All of this is very nice, but we're ignoring (at least) one crucial factor in determining the return on an associate's salary: overhead.

Even if I'd agree to take less pay, I'd probably still need my office, my secretary, support staff help, etc., and I'd still want my expensive benefits like healthcare. All that crap adds up to make me less and less profitable as my hours fall even if my salary is roughly matched to my hours. So there's a good chance that at, say 1600 hours, I'm worth a lot less to a BigLaw firm than $120k.

You suck 1:18!

Seriously, I feel this is the kind of thing that can be arranged - we need our secretaries, but we don't need them as much - if there is a critical mass of people working part-time, you can arrange the numbers so that you can reduce the number of secretaries.

The only one that does not work for is healthcare, but there, making the associates pay a small supplement to make up for the time lost is a fair solution.

Consulting firms are all over this, and given that we compete in a similar labor pool and follow similar business models, there is no reason that we cannot copy them. It would improve both the substance of the profession and its image dramatically.

You people are pathetic. If you don't like it, then leave. The incessant whining makes it unbearable for people who don't mind the work.

The key factor overlooked is that more often than not the number of hours are less of a problem (though of course a problem once you are 2000+) than the "timing" of those hours. The nature of the profession will never allow for lawyers to control when those hours will need to be worked. Any attempts to allow flex schedule or 9-5 is just impractical in big business big law. If litigation filing due you will work day and night to get document perfect even if the week before you were slow. If comments come in at 5 and agreement needs to be turned by morning you will work all night even if you did nothing all day 9-5. That is why clients pay premium rates for biglaw and why biglaw pays the biglaw salaries.

1:37: The incessant whining about whining makes it unbearable for people who might otherwise like the work, but hate the incessant whining about whining.

Hypocrite.

The incessant whining about those who whine about whining is unbearable for those of us who don't whine, but would like to whine or would at least like to whine about others who don't whine but who probably whine at home about those who whine about whining.

And don't even get me started about hating those who whine about whiners who whine about whining. Whining.

I think it makes great sense, if the whole firm is on that kind of schedule. Problems arise when you intertwine the part-timers with the full-timers. It's really, incredibly, annoying trying to arrange my work because another associate on a team wants to play mommy on thursday afternoon and friday instead of lawyer. Now, I recognize that's her choice, but I would never pick that person for the deal team if I had a choice, it's difficult enough to get everything done when you can control your own schedule, let alone having to work all weekend so I can have stuff to her on Tuesday instead of Thursday for a Friday closing and have to rearrange my whole life around her part-time flex schedule.

I would gladly work less, too, if there were comparable pay and high quality work, but having been the full-time biller on a team with a part-timer, I would never wish to put that added stress on someone, knowing what we all put up with already anyway

I can't wait to get out of school and perform my 8:30-5:00 M-F small law job!

Flex-time doesn't have to mean 9-5. I'd be fine working at the normal unpredictable hours 10 months out of the year or just maintaining a lighter case load, such that after I'm at the office all weekend getting a filing together, I take two or three days off, or after trial, taking a month or so off. The point being, if I was only expected to bill 1600 hours instead of 2000, life would be better, even if many of those hours were worked after 5 o'clock. And as a result, I'd be willing to accept significantly less pay.

agree with 2:46

I think a lot depends on what kind of law you practice, if you do something highly regulatory, where you're monitoring your clients' activities on a virtually daily basis, I don't know how it could possibly work, I mean, a month is an eternity to some of these people. Plus, you're basically acknowledging that you never want to be partner, how could you manage your client's schedule if you took a month off? What if something came up while you were out that was an emergency. Clients (at least large ones) don't want lawyers who take time off, that's not why they pay our rates, they want people there when they need them. Period.

My wife says I whine just to hear myself whine.

life is good at the FDIC!! 100k and 40-45hr weeks!

Bottom line is that if you take such a more humane (i.e. normal working person) schedule you will notice a decline in work assignments, certanly quality work, and less opportunity for promotion. That may be okay with you, but that is the cost for the trade off. Not just a decrease in pay.

