Due to laterals and difficulty hiring I’m now in a position as a 2nd year corporate/M&A attorney where I have the responsibility/expectations of a mid-senior level associate. How can I make the most of this and grow/thrive rather than drown under the outsized responsibility or burn out?

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Ask for help when you don’t know things, push back when you are over staffed. I’m in this exact position, as a second year in M&A I’m expected to be the junior, mid AND senior associate and so I only take on max 2 deals at a time

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My requirement is technically 160/month but recently the amount of work I’ve had to do is making a slow day 8 billable hours, plus non-billable work too. We’re all absolutely swamped so it’s not just me but my assignment list is long and I’ve had to put out a lot of fires on top of it.

Yep that was me throughout my second and third years (2020-2021). Deal teams that used to be 4 associates (senior, mid, 2 juniors) when I was a first year became 2-3 juniors (with me, as the second or third year, as the senior most associate). I went from only slightly uncomfortably being on 3-6 matters as the first year to barely holding my own on 2 matters + corporate handholding stuff (issuing annual opinions, updating LLCAs, etc.) that no partner wanted to touch.

I survived by taking a 2-week vacation every 6-8 months (I take the first 2 or so days to catch up on work and then basically don't work at all for the remaining 10-12 days) and reached out for a LOT of help/asked questions at all hours of the night to random partners, and said no to a lot of interesting sounding deals and great people. Organize yourself as best as you can (your to-do list is your lifeline to sanity), remind yourself you need to take MINIMUM care of yourself (for me, that's telling myself to eat at least two meals a day and sleep (even just 3-4 hours when things are really bad)), and try to take a half day or full day off just once a week -- even when things are busy.

I'm feeling burnt out though, and am happily enjoying the slight lull I'm experiencing.

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I’m not burnt out yet and am doing a lot of proactive self-care. Also, my supervisors are acutely aware that they’re in a precarious place if they burn us out so they’re doing what they can to be flexible. I could probably lateral to a bigger, better paying firm pretty easy right now if things got bad and they know it.

But yeah, I’m basically the one drafting 60 page purchase agreements for deals instead of just being a due diligence, dial-in, and disclosure schedules/signature page drone.

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