First?

"People are desperate for jobs, and firms feel they can pretty much do what they want."

All this because we don't have unions for associates. And we don't have the ABA backing us up; in fact, the ABA blesses the opening of more law schools in this economy. Pretty soon, we'll be paid 25 cents per document we review at this rate.

Welcome to the globalization of the legal economy!

Oh, yeah, we need unions for associates. What a way to prove that you're a true professional. Associates are workers, plain and simple. Work is not supposed to be fun...that's why it's called work. You get paid to work. You don't get paid to have a good quality of life. What you do with your life is your business, but when you're getting paid by the boss, your ass belongs to the firm.

"And secondly, billable-hour targets for associates at more than a few firms simply can't be achieved without damage to one's health or ethics, or both."

If you can't physically bill 2000 hours a year, you should not be in private practice.

I cringe at the idiotic suggestions that "work life balance" is some sort of generational concept, implying that previous generations of attorneys were more predisposed to hard work & long hours than recent grads. That's nonsense.

The simple fact of the matter is based in labor economics.

There are TOO MANY lawyers today competing for TOO FEW positions. Management has an enormous amount of leverage that they never used to have. YOU -> the ASSOCIATE ATTORNEY have little to no leverage... you don't want to work 60-80 hour weeks for $145-$160K? FINE. DON'T. They can find someone else. It's not like you're doing brain surgery or rocket science...

So instead of WHINING about "work life balance" how about working to get the ABA to cut down on the number of JD's they are allowing the Cooley Law Schools of the world to crank out?

And get them to raise the standards of Bar Admissions so we don't to work alongside people who are basically illiterate, but still commanding attention in the labor market because they can write "JD" after their name.

6 - You need to get laid.

2 thoughts. One, plenty of firms are 2000 hour firms, so the work-life balance issues can be overplayed. 8-6 does it with an hour lunch and an hour of goofing off. Two, as long as your firm doesn't do layoffs, work life balance should be better now - there's not enough work available to BE unbalanced.

The ship be sinking...

The idea of correcticting law school incentives through USNWR isn't th worst idea in the world. Unfortunately, I don't think there's a way to measure a schools' ability to impart practical training.

The post concludes: "That sounds like an impossible battle. That sounds like a fairytale. But perhaps its no more of an impossible fairytale than getting a law business to suddenly care about whether its employees have time to read their children a bedtime story?"

Three comments: (1) "impossible fairytale" is redundant; (2) the first "its" should be "it's"; and (3) the last sentence is a declarative sentence and should not have the question mark. Other than that, bang-up job.

"The firms disagreed, and all they had to do was wait for the marketplace to turn their way to make that clear."

Please. The marketplace as turned the firms' way? You don't think firms would rather have enough work so they didn't need to lay off associates? Or is temporarily closin the WLB debate really worth that?

Lawyers, I guess, are trained to be the biggest bunch of whiners on God's green Earth. No one is making any of you work the hours you do.

You choose it everyday.

You chose to leverage yourself to an extent that should have put you on notice that your choices would be limited by your debt load. You chose to go to school right out of college with no accumulated income. You chose to go to a day program instead of a night program and a private school instead of a state school. You chose to go to a "T-14" instead of a "TTT" where you surely would have gotten a discount.

Well, guess what. Now you have to work hard. You are limited by the choices you make in life.

No other generation in history thought they were entitled to a 100,000 education. To the extent that you thought you could demand such a luxury without anything due on your end, you were wrong.

So, get used to it. We have to work hard for a living. So do janitors. So do registered nurses. So do doctors. So do investment bankers.

As far as I can tell, the only people who dont work hard are unionized schoolteachers and Ellie Mystal. (Incidentally, they are the only two groups of people who whine more than lawyers.)

SINCE AboveTheLaw reported at length about the illegal alien murdered by a citizen months ago, how about we look at the weekly occurrence of illegals killing Americans? How about an expose on how AILA and LaRaza work to keep these killers in our midst?