Gov Law hit it on the head -- that is the trade-off. Less money and more life.

2:46 has it right.

I'd GLADLY work 80% hours for 70% pay (or whatever the overhead trade-off might be). And I have no illusions about making the schedule predictable; I just want to be able to enjoy the slow times without racing to pick up doc review in order to stay on track for 2000 hours.

Firms that do not offer reduced schedule policies will lose great people. I know many top notch associates and counsel who have left top firms because of lack of life-friendly policies. My former firm (an AM LAW 25) claims to be woman and family friendly but has a strict policies that prohibits reduced schedule partners. This is irrespective of how reduced you are, or even if you have and bill clients. And, you have to return to full time status for two full years before you are even eligible to be partner. I finally got fed up and took my clients and left. Let me tell you my new firm is more than happy to have the originations. And with my partner platform, my business has substantially expanded. New firm benefits from the training from old firm. Old firm simply dumb dumb dumb. Why not retain great people who just want to bill less, especially if they have client relationships? As another (smart) big firm partner at another firm told me "we are not out there looking for part time people, but why would we want to lose someone good just for being inflexible." He is right. I'd rather have a highly efficient reduced schedule lawyer than an inefficient full timer just looking to fill timesheets.

Enjoy the ride while it lasts. Big law is going to begin to slowly unravel with this economy. While not every firm will be affected, and perhaps salaries will not decrease, salaries and hiring will certainly not increase. The only employer that is secure: the feds.

I for one don't get why there are NO predicable jobs in the top of the law profession.

I know so many top of their class, Ivy grads who take jobs in public interest, not because they love the work necessarily, but because they want a "normal job" that doesn't require late nights.

I mean, you take someone who graduated Harvard/Yale/Columbia, clerked for a fed judge, was on law review, etc etc.

They are willing to be paid, say, 120K a year to work 9-6 five days a week.

You're telling me there's NO room in Biglaw for them? I mean, they are offering a pay cut.

Would most big firms prefer a mediocre law student available 24/7, or a "top" graduate available only during business hours?

I don't get it.

Is the talent not really worth anything in fact? Do the firms just hire from top schools for the name prestige, not for the actual quality of employee?

I firmly believe the billable hour model is kept for management reasons.

Recording hours allows firms to see who works the hardest.

Lawyers don't like to manage employees. The billable hrs makes that a lot easier.

For me, it's not the amount of hours as much as the unpredicability.

Like, I live in NYC. I would like to walk into work each day and know that, barring some extremely random circumstances, I can have dinner with a friend at 8pm, or go to gym at 6pm, or make plans to visit parents on Saturday.

I would take a SERIOUS pay cut for that knowledge.

lawyers are poor managers and the partners egos don't allow them to recognize this.

Two words for those that want a biglaw salary without the unpredictable/insane hours...patent prosecution. It's the radiology/dermotology of law. People will call you a nerd or not a real lawyer, but if your ego can take that then you can make a biglaw salary while working 9-7 or 8 every day, with rare weekends.

why not work 7-5:30 M-F and 6 hours on Sat. Can't you get in the requisite billable hours in that time frame?

Lotstalove, baby, you ain't worked for da big law firm.

All those that say they would take a significant pay cut to work regular hours are full of it. What's stopping them from doing it now? I'm sure the govt. or medium to small firms would be happy to receive them.

2:06: Exactly. I bailed and work at a (gasp!) firm with an unrecognizable name to most people. My hours aren't great, but they're much, much better, as are my colleagues.

"Would most big firms prefer a mediocre law student available 24/7, or a "top" graduate available only during business hours? I don't get it. Is the talent not really worth anything in fact?"

I'm a law student so take this with a grain of salt, but in my prior work experience it seemed to me that most jobs don't require that much skill. In other words almost anybody in the top schools could do the work.

I wouldn't necessarily say that's true for appellate litigation, but for most legal work the marginal improvement in skills from an average top law school graduate 24/7 v. a law review from YLS or HLS etc. probably is not worth the inconvenience of having to work around their schedule.

