The last 1.5 years has been insane in transactional big law. Every day an article talks about the insane lateral market and how in demand associates are. Why are big law associates so willing to bill 2200+ without asking for other standard non-cash comp focused benefits that similarly in demand professionals receive in comparable industries (e.g., banking, medicine) like protected Saturdays, 401(k) matching, and true equity partnership tracks that are not illusory and that are <10 years, etc.?

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Good timing, my firm just had a survey about benefits (firmwide so staff and attys) asking to rank benefits and asking about coming back to the office vs in office "perks". I'll admit I didn't think to suggest anything other than matching contributions for non partners bc idk what other industries have for benefits packages

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I ignore emails on Saturdays and my firm lives with it. Given the number of senior associates we don’t have, most others are doing something for themselves as well.

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401k matching and billable credit for PTO are the two things I was genuinely shocked to learn aren’t things at most firms. It seems so obvious.

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We’re so underpaid at only $210k+ starting salary, and to think someone making 25% of my salary gets a 6% match but not me is unfathomable…

Even lowly employees at typical corps get RSUs or other incentives. There's no reason that firms couldn't provide some similar benefit. It could even be tied into ultimately making partner. The fact that they don't provide much besides the core salary + medical is largely driven by their desire to keep the money for themselves. Even the massively inflated non-equity "partner" ranks get shafted in this process. Associates are just a cog in the system and none of us should ever feel any sense of loyalty to one particular firm for that reason.

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FWIW I’m with you on this, but equity in most law firms serves a fundamentally different purpose than equity in startups, partly because the rules around non-lawyer ownership makes it difficult to create a liquid market for that equity, so there’s no easy way of creating a system where you give folks law firm equity, encourage people to make that equity more valuable over time, and let them cash out that equity when it appreciates.

Related convo: https://joinfishbowl.com/post_3rbqyo1rg7

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Also, I think they don’t meet associate demands because big law salaries are so inflated compared to the rest of the market. If you don’t like it, they’ll leave and the turnover must not be hurting their bottom line too much.

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Oh yah. I make over $100k more a year switching from small law to big law. Same hours.

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^ THIS!

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At least in Big Law, associates are easily replaceable and regularly replaced. With the focus on churning class years of lawyers to weed out the non-true believers, most associates are young and inexperienced enough to just want the paycheck and not risk fighting the Man.

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Associates aren’t that easily replaceable right now. At least not at the volume each firm needs. Otherwise, the lateral market wouldn’t be so wild.

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If you believe anyone but jr bankers get Saturday off, you're dreaming.

right, because none of us have spouses or partners with other jobs who take full weekends like normal people lol

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I just want more cash comp... which in the main we have been getting.

Because you make more money for less skill and value-add than any other profession (doctors are basically 8th years before they can even assert any control over their insane hours and I think we all know about Deloitte and Goldman for accounting and banking, respectively). Sorry to be a downer, but you’ve seriously misjudged associate value in this profession.

True hurts, buttercup

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