"Drunk Illegal Alien Drives Over Mother and Daughter, killing both as they left a dance class"

"The 35-year-old Guatemalan native struck Kayla Donohue, 8, a second-grader at John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Southeast, and her mother, Lori Donohue, 37, Monday evening outside Seven Stars School of Performing Arts in Brewster. The white Ford F-350 pickup truck then crashed into the dance school's building."

http://lohud.com/article/20090609/NEWS04/906090396/-1/newsfront

+

"Peruvian Illegal Alien Kills 72 Woman in Hit-and-Run"

"Alice "Lolly" Myers, 72, was thrown about 50 feet from the force of the impact and died of severe head trauma. Myers, the wife of former Newton Councilman Richard Myers, had been visiting her daughter at Morristown Memorial Hospital's rehabilitation center on Mount Kemble Avenue."

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20090609/COMMUNITIES/906090313/1005/NEWS01/Deliveryman+pleads+guilty+to+fatally+striking+pedestrian+in+Morristown

5 nailed it. Work from 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM during weekdays and then put in 5 hours during the morning or afternoon of Saturday or Sunday -- no issue reaching hours targets. It requires discipline, though -- something many young lawyers lack.

I am offended by #7, please moderate.

6- Are "JDs" from Cooley really the problem? If you competing with them, I'm guessing you aren't at a firm where work-life balance is an issue.

5 nailed it. Work from 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM during weekdays and then put in 5 hours during the morning or afternoon of Saturday or Sunday -- no issue reaching hours targets. It requires discipline, though -- something many young lawyers lack.

8, you are a moron or a dishonest hack (or, so it seems, both).

No one bills 2000 hours working 10x5, not even close, without padding like a madman.

"So instead of WHINING about "work life balance" how about working to get the ABA to cut down on the number of JD's they are allowing the Cooley Law Schools of the world to crank out?"

The students at these schools are generally not competing for those $160k gigs.

"So, get used to it. We have to work hard for a living. So do janitors. So do registered nurses. So do doctors. So do investment bankers."

Is your inclusion of investment bankers supposed to be funny? Because I laughed out loud when I read it.

Well, there's always the option of not doing Big Law. I work at a patent boutique and it pays along the same scale as Big Law (although partnership isn't as lucrative) and my requirement for the first three years is 2100 hours total (not billable, just total). In three years time the expectation is that I'll be more efficient with my hours.

I'm a little confused, 13. First you say that "[n]o one is making you work the hours you do," and that "[y]ou choose it every day." Then you say: "So, get used to it. We have to work hard for a living." Which is it?
--Eagerly Awaiting Your Further Guidance

19 is the superhero of inefficient billing

21, investment bankers work long hours, when they have a job.

The term "work/life balance" is self-defeating. Work is itself a part of life. As written, we're reinforcing the idea that work has no bearing on happiness or contentment. It's time for a change.

24 must be a billing machine. Theoretically you can bill 2000 hours working those hours if you bill every minute of the days you're there. So you never do anything non-billable at the offfice? I don't buy it. No one escapes the non-billable projects entirely, nor is anyone THAT efficient with the billable work.

- Not 19

This is why I love working in-house. No weekends over the last 2 years, MAYBE half of one this winter (we have a couple of big deals going down, and are launching a new big thing soon). Half-days every friday, 30 days off a year, stocks, and, the best part, 8 hour days are the best.

When the partners were associates, they didn't work as hard. WLB wasn't an issue when a lawyer who billed 1900 in 1972 was considered a superstar.

MysTTTal

23 --

To the extent that you (a) chose to subject your self to excessive student leverage, or (b) choose a lifestyle requiring a six-figure income, you de facto choose to work the hours you do.

If you dont like it, go be the best damned public defender in Iowa. You could even coach little league on the side.

