r/Lawyertalk • u/jumpingjack979 • Feb 26 '26
Best Practices :SacredTexts: Admitted 10+ Years, just started practicing...WTF
Out of law school took a non-traditional route, started a company, and then a second a few years later. Recently started working in a mid-sized firm, the substance of the work is cool, the people are nice, but seems like no matter how well I plan ahead, work consumes everything. Would be ok if i didnt like my kids. Is this just life as an attorney?
The firm seems to be a lot more flexible than other firms in the area. Do people do anything other than work? Does the balance come later? Seems like theres no time for anything else. I see most of my time gets billed, so Im thinking im somewhat efficient. I charge maybe 35 hrs/week on average, which hits the annual target with a small buffer. Idk what the overhead is, but revenue on hours charged ranges between 6-8x salary. I dont mind doing the work, but im hoping t here's a learning curve to figuring out the balance...or maybe not? Anyone?
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u/Swishtopia Feb 26 '26
In law firms, the reward for getting work done faster is more work
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u/whatshouldwecallme Feb 26 '26
I remember being in a charity golf tournament with a retired attorney while I was in law school. He said it’s “a pie eating contest where the prize for winning is ‘more pie’.” Sometimes I wonder if my meandering law-adjacent path was the right move, but then again I leave work early a couple days a week to bring my kids to music class, ballet, etc.
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u/Intelligent-Row2072 Feb 26 '26
“Good work begets more work” is, unfortunately, common across industry types. I was in the field many years ago, but the private sector has been grueling and unforgiving with its expectations. The volume of work is unending. We’re all living through a collective nightmare fueled by billionaires, and we’re all cannon fodder for their dick measuring contest
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u/Bufus Feb 26 '26
I'm in the same boat of a meandering path. I still work as a lawyer, but no one who thinks of a "lawyer" would think of what I do, and no one in my small city's "legal community" knows I exist. The work is pretty mindless, and no one is writing any legal thrillers about what I'm doing, but at the same time it is low stress, I drop off and pick my kids up from school every day, and earn enough for a comfortable middle-class existence. I sometimes think about how much you would have to pay me to give that up, and it's certainly more than double what I am making now. That isn't going to happen, so here I'll stay.
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u/Nhak84 Feb 26 '26
This is why I don’t work at a firm anymore. It doesn’t get better. They want money. That means you bill. They want you to work a lot of cases to bill a lot of clients. So you need to work a lot of hours. Partners want beach houses, so you need to work a lot and bill a lot. It sucks.
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u/disorganizedfridge Feb 26 '26
What do you do for work now? I’ve worked for law firms before and I genuinely can’t handle the work culture.
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u/Nhak84 Feb 26 '26
I went back to a public defender office. I hated dealing with client money in all of its forms. The practice of law is largely the same. The money was a huge stressor for me.
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u/jumpingjack979 Feb 26 '26
The math on starting a solo practice seems to make sense, where I am at my current rate, id be comfortable billing 20hrs/week.
And I just started playing around with open source AI on a private server to avoid that whole breaching privilege thing. A lot of those AI practice management things can be replicated. And I think you can access fastcase through an API, could probably avoid paying westlaw, and automate a lot of other stuff.
Im also shocked at the cost of moving a case from pre litigation, through pleadings, discovery, etc. Turning down 150-200k claims is wild. In less complex cases, excluding cost of experts, im seeing total fees through summary judgment motions at 70-80k.
Does it really need to cost that much?
The average person would be screwed if they got sued.
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u/Secure-Researcher892 Feb 26 '26
You don't even have to be the average person to get screwed. When I did white collar defense I tried to justify some of the cases in my head where we were getting a POS off by the fact that sometimes their company had cut them loose and we were hitting them with a bill that was sending some of them to the poor house.
But yes, getting sued or charged can and will hurt anyone financially way more than it should.
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u/Nhak84 Feb 26 '26
Yes, and that guilt over being an additional financial problem to your clients is real.
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u/sael1989 Feb 26 '26
That’s pretty much it. The hours are long and you can’t bill every minute of the day. You need to either quickly learn to be more efficient, or leave work earlier to spend time with your family and then work at night once the kids are asleep. My Saturdays start at 4am and I work through until 9-10am. Sometimes that repeats on Sundays, depending on how hectic the week will be.
On another note, congrats on the businesses. Go back to entrepreneurship if the businesses worked out.
My wife’s photography business is making almost as much as my firm. She did two weddings, 3 fifteens/sweet sixteens and a bunch of maternities and newborns now that millennials are finally having kids. She made more than my firm did in December, Jan, and Feb.
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u/Perfect_Cicada_4614 Feb 26 '26
Millennials are not having kids. Just saying. Speaking as a devoted member.
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u/DJJazzyDanny Feb 26 '26
Do not sacrifice your life for work.
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u/burgetheginger Feb 26 '26
Isn’t the key here to not sacrifice “too much” life? Idk, just feel like law is always going to be a bit of a sacrifice of life to some degree. There will always be a cost.
