Getting and keeping a job with a large law firm is extremely competitive. For the majority of attorneys, entering a large law firm after law school is the culmination of years of study, achievement and sacrifice.
In this article, you will learn the unwritten rules you need to follow to survive and thrive in a big law firm at time when the option of leaving practicing law is considered by more and more attorneys.
The fact that the future for most large law firm attorneys holds (1) less money, (2) less prestige, (3) less important work, and (4) the strong possibility they may even stop practicing law says something. Big firm life is not for everyone; however, I sincerely believe that many people who should be in large law firms are not because they do not understand how to keep those jobs.
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This article is about how to keep a job in a large law firm. There are major benefits to staying employed with a large law firm. There is the income, prestige, and other benefits that will result from this commitment. The most important and challenging legal work is done inside of law firms. When a large company has a serious issue to work on, they do not do it in-house. They use an outside law firm.
Here are the biggest mistakes most attorneys make in large law firms that individually (and cumulatively) end their careers: 1. Getting Psyched Out
When I was practicing at the law firm Dewey Ballantine, I was at a cocktail party one evening, and one of the mid-level associates was joking around with a partner in the firm about how no one had made partner in the firm for 12+ years. “That’s because you all leave!” he told the mid-level associate.
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There is a lot of truth to this. People leave for a variety of reasons; however, it is generally the people who are able to “stick it out” who succeed in the long run. When I look back at the people who are successful partners in the firms I was a part of when I was young, for the most part, they kept their heads down, worked hard, did not gossip, and would not think of working in another firm.
Law firms feel a sense of loyalty to people who were summer associates and joined them right out of law school. For the morale of the firm, it is important that there is a hierarchy that allows people to rise. The more time you are at a law firm, the more political capital you get.
Most young attorneys have no idea what they are doing and make various mistakes and blunders on a consistent basis—even the most diligent of them. There are always “ego weak” partners in every firm who take great pride in putting down young associates and love to prove how little they know. This is perfectly normal and simply part of the process of learning. Many reviews can be quite brutal—and they are done this way to make sure that the person being reviewed improves.
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Many young attorneys have been praised in school and by their parents all of their lives. Getting negative feedback is not something they are used to, especially when they may be working 80 hours a week in a law firm for a faceless client.
I’ve seen many attorneys leave due to negative reviews. An attorney should never leave a firm over reviews. You should simply improve on the things the law firm told you. I also have a little secret…
Junior associates are generally not [that] profitable for a law firm. Once you hit a “sweet spot” inside the law firm and have between 3 and 6 years of experience, you will become quite profitable for the law firm. At that point, you will generally start getting “kick-ass reviews” where you are ranked highly on all factors. Reading the reviews of mid-level associates (provided the firm has work) is almost comical. Everyone is told he “is on the right track” and “things are looking good” (implying partnership is coming). By that point, most mid-level associates have purchased homes, are married, and may have children. They proudly bring home their reviews to show their wives. Their wives will believe that everything is going well.
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I cannot tell you how many glowing reviews I have seen strategically placed around homes of mid-level associates in the television room, on the kitchen table, on the nightstand, and so on. Just understand this: There is no need to leave due to a few bad reviews because they will get better once you are more profitable for the firm.
Another secret: The law firm at one point will be kissing your ass because it does not want you to leave yet. (Your profitability will start declining at year 7 or so, at which point reviews will again turn savage).
A final issue with reviews is this. Many law firms have issues caused by losing clients, recessions, partners leaving, and more. When this happens, the law firm may be under pressure to cut associates or get them to leave. What better tool than the negative review? Thus, just like positive reviews, negative reviews are often a “sham.” The point to remember is that you do not need to be the one who leaves when this happens. It may make sense to look for a job, but that may not work if other firms are also hemorrhaging associates.
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I once represented a client from New Jersey who was in the “mafia” and operating a “front business” that had been sued for some matter by a Chinese company. The client at one point called me from his cell phone and gave me a speech about respect and threatened me with physical harm if I did not get him the result he wanted.
Having spent the majority of my career up to that point in the asphalt business in Detroit and having been robbed and threatened by guys like him before, I proceeded to give him a piece of my mind and tell him that I’d be happy to meet him anywhere for a face-to-face confrontation. In response, he hung up the phone. A few minutes later, the partner assigned to the case showed up at my office door looking very happy.
“The client just called and said how much he respects you. He says he does not want anyone but you working on his case! I do not know what you did. Good job. Barnes!”
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While I hate to say it, many of the pencil pushers I was working with would have quit their jobs after being threatened. I was not bothered in the least because I understood the guy and knew it was just a “test” to see if he could push me around.
I’ve seen some associates having to spend 18 months living in a hotel room in a small city in the middle of nowhere reviewing documents and entertaining themselves with rental movies each night. I’ve also seen many of these same attorneys quit a few months in. They quit because “living in the suburbs of San Antonio is not New York!” or “I need a life.” I’ve seen many simply walk off the job.
You went to law school and worked hard for years to get this job and are leaving because you do not like your current assignment? You do realize how this is going to look to other employers, right?
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Perhaps the dumbest move by an attorney I ever saw was by one who miraculously got a job with one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in the Bay Area after having been unemployed for over a year. During his interviews, he expressed to the partners in the firm that he was most interested in white-collar litigation but that he would also be happy doing general commercial litigation. He was hired to do litigation.
Unfortunately, the firm did not have any white-collar litigation work when he started. Nevertheless, it started trying to give him all sorts of commercial litigation assignments, but he refused them all on the grounds that he only wanted to do white-collar litigation.
This lasted a few months until he was fired and blackballed from basically every large law firm in the country. He has been working as a contract attorney ever since.
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Many attorneys are under the impression that they can join another law firm and suddenly work fewer hours, have friendlier colleagues, earn just as much money, and that the grass really is greener on the other side.
When I first started practicing law, a friend of mine who was working at another law firm called me and told me how cool his firm was. He described attorneys driving around in Porsche convertibles, talking to major Hollywood producers on cell phones, and making all sorts of important deals. It sounded good to me!
Little did I know the law firm he was working for was having a hard time recruiting people and was offering associates a “bounty” of $20, 000 if they could bring in other attorneys. None of the attorneys at this law
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