13

Why are people whinning about the ABA opening up more law schools and thus flooding the market? If you are T 14 what do you care if a bunch of hacks from the midwest go to some crappy school. They aren't in your labor market, or so you claim. This forum is great because you mock "TTT" grads about how they can't get good jobs but then you moan and claim it is the very same "TTT" grads who are cluttering up the legal market. Newsflash: if every school below 50 on USNWR ceased to exist as of tomorrow and all of the grads of those schools died, it would have little to no impact on the job market because you keep claiming that can not even get jobs. Does anyone else here not see this?

29 wins, look at all the partners in your office that graduated in the 70's (or pathetically the 60's if they still practice). Back in those days 1,400 hours were the norm, and most of those were doing mindless tasks like hand-marking blacklines and physically going to DC to make securities filings.

19 - You're sort of right, and sort of not. Plenty of people spend most weeks billing 8 hours a day. If you're writing briefs or memos, or doing other litigation work that isn't a fire drill (answers, interview prep for witness interviews, actual interviews and depositions that are scheduled in advance, etc), there is no reason that you can't generally keep a pretty regular schedule. True, there are times that you get more work than that (which was my second point, that right now is generally not one of those times). So yes, you may work 40 weeks at 40 hours and 5 weeks at 60 hours, and take some of those extra weeks off. I'm not sure why that is any more impossible or deadly to work life balance than working evenly, but whatever. A good friend of mine billed a 300 hour month then took a month off. That's its own balance. My main point was that you only had to be averaging 8 hour days, which really isn't that much, but I'm willing to agree that in some circumstances, it's very hard to stay regular on that.

I'm not sure I understand your points. First, if you have a lot of long term work, particularly briefing, then there's no reason you have to be "dishonest" to break it into multiple 8 hour increments rather than procrastinating all week and then having to work a 20 hour day to get it done. Second, I certainly don't see the moron connection. It's certainly possible that you do some type of law (assuming you're even a lawyer, which I have my doubts about given your absolute statements, which are verifiably wrong) where everything is fire drills - you work only 80 hour weeks and 0 hour weeks, and you never know which one it will be. But all law is not like that, even at big firms.

-8

15, The discipline you are talking about is more like indenture. Lots of disciplined, hardworking lawyers want to see their children awake more than 30 minutes a day. Working 8 to 8---a plausible sustainable 10 billed hour day without padding---plus the usual bezerk of random all-nighers and weekends, precludes that. Maybe you don't think someone should expect to be able to do both, because being hard core lawyer has its own rewards. Or you are living a life that, while fine now, would turn out to be very sad if you sustained it for a full career.

But, yes, WLB is out the window now. In my firm, people are billing every hour they can if they are lucky enough to be on a busy case or deal. I billed 240 last month, not a mythic figure for sure, but if there were not stealth lay-offs going on and I might have chosen to blow off a couple afternoons to so my daughter doesn't forget what I look like.

"Does anyone else here not see this?"

Maybe you missed what I said a few comments back.

-20

#39 - NAILED IT!

Work-Life balance is easy to maintain if your work is busting criminals and you’re retired like Judge “hard case” Hardcastle from Hardcastle and McCormick.
Work-Life balance is also easy to maintain if you have been remanded into the custody of a crime-fighting retired judge and you live in the guesthouse at his estate, like Mark “skid” McCormick.

This is dumb. The reason so many attorneys are getting the axe is that there isn't enough work to go around. Associates may lack leverage, but they also lack a reason to be at the office from 8am to 11pm. Many associates who have jobs will do anything they can to keep them, that doesn't necessarily mean they are working longer hours as a result.

28 - What new big thing?

35, there are plenty of legal jobs that require less work, for lower pay and less prestige. You made your own choice.

Hugs and kisses,
Boutique lawyer, 1700hrs/year

34 - Interesting, so you have no non-billable activity? No time spent inputting your bills, writing materials for and doing pitches, doing CLE or other training, nothing? Or wait, no, I see, your logic (a) assumes you bill all of that time, or (b) fails to grasp that being a lawyer involves activity which is not billable. So which is it, moron, thief, or both?