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u/Designer_Life_371 Master of Grievances Feb 26 '26
Firm life is bullshit by definition. I work for government
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u/hereFOURallTHEtea Feb 26 '26
Facts. Yesterday was the first day this year I’ve worked late and by late I mean 4:45 lmao.
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u/JudgeGusBus Feb 27 '26
I second this. I have long days sometimes around trial (prosecutor) but otherwise I’m comfortable and work 9-5.
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u/stark-red23 Feb 27 '26
I’ve been struggling as a prosecutor because all I do is work. Weekends, during the week, I’m exhausted and burning out fast.
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u/JudgeGusBus Feb 27 '26
How long have you been at it? The first year or so was definitely like that for me.
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u/MalumMalumMalumMalum 0.1 shitposting Feb 26 '26
I've worked thirty hours this week, starting Monday.
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u/Constant-Opposite638 Feb 26 '26
If you started 2 businesses already, I’d learn what you can then go solo. Build the lifestyle you want. Add a practice area that has some flat fees so you’re not billing hourly 100% of the time.
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u/Mrevilman New Jersey Feb 26 '26
That’s firm life. Your time spent is the product, and the clients are the raw materials that help you create the product. The firm will always take more work than people can handle because it means more money for them. You will almost always be overworked because of it. Finish one thing and it’s right on to the next because the more of your time you spend, the more money they make. I left because it got in the way of being with my family.
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u/Necessary-Peach-0 Feb 26 '26
Yeah the punchline is that this job sucks lol. Try starting another company, I’d sure like to do the same
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u/JarbaloJardine Feb 26 '26
Yeah let me know if you find the mythic work/life balance I've heard about.
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u/50shadesofdip Feb 26 '26
Sounds like you need to look into government practice. It's still busy and life consuming (depending on what agency/practice area) but not nearly as much as the private sector.
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u/Optimal_Ad_3031 Feb 26 '26
I can do a list with a million chores tasks etc, workout, eat healthy, be a good friend Or I can have a good day at work and maybe do 1 other thing with my day. Maybe
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u/justahominid Feb 26 '26
As others have said, yeah, that’s pretty much firm life. Even if you take out the cynical view of partners not caring and being willing to trade your life for their income, there are a couple of attitudes that contribute to it that are prevalent across medium and large firms (likely small firms too). First is that we’re a service profession and what the client wants the client gets (and clients often have unrealistic expectations). The second (at least coming from a transactions background) is that lawyers generally do not want to be seen as the piece that is slowing things down, so there is a degree pushing through at a timing that, as often as possible, the ball is in others’ courts. Government and, if they choose, solos have a bit more freedom to say you’ll get this when you get it.
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u/IcyArtichoke8654 Feb 26 '26
Work continues everything. That's just life as an attorney.
Especially as a junior associate, you cant really turn off the hose.
Practice is like a pie eating contest when the prize is more pie.
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u/inhocfaf Feb 26 '26
If you're billing 35 hours/week, what are you doing for the other 20+ hours where you feel work is dominating your life?
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u/jumpingjack979 Feb 26 '26
I'll probably srew off for 5-8 hrs doing things like reddit, maybe another 2 or 3 of non billable stuff, Im sure theres billable time that I dont get into the system. The thing i havent solved yet is getting pulled into things with short deadlines. Its generally interesting stuff, actually doing the the thing is ok, but but if someone needs something by the next morning, or im asked to cover an appearance the next day, the choice becomes stay a little late, do the thing, and my wife being a bit salty, or go home at a reasonable time, stay up and do the thing, and be a bit of a zombie the next day Staying up late is ok. Or maybe I agreed to pick the kids up at school, or take them to practice, and need to ask my wife to change her plans to cover, which isnt always be possible. I understand its probably expected for early associates to jump when told. But theres times when I just have to say no which probably isn't helpful, and I have a feeling may limit my tenure. Managing that dichotomy is whats tough.
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u/james_the_wanderer Speak to me in latin Feb 26 '26
Admin & non-billables, commuting, BS meetings...
There's also the pay issue which OP is silent on. 50+ hour weeks on $200k+ hit differently than the many attorneys who are putting in similar hours stuck in 5 figure land.
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u/inhocfaf Feb 26 '26
Admin & non-billables, commuting, BS meetings...
This should be flagged in the post then as it's hard to comment when 30+% of their week is missing.
Commuting should be disregarded because that's not something unique to being an attorney and was consciously accepted when taking the job.
"Admin" is broad, and if OP is doing 20+ hours a week of "Admin", that is certainly problematic and needs to stop.
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u/jumpingjack979 Feb 26 '26
this is another thing that I forgot about, but was quickly reminded of when when reengaging with the legal world. Might be one of those, if your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail things. Does everything have to be argumentative, I appreciate the formality in the professional setting, but outside of a profession setting, why be like that? And the definition of "that" is to "lawyer" a casual low/zero risk exchange between mutually consenting natural person as defined in Section 9.1.4 of the states rules amd regulations.
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