That's just a guess, but if you look at the legal market, that certainly seems to be the perspective of most firms, and I'm not sure they are wrong. At least, that's what I tell myself when I look at my transcript....

2:06 is right, kind of. You can go in-house or gov and make a lot less for regular hours. But those jobs aren't easy to get and it isn't necessarily proportional, so it could be a big paycut (50% or so) for much more regularity, but not much fewer hours overall (certainly not 50% over the course of the year). I did p/t biglaw and it was fantastic - i still had a couple of all nighters and lots of work from home, because the one thing you can't do effectively (at least as a litigator) is just work 9-5 or M-Th, but overall it was a pretty good deal. The problem I had was serious doubts about the long term future. I wasn't sure I'd ever want to go back full time and figured it would be tough to make partner p/t -- maybe counsel, but that was unclear and with just counsel $$ as a goal, I was willing to pass that up to take a shot at something new and regular.

2:46 has a good point. Big law is unpredictable but we could still work less overall, even if we work at odd times.

Don't downplay your thoughts young law student. You do realize that Cadwalader has had this policy for years about hiring people that were hungry, as opposed to people who feel that they're entitled to something because they went to Yale.

The reality is this, most of the work young associates do isn't that challenging in a major firm. After two years, you'll start actually producing, and that's when the "pedigree" really starts to work itself out. Unfortunately, reality provides that not many people actually stay in their top law firm for a very long time, so tihs point becomes less and less relevant.

I for one, prefer to hire people that did well enough at a great school, but have something that indicates they really want to be there. If someone is happy to have their job, they're going to work harder to keep it, rather than spent the time i'm paying for looking on abovethelaw and bitching about the extra donut a firm across the street gets at breakfast and threatening to leave if they don't get one too. I'm just sayin'

if the typical benchmark of overhead as 50% of gross collected recieipts/billings still holds, then a 1600-hr. associate at $175/hr. should easily pull in $120k....

The benchmark is thirds - one third salary, one third profit, one third overhead. So a 1600 hr associate at $175/hr should make 93k.

I think the least expensive associate here bills at over $300/hr--where is 175 coming from?

Umm.......everyone dies. In light of your own mortality anyone who spends their life with their documents is a sucker, plain and simple.

If law schools will reduce their tuitions commensurately, I'm onboard. Until then, this is not appealing - I'm taking out 58k a year.

Um, I don't even make a third of what I bill now. My rate is $330 and I bill about 2400 hours. That means I'm billing almost $800k. As a first-year, I do not make $270k, even with special bonuses. Also, 1:18 is correct that the third rule doesn't work as well for less-than-full-time employees, unless you are willing to accept 20% less health insurance, a 20% smaller office, a parking space that is only available 80% of the time, etc.

The real porblem isn't the unpredicatable hours. The problem is not working on a Wednesday when you still have to be in the office but getting a shitload of work on a Friday night that could have easily b een assigned tyo you on that Wednesday. I don't mind if the workload dictates that I must work weekend, I do mind when the partner neglects to assignt his work during the week.

Back and forth we all go. Let me ask you this. Will it change? From the attorney who waits till the last minute to delve out work, to the attorney who wants her schedule more flexible to accomodate life with children (I have a five year old so I'm sensitive to this subject)? Will any of this ever change? No! These issues will continue as long as the profession does. So I guess the question should be "Which type of firm is best for you?" No one here is pathetic, I've read a lot of valid opinions. But after its all said and done, these things will always be issues. Ultimately, its up to YOU as to where you want to take your career and what type of firm best suits you life. Happy New Year Everyone!

Back and forth we all go. Let me ask you this. Will it change? From the attorney who waits till the last minute to delve out work, to the attorney who wants her schedule more flexible to accomodate life with children (I have a five year old so I'm sensitive to this subject)? Will any of this ever change? No! These issues will continue as long as the profession does. So I guess the question should be "Which type of firm is best for you?" No one here is pathetic, I've read a lot of valid opinions. But after its all said and done, these things will always be issues. Ultimately, its up to YOU as to where you want to take your career and what type of firm best suits you life. Happy New Year Everyone!