-- 19

Is 14 the AIPAC guy with a new gig? As long as the billable hour reigns WLB is a chimera.

Here is my question. I see two things that most people agree on. One, partners want associates to work a lot of hours to pay for large associate salaries. Two, most associates who aren't completely insane would like to spend more of the prime years of their life outside the four corners of their offices. So, why don't more firms reduce billable hours requirements to, say, 1400 hours, which would have most lawyers working about as much as most other Americans, and reduce salaries by say 30%? The partners still get about the same number of hours / dollar paid out to associates, firms can employ more people, and associates can see the light of day. Since the solution seems so obvious I'm sure other people have thought of it. Does somebody know why firms haven't done it? Is it some sort of hazing mentality, "I went through it and so you must too?" Is there an economic reason I'm not seeing? Are young associates just so crazy as a group that they prefer to sacrifice their free time for an unnecessarily higher salary?

29, TITCR

When I was at a Big4 public acctg firm the joke about work life balance was that your work = your life, there, it balances.

I am currently clerking and I will NEVER work for a private firm as an associate b/c (with few exceptions) their sole motivation is to wring every dollar out of me. I would prefer not to be a wage slave, no matter what the pay.

I will be starting my own practice in a small town doing tax returns on the side. I may never get rich, and I may be poor for a while, but that's okay. I've made good money and I've been poor, but I've always been happiest when my life was my own.

41, Appreciate the hugs and kisses and the point How about an interview? Nobody is hiring. We're not even taking back our post-employment clerks.

This article sheds light on what I have been trying to tell younger attorneys and law students. This business does not promote a balanced lifestyle. It never did. With the saturation of lawyers and law students in our depressed market, you have no choice but to outdo the thousands of "brilliant" unemployed sycophants out there who are willing to sacrifice a personal life for a job at a peer or non-peer firm. And you thought you were smart to leverage yourself in student loans to get a taste of this wretched profession? You folks prove P.T. Barnum right every day.

Agreed, if I would have thad o pay for lawschool myself, by taking out loans or otherwise, I NEVER would have gone. The modest monthly payment on my LLM debt is bad enough. I can't imagine having 3 or 4 times that debt.

"And you thought you were smart to leverage yourself in student loans to get a taste of this wretched profession? You folks prove P.T. Barnum right every day."

45 - Check the ethics rules in your state before you do the accounting work on the side. If you do it out of your law office for your legal clients, you may be violating canons of professional ethics in your jurisdiction

8, you must work at a complete fantasy law firm. I've never heard of someone in Biglaw ever keeping that regular of a schedule. The reason that people don't have work-life balance has very little to do with procrastination. My sense is that you either work at an incredibly atypical law firm, or you haven't been doing this for very long. As has been mentioned, there are a lot of non-billable expectations that have to built in as well, and people don't efficiently work for eight hours straight -- unless you are doing incredibly mindless work.

#'s 17, 20, & 32

You have your heads in the sand. Of course BIGLAW is not doing OCI at Cooley, John Marshall, Brooklyn, etc.

But to think that the legal labor supply is not fluid, or that an overabundance of lawyers doesn't affect the entire job market for attorneys, is to think like a small-minded fool. BIGLAW is not isolated from the greater market of supply and demand; clients can substitute legal services by hiring domestic contract labor, or increasingly, outsourcing it to India.

Whether YOU think you need a JD from a T-14 to do doc review and draft elementary motions is immaterial. You can blather on about prestige all you want, but when someone is willing to do the job for a lot less, or do it without complaining about "work life balance," you're opinion becomes meaningless.

And to the guy who said #6 needs to get laid... that's me, and you're probably right.

44, I'm assuming youre not being facetious. See this board. Partners don't just hire more people to work less hours because they don't have to. Having less people do more work leads to lower marginal labor costs. And since there is a glut of lawyers now, there is no problem finding daredevils who will do the lifestyle. I know that there is some T14 robot willing to work 2800 hours and who would love to dislodge me. The only limit on the complete conversion to sweat-shop conditions in firms is the fact that so many candidates with great resumes and who will work like madmen are terrible lawyers. So the risk of swapping out a decent lawyer who will only do 1800s is still too great. But that is becoming a closer call every month that collections are below costs.

