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JPMorgan Chase recently introduced a policy change to increase the notice period to 60 days. I'm a 602 and resigned recently and yet my LWD is showing up as 30 days from now. Anyone recently resigned can confirm if they are facing the same or new policy is in effect. This is causing confusion with the next companies I'm interviewing with.
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I started as a plaintiff’s attorney and switched to defense after two years. I’ve been in defense for nearly 20 years. I did not find plaintiff’s work more rewarding. That’s not to say it was never rewarding - there were people I definitely felt that I helped. But there were also a lot of people that…let’s just say I could see why they were fired. Like the person who said her former employer was totally lying when they claim they fired her for tardiness…then she showed up over an hour late to her deposition. Or the person who was fired for being rude to customers and was always rude to me. There are also clients who want to treat you like a therapist, or abuse you for not like having a trial date set immediately after filing their lawsuit. Or people who don’t want to take your advice because some random person they know thinks they have a great case and can get millions.
On the defense side, if you think your client screwed up, you can recommend settlement and make things right, or at least as right as you can. On the plaintiff side, if you think your client screwed up, you’ve basically still got to just sit by their side and suck it up. So I definitely sleep better being on the defense side.
I’m another plaintiff-side turned defense attorney, and I agree entirely with A1 - not rewarding at all. I understand bad things happen to good employees, but 90% of case intake on the plaintiff side was seeing fair things that happened to bad employees… who I then had to represent.
For example, I was once sent hours of recordings of my client screaming at their boss as proof positive that something unlawful happened to them because, “if I got this mad at my boss they must have done something wrong.”
I feel better about myself as an attorney switching to the defense. I no longer slap a 300k demand on whatever walks in the door and sit there hoping the other side doesn’t ask for my client’s text messages. I no longer feel like I’m causing the needless waste of resources just so my client can harass his former employer. But on defense, I feel like we get the heat that plaintiff’s counsel wants to give to their client, but can’t. That needs to stop.
Most of the time, for me. I do both (at a union-side firm) and the righteous plaintiff-side cases are my favorite part of the job. Handled a small wage and hour class action on behalf of low wage workers and got each worker awarded $30K — the calls from the workers at the end were really so great.
Yes and sometimes. If you work for yourself it’s more rewarding
I work for myself. So to answer you, yes. but it can be a grind. If I worked for someone else who was greedy or just couldn’t do it then no. I have friends who work for good companies and they are well compensated like 300-400k annually. Allegedly. I never got there I made over 200k back in 2023 at a firm bc I brought in good cases. Make more now. But it’s more work and alot more responsibility.
I find plaintiff side work very rewarding and could not switch to the defense side. I think both sides have their own respective difficulties with clients. But generally I find my work very rewarding- particularly the sexual harassment and assault cases I take.
I agree with AA1 - the sexual harassment cases are extremely fulfilling. Discrimination cases can be as well, but unfortunately it’s true that there are some BS cases out there. Your ability to be selective in taking on plaintiffs really makes a difference. Like I did a semester at the EEOC in law school, and that was a dream bc they get to choose the best most righteous cases.
Very rewarding. You get to actually make a difference in a real person’s life rather than just saving a corporation a few bucks. Of course, you have to be selective in your cases and pursue only righteous cases, but the payoff is worth it. Also, plaintiff side can be much more lucrative and flexible than the defense side if you do it right.
Of course some cases turn sideways. Clients lie to you on occasion or they didn’t have all the information, but that’s true of both plaintiffs and defendants. I can’t tell you how many defense attorneys I’ve seen turn red in depos when they realized their client had lied to them or withheld key evidence that we were able to obtain. You do your best to ask probing questions during intake, try to get supporting documents and witnesses pre-lit, and trust your gut. Sometimes you end up being wrong or lied to and you can drop the case if that happens, but overall I’ve found my clients to be honest hardworking people who got screwed by their employers for a variety of reasons. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of folks who come to me who are just angry they got fired but deserved it, or sad story but nothing illegal happened, but those are the cases you reject. If you are at a good firm or have the freedom of case selection as a solo, you are likely rejecting 95% or more of potential cases.