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To Biglaw or Not to Biglaw

May 13, 2007 11:26 AM

or those of you who are not eye deep in law and lawyers and shit, "Biglaw" is a term people use to describe law firms that are, well, big. Huge, really. These are firms that have offices in New York, L.A., Chicago, Boston, Tokyo, Brussels, Sydney, and a hell of a lot of places. These are firms that have 3,000 attorneys working for them. These are the firms where first-year associates, having graduated from law school three months before starting, are making $160,000 a year.

These are the law firms I generally don't want to have anything to do with.

It's not that I don't want the money, it's that I don't want to give my life to some firm (at least not a firm where I'm not a founding partner). Although, thanks to ridiculously high attrition rates, Biglaw firms are starting to reform their practices and generally be more reasonable about the work-life balance, the recent and impending salary increases come with a significant time commitment requirement. And if you want to earn discretionary bonuses, then you can forget about having friends and, you know, a life.

But that's not it. Biglaw, for all of its strength and prestige, is so concerned with image and appearance that it exerts a level of control on its employees that, frankly, scares the shit out of me. I love this blog. I like writing it and I love having people read it. And, although I don't have real anonymity, you can't find this blog by googling my real name. But if I worked at Biglaw, I'd have to take this blog down--it would be a "mistake" to leave it up. I'd have to take it down even if I stuck to the same policy I stuck to last summer--not mentioning where I work, who I worked with, or anything at all having to do in any way with work. In other words, this blog would be dangerous to my career. And that's not cool.

It's not that this blog is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to me. It's that the freedom to blog is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to me. And it's not just the freedom to blog--I want my life to be my life, and I want my job to be my job. I'm willing to work hard, but I'm not going to bill 2,500 hours a year. That's just crazy.

Not all Biglaw is bad, of course, and, as I said, some firms are turning things around. But the general subject matter these firms deal with--corporate law, mergers and acquisitions (cynically described as helping rich people move their money around)--just doesn't appeal to me. I want to work for a plaintiff's firm where I can meet my clients, understand their problems, and help them find real solutions that, although they don't involve hundreds of millions of dollars, have a real, tangible effect on their lives.

The Biglaw life is for some people. Some people are made for it, and the economic rewards are worth it for those people. While I tend to think that those people are crazy, it works for them and that's cool. But I could never work there.

Not that they'd hire me, anyway.



5 Comments


Anonymouse said:

Per our conversation yesterday, I'm not sure that biglaw would make you take the blog down, or that you couldn't have it. Rather, it's a risk, and it would likely be viewed as a risk. There are certainly lots of biglaw blogs (see Skadden_Insider), but my understanding is that it is frowned upon simply because the firm's image is tied to its employees and their expression.

May 13, 2007 6:14 PM



Mateen said:

I can't hear atnhying over the sound of how awesome this article is.

November 23, 2011 9:58 AM



Karcy said:

The paraogn of understanding these issues is right here!

November 25, 2011 9:42 PM









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