1. Not everyone "chooses" to go to a private school over a state school. In some cases, one couldn't get into the state school because of class limits. So if you want to be a lawyer, the choice is either private school or out-of-state tuition (which is usually the same price as private school).

2. There's plenty of lawfirms that aren't BigLaw, but want to pretend to be like them and while they say the billable hour requirement is "only" 2100 hours, they really mean 2500 or more. That amount is difficult to attain while trying to see one's family. I don't think that everyone that goes to lawschool realizes that many many firms want this sort of time commitment on a regular yearly basis.

3. 10-15 years ago, many more firms required billable hours in the 1800-2000 range, which was doable with a family. Today's ('unofficial')requirements are a lot more difficult.

4. The WLB has also become more of an issue because over the last 20 years, more and more women have entered the legal field and want to stay there. This isn't necessarily bad, but the legal field has to adjust to the fact that its not a solely male profession anymore and changes in work philosophy (which again aren't necessarily bad) have to occur to reflect the gender adjustment.

27 - 5x10 = 2600 if you bill every minute. even taking an hour off is 2350. come on now.

Well, here's my view: You guys should work 3500 hours a year to bill 2000, and I'll cover some nonbillable, cut back on unnecessary long lunches and random breaks, and do good work, and bill 2000 being at work less than 2500. And, since I won't be wasting my time doing whatever it is that you do from 8-8 that is nonbillable (and yes, you will always have unavoidable nonbillable, but you guys must be at firms where that's all you do), I won't be a moron, and since I still won't be padding my hours, I won't be dishonest. And, I'll see my son and take home my salary (as a 5th year, contrary to assumptions that I "must be new"). Good luck to you all!

- 8 and 34

49, you are correct in your point. I am a CPA as well as an attorney and plan on complying with the relevant requirements.

41--funny, I work for a boutique firm and I have billed at least 2000 a year for 8 years now with no end in sight. I guess when you say you work at a boutique firm, you literally mean a firm that sells expensive women's clothing. Good luck with that endeavor

8, 34, 55,

You work 8 to 6 with an hour off and bill 2000? BS!

Please. If you can't find the time to bill 180 a month you don't belong in biglaw.

The fundamental problem here is that biglaw self-selects for unbalanced people who are incapabale of stopping and smelling the roses. Low-key individuals who want to enjoy life as they live it do not generally find themselves working at a V10 firm. Medicated whack-jobs who constanty stress about the little things and see conspiracy and injustice around every corner, on the other hand . . . .

52, this is 44 again. Thank you for responding to my post, but I still don't get it. If you slash salaries and benefits a certain amount then wouldn't the marginal labor costs be the same? I realize more people = more space, but you could have junior associates doubling up in offices.

I'm a first year at an AmLaw 100 firm and if someone offered me a job making $40K less but where I could work 9-5 I would snap it up in a heart beat. And I think a lot of other associates would to, including some of the best and brightest. Maybe I'm just too new in the profession to have internalized the inevitability of legal work life. But maybe I wonder why we as a profession can't achieve the same balance other professions have.

In case you don't believe other professions can achieve WLB, look at Engineers. My best friend is an electrical engineer. He and his colleagues work hard, for 40 hours a week. He gets overtime if he works more than that. Then he goes home and forgets about work. He makes more than enough to support himself and a family (about 40% less than a Big Law junior associate). His employers, presumably, have the same incentive to work people to death as our law firm partners, and yet he and his colleagues have managed to carve out a decent WLB for themselves. Why can't we?

X = Your profit to the firm
Y = Direct and indirect expenses from the firm on you

As long as your X is greater than your Y, what's the problem? I walked into my yearly review armed with only those numbers and pointed out the Board's insanity in setting a billable hour/receivables "minimum" that would amount to more than an additional quarter million dollars than I needed to be profitable to the firm.

