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Hi All,
I have joined cognizant yesterday. I came to know that office location is bantala in Kolkata. I do not want to work in bantala location. I have talked with my recruiter. But hs said offer location is decided on project allocation. How can I change the location to other location? If I leave the job will it be any problem?
Cognizant
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I actually don’t care about billable hours so much (work was always there and I never got reprimanded for low hours because of quality). I’m leaving because the 24/7 culture. I couldn’t make my peace with living a life where my personal life, physical and mental health, and overall well-being was always sacrificed for clients. Great partners and a great firm doesn’t change that.
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Those client relationships are rare and building a whole practice from them even rarer. I wouldn’t mind the transactional nature of most client relationships if it wasn’t so extremely demanding. After 10 years, I felt like I was done with putting my family and friends aside for clients that like my work and would be sad if something happened to me, but also would just move on easily. I realized it’s just time to prioritize other things and the money just wasn’t worth it anymore.
C1 nails all the reasons why I don’t see myself in (big) law firm life for too long. Life is too short, and there are too many wonderful things to sacrifice for the sake of chasing green. All I want is a comfortable salary doing work I enjoy at least some of the time, so I can live a fulfilling life outside of my job.
I have this as in house counsel and it's great. Ten years later and I feel like I'm experiencing something akin to teenage freedom again.
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Billable hours. Stress when you’re billing a lot. Stress when you’re not billing a lot. No such thing as a real vacation since they’re just days you’re falling behind on billables unless you’ve worked a ton to build up a bank. Working as an external service provider on matters you have no real stake in. Too many bougie people focused on fancy schools and money and shiny things. No benefits.
Based on personal experience talking with other lawyers who have made similar moves, I think there is a combination of things. As Counsel 1 says, the 24/7 expectation is a huge factor, but I also think a it has a lot to do with the concept of the billable hour (more than the number of hours billed). In a typical job, including most in house jobs, you are expected to work enough so that you accomplish a task effectively and successfully. In a law firm, you are expected to (a) accomplish the task effectively and successfully, and in most cases, exceptionally well, (b) account for every minute of time you spend on said task with a written description, and (c) obtain a sufficient number of tasks to generate enough billable time to be sufficiently profitable to your firm. In all of this, there may be very little freedom of thought or room for creativity in the work you are doing, depending on the nature of the work. The sum of all this is that you may be required to spend a significant amount of time thinking about things you may not want to think about, or acquiring more of those kinds of tasks.
I would recommend a book called Drive by Daniel Pink to anyone interested in this topic. It is an examination of the psychology behind the factors that motivate humans in life and in their professions. He references the concepts above, and in one chapter, spends a page or two talking about how lawyers are often very unhappy due to the nature of their work and how it conflicts with these motivational factors. It also provides some insight as to things you can do (some practical, some not) to reduce these feelings.
Here’s my List:
-Billable hours, particularly all the extra stuff expected of you that you don’t get credit for (this may vary by firm, but my firm didn’t offer any credit for development hours, but still expected us to do tons of speaking, webinars, article writing, book contributions, etc.). Also, a slow month, for reasons beyond your control, could tank your year, and leave you struggling to get out of that hole for the rest of the year.
-You’re only as good as your last mistake culture. No recognition for hard work and successes, but one little mistake, and it follows you.
-Sexism and bias. Yes, it does still exist in law firms, and it is draining.
-24/7 culture, and in particular, partners not setting reasonable boundaries with clients. I work with one particular outside counsel who is a partner at biglaw, and she is completely up front at the outset when she doesn’t think she can meet my requested deadline. And sometimes she even tells me it’s because the associate who works with her is slammed, or going through something personal. I 100 percent respect her for that, and wish I could have worked for her when I was working at a firm. Not once have I taken work away from her because of it.
-Firms turning a blind eye to “problematic” partners. I don’t care if a certain partner is brilliant or a rainmaker. Mistreating associates and staff should NEVER be tolerated. If they’re so brilliant, then fine, let them work alone with no administrative or associate support.
-The business of law. I love the practice of law. I hated all the focus on networking, bringing in new clients etc. Granted, that is more just a personal issue for me. Personality-wise, I’m just not a salesman. I love being in-house and getting to focus on my legal work and working with my clients.
Thank you for such a thoughtful response! I second the previous comment - this makes me feel very good about my decision to try something different!
For me it was the feeling that every hour not billed or used as biz dev time was falling behind. As a corp associate, so much of the job was ripe for automation to drive efficiencies. Of course, efficiency in a law firm just means that you’ve deprived yourself of billable time, so firms only come up with “innovative solutions” when clients refuse to pay or other businesses have done it first and commoditized the work.
In house, the goal is efficiency. And if i am efficient and can knock off early, I’ve captured the fruits of my labor, I’m not ruminating on how I’m going to need to hit 1950 hours soon or i won’t be able to take a vacation. I loved the entrepreneurial parts of being at a firm and getting your own clients but the model was so toxic.
Rising Star
All of what you said plus weird hierarchy At companies, people don't treat assistants or entry level folks worse. They are simply colleagues. In biglaw--not so.
I recently went in house after 5 years at a couple law firms. Definitely grappling with buyer's remorse at times, given we bought a house, thinking of starting a family, etc. and the biglaw money could definitely help in those areas. Then i wondered exactly what you're wondering - what is it that drove me off the biglaw edge? More so than the billable hour, for me it was the unconditional "yes" and unconditional "I'm available" attitude we had to have towards clients, their work, goals and timelines. The most aggravated I'd get while in biglaw were the times the client didn't even know anything about a request (the substance or the logistics behind getting it done) but would just demand it get done. More so than my firm or the colleagues there, it was certain clients and the client/firm dynamic that I think ended up grinding my gears the most...
I disliked the "up or out" culture my firm had, especially when it provided no clear roadmap for going up.