Feeling particularly oppressed by the pressure of the billable hour today. On one hand, I feel like the pressure to bill literally keeps me from living the kind of life I want to live. On the other hand, a lower salary would also keep me from living the kind of life I want to live. What’s a person to do? 😭

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That is why many attorneys get their skills in big law and ultimately move to firms where they can market and grow their own book so that they can dictate their own future. It is a pay cut but golden handcuffs can really hurt when you are more senior. The growth becomes more important than the money

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Also the type of matters I work on are not the type of cases that would come to me anytime soon as my own clients. I’m one year from partnership at my firm. I generally love the work that I do but the constant stress of needing to bill hours and feeling like I can’t afford (in terms of hours) to take the foot off of the gas is just getting to me.

I can relate. I addressed this by doing 2 things: 1) I went on a flex arrangement where my billable requirement is 80% of normal; 2) I switched to a non-partner track role where expectations are lowered and billable requirement also dropped by another 100 hours. All told my billable req is now only 1500, and I still get BigLaw money (or at least 80% of it), but with much more time than before to do what’s important to me.

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Watch out for those golden handcuffs!

I 100% feel you there. Moved in house recently and love the extra time and less stress...but I'd be lying if I didn't think of the financial constraints :/

No I'm in corporate. I hear you - even litigators I've seen have migrated to Corp work when going in house, though I have rarely seen litigators who do litigation while in house

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Additional Information added / pinned in the comments.

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I don't know who needs to hear this, but I have a few former classmates and colleagues sweating over lateral interviews. Take a deep breath and relax.

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Third, remember that the people interviewing you are human beings. Connect with them, be personable.

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