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If you're able to get a position at Amazon, you could also likely get a job at any number of other companies with better work/life balance and culture.
If you want to do in-house Seattle, you might as well do Microsoft, Starbucks, Expedia, T-Mobile, etc. All of those have much better cultures
These comments are really funny. I have heard that the m and a group at amazon can be toxic but that is such a small proportion of the lawyers at the company. Most of us are business line lawyers that support a particular business unit.
As a business line lawyer, I find it to be extremely chill compared to east coast biglaw. Let me count a few ways it is less toxic:
1) Managers and supervisors are actually approachable and feel responsible for your development. Most of us have weekly syncs with our managers. If you’re not developing as a lawyer then it’s on your manager to help you. A biglaw partner would just not work with you again.
2) You’re expected to learn precedents from your colleagues and not invent the wheel. It’s not like you can’t ask around for work products in order to bill a client more or bc an attorney not technically staffed on the case can’t waste precious billable time speaking to you.
3) Your worth is not measured by the billable hour alone. Almost everyone has kids and other responsibilities and mutually pick up the slack for each other.
Question: assuming Amazon is picky about the attorneys it hires and only wants top tier qualifications, and if it’s quality of life is so poor, and it’s reputation in the industry for poor quality of life is so we’ll known, how do they get lots of new lawyers to come work for them?
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Lots of attorneys who are not in tech law want to move toward tech--it's an opportunity to go in house in an industry that say, a finance or investment management atty might not otherwise get.
Chief
I hear you’ll work hard and it’s a pretty much no-frills environment. But you’ll get to work pretty much anywhere else you want afterwards
Can you share which departments they were in?
I know many in house lawyers there who are happy. I really don’t understand the level of hate the in house dept gets.
Rising Star
I’ve had the opposite experience anecdotally all my friends/former classmates who worked for amazon hated it. Some people will thrive there and others won’t. However it’s well documented that overall company culture is toxic which speaking as an in-house attorney definitely impacts your ability to do your job well. OP A4 is right that some people do like it. If you want both perspectives you should search on LinkedIn and try to find 1st/2nd level connections who currently work there and also those who left. Reach out and try to get their perspectives if you want to hear both sides, but I stand by my earlier comment. I used to work at a “cool” but toxic company, in my opinion if you have to ask how toxic a place is, it is not worth it. There are other places you could go that are known to have positive cultures and I’d recommend looking there first.
I interviewed with Amazon and also got a feeling that it is not a good fit for everyone. My interviewer literally told me that fires everywhere and a lot of bs going on ( and for that I appreciate the honesty!). I was told that unlike in a big law, you may have time to research and come up with a solution, in Amazon you are expected to give an answer yesterday for mostly everything and take risks. Well, I once thought that it would be a great escape for me, but looking at these posts, I am glad that I did not end up there.