take me too long. But I really have to do my other work.

She then says, there's nobody else, because the other person who was a year ahead of me couldn't do it, so I have to make these changes across 15 different documents. Included in this is preparing signature pages. I prepare them all, she asks me to send them to her in PDF, I forget why, but for some reason, I didn't save each sig block individually and just had the PDFs of each that I sent to her.

She calls me, it's like 2 am at this point, says that all of the signature lines are wrong, because I used the underline key instead of tabbing over an underline and that if you zoom in, you can see the thickness of the line change. Tells me I have to redo all of them.

I explain that it's going to take some time. She asks me what else I have to do that night, I explain the other work I have. I explain that I have to draft some document by the morning that I had told her I had to do.

She tells me that I have to learn to say no sometimes, otherwise I'm going to ruin my career. I'm spreading myself to thin and if I keep doing this I'm going to wind up losing my job.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33905546)

http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=2898124&mc=57&forum_id=2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33908573)

I worked with a partner who would turn 20+ drafts of pretty basic documents. He would never develop a cohesive vision of what he wanted a brief to look like, so it would be constant total do-overs, new arguments, etc. etc., all while peppering in over-the-top, misspelled adverbs in every sentence. He also needed everything done immediately, and demanded proof of everything - e.g. Him: "Can you proofread and cite check this appeal brief?" Me: "Yes." Him 10 minutes later: "You need to work faster, I can't wait around for you."

He also, at least a dozen times, dropped massive assignments on me at 7 or 8 at night and demanded 9 am turnarounds even though it wasn't time sensitive. This would also happen on weekends, e.g. get something at 11 pm on a Saturday night demanding that it be ready for him by Sunday morning with no advance warning or need.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33908598)

Then one day, Thomas said "Let's make an of-counsel. We can put it near the mailroom and use it to scare the associates." There was a lawyer they both hated named Harold, so they decided to name the doll Harold and make it look like him. They made it out of mediocrity and gave it a pointlessly narrow specialization, like Harold's. Day after day, they would tie Harold to a pole on the 30th floor to scare the associates. They even brought it to firm meetings. Sometimes, they would talk to it, saying things like "How's it going?" And the other would say in a weird voice "Not good." Of course, Harold wouldn't appreciate it. When they were in a bad mood, they would even curse at him or kick him.

A while later, when Thomas was taking out his anger on Harold, Alfred swore he heard the doll grunt. "Did you hear that? Harold grunted!" "Impossible, he's just a Fordham JD," replied Thomas. Alfred dismissed it, but they both stopped talking to it, kicking it, or even touching it, they just left him neglected in the corner of the mailroom.

After a while, they decided nothing was to be feared. So they went back to their old routine. Every day, they would prop the of counsel up, and bring it back down at night. Then they even started treated him badly again.

One night, Alfred noticed something that scared him. "It looks like Harold is growing." "I was thinking the same," answered Thomas. "Maybe it's just our imagination. I think the breast implant litigation is getting to us." The next morning, they saw Harold stand up and walk, take the elevator to the firm library, and he stayed there all night. In the morning, it came down and stood in the reception area. They got very scared and decided to flee. They took their associates and started heading back down for the main lobby. After going only 20 floors or so, they realized they had forgotten their laptops. They knew they didn't want to deal with the IT faggots to replace them, so Alfred forced himself back to get them. "I'll catch up with you later. You just keep moving." After waiting for a while, Thomas looked at the lobby security camera and did not see Alfred. What he did see,however, horrified him. He saw Harold, on a conference room table, stretching out a bloody piece of flesh to dry in the sun.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#33910350)

SJ motion due 5 days after the Super Bowl. Partner says we need the “entire team” in the office all weekend. All associates and another partner on the case, and the main dudes secretary spend the entire weekend there, including the entire Super Bowl. He never shows. Monday morning he tells the client, in front of us, how great his super bowl party was. Case settles Wednesday. Also, Philip Seymour Hoffman died.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3689943&forum_id=2#35456027)