kwilkinson
Having a Ball
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2007
- Messages
- 32,245
- Reaction score
- 884
You're clearly an idiot. You must have graduated from the T14-18 tier.
Wrong! What the hell co uld he possibly know about being a lawyer,
Does this mean I r smurt?
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You're clearly an idiot. You must have graduated from the T14-18 tier.
Wrong! What the hell co uld he possibly know about being a lawyer,
Does this mean I r smurt?
You're clearly an idiot. You must have graduated from the T14-18 tier.
Ain't seen your ugly mug on a bus bench board billboard yet, onion-chopper. So no.
this is the most attention i've gotten on styleforum ever lol
All this talk about making it to BigLaw as if it's the be all, end all, of being a lawyer. Have you clowns paid any attention to what BigLaw did you its associates, staff, and even partners in the last few years? Even if you're giving up your life by billing 2,200+ hours/year, your ass could still be thrown out on the sidewalk less than 10 minutes after a partners' meeting. ****, after what BigLaw has done for recent graduates, the real question is why would any sane person want to go into BigLaw anymore. In any case, the current BigLaw model is fucked (save a few small elite firms). Join it at your own perile. /end rant
I think rumors of BigLaw's demise are greatly exaggerated.
my only concern is with the notion that i'm "limiting [myself] to either law or education"
yeah it doesn't seem great but i really have no other choice than to go to law school. i still have a couple years before 1L though.
I don't know, LD. There's a gross excess supply of attorneys (both unemployed and underemployed), with more coming every year, and there's no real sign of lower billing rates. On top of that, many GCs from Fortune 500 firms have flat out said they would not pay for 1st year associates. LPO is on the rise, and recent progress in ESI discovery technology has the promise of significantly reducing the doc review work available to junior attorneys (as well as contract attorneys). And then, there's this recent Altman Weil survey. There's a lot of structural changes going on right now because the economics just don't add up. Of course, BigLaw will continue to exist in the future, but I doubt their business model, vis a vis staffing and billing, as it existed up until now, will be the same in a few years.
Even if you're giving up your life by billing 2,200+ hours/year
Firms that grew in the late '90s and '00s by acquiring middle market, midlaw firms to increase their regional footprint (Baker McKenzie, K&L Gates, and tons more) will face increased pressure to get away from a highly leveraged employment model, which is how they drive partner profits. The partners at DLA Piper Orlando will just have to take a smaller share. Compensation models should go back to how they were when these midlaw firms were acquired.Originally Posted by crazyquik
Btw, speaking of billable hours, what's the usual ratio of actual hours vs. billable?
It's striking to compare today's expectations to a lawyer's reasonable workday in 1958. In that year, the ABA announced that unless a lawyer worked overtime, there were "only approximately 1,300 fee-earning hours per year." This assumed a five-day workweek plus half-days on Saturday. At that time, the ABA set a "realistic" goal of five or six billable hours a day. Today, a billable hour target of 1,300 billable hours a year would amount to a civilized part-time schedule—the equivalent of a three-day, part-time workweek in most large firms. Billing 2,000 hours a year may not seem onerous. The total can be reached in just over eight billable hours a day, setting aside four weeks of the year for vacation and national holidays. But studies consistently show that a lawyer must spend three hours in the office for every two hours of billable work. Lawyers can't simply bill time. They have to read and respond to mail and firm memos, go to meetings, read legal publications, and eat lunch—not to mention kib-bitz with colleagues, if not friends. To do all of this and make the 2,000-hours target, a lawyer must spend the equivalent of 12 hours in the office for each working day. Since the day hasn't gotten longer since 1958, the honest lawyer who commits to working "full-time"—to a schedule of 2,000 billable and thus 3,000 total hours—is giving his life to the firm.