Omg.. everyone is leaving. I'm a junior and there's no mid levels and seniors. Its just me and the partner and I have no idea whats going on or what to do. Firm says its trying but ahhhh!!!!!

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You have two options:

1) Stay and distinguish yourself
2) Leave and send a message your firm isn’t doing enough to retain talent in this market. It’s a laborer’s market. Blaze your own trail. Your employer would do the same were the odds reversed.

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Maybe, but my firm gave out a massive salary raise and staying and collecting that money is definitely easier than looking for a job that will pay me about the same.

Money changes everything.

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Same. We have maybe two midlevels and three or four seniors left in our group of ~30 people. Very counsel and partner heavy. The juniors get staffed on everything and there’s often no midlevel to buffer, or the buffers are stretched too thin. I’ve already been staffed on a matter where it was just me, counsel and partner. I’m leaving.

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Yeah when I was a first year, certain types of complex deals had a partner, 6-7th yr associate, 3-5th year associate and me, or me and a second first year. I did the diligence and proofreading and minor drafting - typical first year stuff. Barely did much more as a second year.

Now I'm a third year and it's literally the partner, me and a first year and the partner is wondering why I can't make judgment calls and am not calling up senior opposing counsel to discuss deal terms.

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Yep. I’m really convinced that lawyers are terrible managers.

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I’m frequently the only associate on my matters and I’m drowning. Trying to tough it out, and the firm is generally appreciative of how hard I’m trying. But my best is definitely not what my best used to be, now that I’m single handedly doing the heavy lifting on multiple matters at once.

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This is happening at my firm, too. If one more mid-year or senior associate leaves I think I’ll have to go. It’s too much.

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Where do all these people go? Do they mostly go in house or to another firm?

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Wait, it is not normal to not have a mid-level? I've only ever worked directly with junior or senior partners since about half way through my first year. Def thought that was just how big law works?

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Depends on your group. In my lit group especially on big cases, there should be at least a junior, senior and partner and usually multiple juniors and a midlevel as well. Juniors run discovery and midlevels/seniors help get the final drafts of motions out the door. It was nuts when there was no midlevel or senior and I had to do all of these tasks on my own.

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The biglaw exodus right now feels crazy…

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Hope you have some good paralegals!

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What firm

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