Are the stereotypes about biglaw staffing litigation matters with massive teams basically myths or am I just in an unusual situation?

Mid level at AMlaw top 50 firm, most of my litigation matters, regardless of dollar amount, have 2-4 attorneys total on them. This means juniors/midlevels get tons of experience with depositions, drafting, court appearances and client contact but also means everyone is spread thin and underwater.

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I’m in employment at v50, so unless it’s a class action, it’s usually just me and a partner with a junior to handle basic assignments.

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Yes—massive teams are real for super complex cases or matters involving multiple proceedings. I’ve been on many truly large case teams working at V5s. Right now I’m on one with 12-14 active associates, and 5 partners/counsel. There are millions of documents involved (and we don’t even do first level doc review—we have contract reviewers for that), discovery needs to be taken from dozens of parties, we are having discovery taken from dozens of our defendants’ custodians, there are almost always live discovery disputes in front of the court, we have numerous experts to hire and work with on complex reports, class certification issues to work through…. The list goes on. Over a hundred non-party subpoenas have been served in the matter. We bill millions per month. But there are billions at stake, so that’s a drop in the bucket. No chance could we handle it with fewer people. We feel short staffed as it is.

Dollar amount in controversy isn’t everything. I’ve been on teams that are just a partner, a counsel, and 3-4 assocs even when it’s a >$100 million case with millions of documents. But if the number of workstreams and case schedule allow, that can be enough.

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Not sure about you, but I consider 4 attorneys on a single case to be a massive team.

That would be a massive team at my law firm, and we rarely do that and only for huge cases with a lot of doc review.

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Can’t say I’ve been on many cases that didn’t require tons of doc review

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It really depends on the case. If it’s a high-stakes, multi-jurisdictional litigation, there can be a dozen partners and many associates. For more run-of-the-mill matters, teams comprise of one or two juniors, one midlevel, one or two seniors, and one or two partners. It’s really at the doc review stage that the additional manpower comes in.

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