Related Posts
What’s WLB like in business roles at Google?
More Posts
Need 11 likes for DM.please help
Hi Sharks
Please let me know following
What salary to expect for 16 YOE ,for Chief Manager 2 (Information Tech) post at ICICI
What is % of CTC is performance bonus for CM2 post?
If I joined in Jan , will I get a bonus in Mar?
Usually how much % do they give for a generic rating? ICICI Bank HDFC Bank Limited Kotak Mahindra Bank Bank of America Bank of America JPMorgan Chase
Additional Posts in Big Law
Dickinson Wright salary scale?
Best recruiters for moving in-house?
Coach
What are the top litigation practices in LA?
Enthusiast
Community Builder
Enthusiast
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
Coach
You can say you too are at capacity. Capacity doesn’t mean every waking hour of the day.
Coach
Well when it gets assigned to you anyways, reiterate I’m at capacity so will get to this x days from now.
Is everyone on track for hours? If so they’re not underworking, you’re overworking
You'll make Partner if you don't burn out first. Welcome to Big Law.
The new partners announced at my firm had an average of ~2400 hrs. I think some firms define "taking ownership" as a willingness to bill 200 hrs/mo. Maybe other firms are different but where I am it's the top billers who make partner, not the ones who barely make target or come in under target. In fact, to be partner eligible, you need to make hours at least 2 of the prior 3 years.
Coach
Sometimes just how the cookie crumbles. If you do good work people want to staff you.
Mentor
C1 - I guess thats kind of what I’m getting at. I agree that the reward for good work should be more work, but partners (as managers) should make an effort to not overload the “good” workers. I think that mentality ends up hurting firms by driving those workers out the door, and in some cases, out of the profession.
Subject Expert
I don't ever intend of coming close to billing 2000 hours. Firm can fire me and then I'll just go do something else for, sure, less money, but so long as it's in the ~150k ball park, my wife and I can comfortably quasi retire at around 50 (either we can choose to do nothing or do much more chill stuff to cover expenses). Having the financial freedom and independence, and frankly, this realization has made this really dumb and awful job somewhat more palatable...the longer I do it, the sooner I can leave.
Mentor
This is when you should have a talk with a more senior partner and explain what is happening. They should then step in and help divert work elsewhere.
Yeah I was in OP's boat and I had a meltdown kind of with my partner mentor and he helped me say no and I feel better lol 🥴
Mentor
BigLaw is extremely self directed. You get to bill as much or as little as you want, and then you deal with the consequences of your decision. A whole lot = maybe partnership. Very little = you leave after a few years. Something in the middle and you can last a long time but won’t make partner.
You have to learn to set boundaries too, if that’s what you want. If you want to be partner tho, then get used to this. This is the game.
Just keep working through the backlog. Avoid new matters if you can. 250/mo for 12 mo is not sustainable. You will burn out. You need a good 140 or something one of these months.
Enthusiast
I’ve been there when I’ve had a colleague literally bill nothing for months on end ..I was annoyed with him but I also recognized that if the firm hired just a few more people, it wouldn’t be the case that one person could derail the rest of ours work life balance
This is how large law firms work
Mentor
Make friends with the staffing partner and get staffed on their matters if possible. They know what everyone’s capacity and when I’ve been at capacity but other partners have tried to get me to do their work anyway, they’ve been able to step in and suggest another associate so that partner doesn’t take it out on me.
Mentor
Try dealing with 20% of the associate pool working at 50% to 70% of hours. Agree with what was said above though.
Enthusiast
Not at my firm. One partner told me he literally never hit his hours target as an associate and still made partner. However, he is really good at a very specialized area of law.