Related Posts
Wednesday Wordle 508 - 2/6
⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I hate being an attorney. How do I get out.
Bowl Leader
Additional Posts in Law
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
It's great that you've revealed this so that the entire legal market can turn upside down and start bringing all their most important work to smaller firms with lower billing rates.
As someone that started in mid law and now works at a v10, this is just not true. Sorry to burst your bubble.
I did get a lot of responsibility as a young associate at my mid law firm, so when I lateraled, I was better at running matters than a lot of my new big law peers, but I was not getting trained as well substantively. I’ve been at my new firm for about 4 years now and I have just learned so much more than I ever could have at my mid law firm. I’m a better attorney now as an 8th year associate than 95% of the partners at my old firm and so are most of the other senior associates I work with.
This is the first time I hear someone say they’re an 8th year associate.
Pro
Not in my experience. They may have had greater responsibility at an earlier point in their career, but I have seen serious mistakes occur in Mid Law that I didn’t see in Big Law — like simply not reading the statute at issue, or using overturned case law.
I chuckled. Please note that any "midlaw" counsel/junior partner litigator likely can do the job of a Biglaw counsel or junior partner. I've worked in both. Midlaw=more experience. Biglaw = super confident/overconfident attitude because you're typically spoiled (great schools, clerkships, BIG paychecks/clients who listen - mostly). Not saying youre not also great attorneys (most who survive to counsel/junior partner are), but there are others just as good, if not better, at "midlaw" firms.
My source: I've worked in BIGlaw and midlaw, so lived it.
All lawyers are losers
It’s your inconsistent usage of hyphens that really gets me.
You prefer to do it differently… but it doesn’t mean that my approach was incorrect. You’re welcome to rebut. The bottom line is that you were trying to split hairs and be cutesy. Do you!
Cope
And seethe.
That has not been my experience as a purchaser of legal services. There are types of work the big law does not do. Mid law firms are better at those types of work.
As another purchaser of legal services, I’ve seen inexcusable work from both big law and mid law, and fantastic work from both. At the end of the day, I’m purchasing the attorney’s services, not the firm’s, so I’m going to find who does the best work regardless of firm size. We have a good bench of big law and mid law depending on the work we want done. I am more inclined to use big law or boutiques for more niche work though just because midlaw might not have the resources to fully support more niche practice groups.
Depends on the firm. You might start with less responsibility at Big Law with more hours expected, but more practice on the foundation. There's more resources, other associates, tools, and prior in-house cases/transactions from which you can crib/learn. Midsize is not bad, just a different animal.
I agree, different animals. I wouldn’t want a mid law associate touching my corporate finance work. Similarly, I wouldn’t want a big law associate touching my supplier issues.
#hottake
biglaw is t14 and mid law is tier 2 toilet. you are trying to justify billing biglaw hours for in house pay like the tier 2 law student justifying their conditional scholarship and tuition at a tier 2 over going to t14
Maybe maybe not but I just want to go where I get paid more
lawyers r dweebs who cant take risks like the chad technepreneur
It's not our decision to take the risk. We're always representing someone else's interests.
Imagine if we made the call to risk the client's money...
That and we have to role the dice all the time in difficult situations where we can't get certainty.
It’s a mixed bag at both. I’ve never worked in “Biglaw” but was in two AmLaw 200 firms for years. I once had a Biglaw partner ask whether it was necessary for a trust to have a trustee to exist, and argue that a potentially $10 million mistake his firm committed should be ignored.
I will, though, admit that there are typically more sophisticated projects and training available at BigLaw firms, but a lot of BigLaw gets trained there and then flees to mid-law to have a life, so it’s possible to have very good people at mid-law firms. On the other hand, some of the worst attorneys/partners I’ve ever worked with were at the AmLaw200 firms. They just assumed they were right, when they weren’t. (Admittedly that’s not “BigLaw” in the strictest sense, but I have sat across the table from attorneys at V10 firms and caught them in errors.)
As always, it’s down to the individual attorney, not necessarily the firm. But if you don’t already have an attorney in a niche area and need a specialist, it makes sense to start in BigLaw for your search if you have the budget.
Weerd
Cope
I don’t know about this. I worked in small and mid law for four years before joining big law. Big law lawyers are brilliant, and its partially because of the resources their firm equips them with. The staff is also consistently trained and efficient. When you have good support, you can do your job as a lawyer better.
No way.
biglaw supremacy in the firm realm
It's probably just because I do CapM and mid law tries to do that but can't get enough volume to learn it and do it well, but this has def not been my experience being across from them, even when they're just investor's counsel...
This makes a point—you’ll be exposed to much better, higher-level work at big law. I think associates in mid-law are likely better trial lawyers, but big-law work will often be much more cerebral. But there are smaller law firms that are priced at big law levels and capable of doing actually the best work in certain matters.
LOL. Nope.