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Mentor
Yeah pretty much. Especially as you get more senior, you’re likely going to want to develop a specialty so you can market yourself better. They’re giving you the opportunity to pick. Just think about it before declining based on interest, once you say you’re not interested in a type of case the invitations to be staffed on that type will stop. For example I have no interest in white collar. The partners in my group have long since stopped asking me if I want to be staffed on those matters.
Thanks, needed the reinforcement. I’m very senior and try not to lose sleep over insignificant things like some juniors are prone to do. (Like fretting when a partner said “thx” instead of “Thanks!”). But this thing in particular always gives me pause, like taking ownership of my case load could be frowned upon.
Mentor
Agreed that “interest” is real. Sounds like you’re a litigator so maybe there’s less specialization but as you get senior you specialize. I turned down a deal recently because it’s an area I have no experience in and I’m too senior for partners to be ok with the cost of my learning it on the job/not running matters mostly independently. It’s not a trap, free market means everyone is in charge of shaping their own career. It will also come back to haunt you come partnership time if you cannot spin a narrative of how you developed a speciality for yourself based on intentional curation of matters, among other things.
Subject Expert
If you have a full plate, you can do whatever you want. If you’re billing like 2 hours and say you’re not interested, then that’s a different story.
Subject Expert
No need to worry about saying no thanks
posting on fishbowl? smells like capacity...
Uh… yep
If you have capacity you shouldn’t decline. If you aren’t, pass and say it doesn’t sound great. If you really have a good relationship with the partner you can just be honest and say it doesn’t sound like a case for you but you’re happy to help if no one else can.
I realize this could be a passive aggressive thing from some people who don’t actually care whether I have time or interest but just want a yes. But I like the people I work with, and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I think it’s genuine. I turn down deals I’m not interested (and my go to partners now know what I like / don’t like and keep that in mind when staffing me. Unless I’m particularly close with a partner, I don’t usually come out and say I don’t have interest, I just say I’m at capacity / have a couple things that are about to ramp up / need a breather / etc. if I’m close with them I may respond with an “ehhh…” and that usually does it
It’s not that deep omgg
?
I agree with others that when you have capacity, you should say yes even if it’s not your favorite type of case. But even when I’m busy, if an interesting new case with a partner I like comes up, I might still accept it even if it means less sleep for a bit.