They didn't seem to like that at first, but then I pointed out that not only was my X greater than my Y, but I had something like a 97% realization rate in my first year. That shut them up.

7 - He probably broke up with his gf because he was too tightly wound to get it up. HahahaHA

Is anyone else amused that 8/34/55 is issuing self-righteous proclamations about his/her immense productivity...while spending an hour commenting on ATL?

"...since I won't be wasting my time doing whatever it is that you do from 8-8 that is nonbillable" Hey, Chief, I think this counts as nonbillable.

WLB will be impossible so long as the billable hour is the primary revenue source for law firms. When I worked in biglaw I was shocked at how reckless the partners were with my time. There was zero effort to limit the number of hours spent on a project. In contrast, look at the guy remodeling your kitchen. He is paid by the job and thus wants to get the job done and go home. He's not going to waste his time on stupid stuff because that cuts down on the time he could be working on another job.

To number 44: Why won't a 1400 hour billable quota work? Becuase you can't get around the rule of three. You have to bill three times what you make, with one third covering overhead, one third covering salaries, and one third going to profit. In an 1800 billable hour year (the norm when I started in Atlanta in 1995), that meant you were only profitable from years 1200-1800. If you limit hours to 1400, you cut out 2/3rds of the profitable hours. When you consider that at least 20% of junior associate time is cut due to inefficiencies (in many cases, it's more than that), a 1400 hour year would not make economic sense for the law firm.

Now, consider the 1400 hour year for a partner. If the partner considers 100% of his time to be billable, and his overhead allocation is paid by the profit generated by the associate, the partner can technically take home all the collections off of those 1400 hours. At $500/hour billing rates, that equates to about $700,000/year.

There are firms where equity partners are only expected to bill around 1500 or so. Of course, they are also expected to generate a book of business, manage their clients, attend partner meetings, help manage the firm, mentor and train associates, and the like.

The problem exists not so much for junior associates, who are typically barely profitable, if at all. The problem really exists for senior associates/non-equity partners. These attorneys have high billing rates, and high realization rates. They are truly profit centers for the firm. Yet, until they get a huge book of business, they can't make it to the big leagues of equity partnership. Without a book of business, it's hard for them to go anywhere but in-house. So, they end up languishing at a big firm, stuck in the no-man's land between associate and real (equity) partner.

This was not a major problem while the economy was booming, and there were new clients to be had. However, these days, attorneys are trying their hardest to retain those clients they have, making it harder to get new clients. There are fewer new clients to be had than in the 90's. As a result, those at the top (many of whom inherited "legacy" clients and never had to do any rainmaking) are making it tougher for those seeking to make it to the top.

When you add in the fact that workloads are slipping, and throw in the fact that equity partners feel entitled to huge salaries despite not bringing in the work, who do you think takes the hit? Politically, it's hard to fire equity partners (or even to de-equitize them), even if they are truly deadwood (like many 55-75 year old partners at BIGLAW these days). It's hard to fire senior associates/junior partners, because they truly are profit centers (as long as you can find the work to keep them busy). Who is left? Junior associates and staff. This explains the recent bloodbath.

Some day, a firm will step up to the plate, and the equity partners will be honest enough to say that since they took all of the profit in good years, they should take the loss in bad years. People that show up for work every day, and do good work while they are there, should not be fired just because a greedy partner wants to take home a draw that he/she didn't earn, since they obviously are no longer bringing in the business.

IMHO, a partner without a book deserves to get paid one third of what he bills, just like the associates, of counsel, and non-equities do. The only justification for a partner to get paid what they get paid is because they brought in the work, and if they don't, they don't deserve to get paid what they do - end of story.

People who claim 2000 hours a year are easy likely have few files with large $ attached.

When billing on "boxcar number" deals or cases, your but hits the chair at 8 am, you work until 6 pm, and you bill 9.5 hours (12 if you know the way Biglaw really works [[[wink]]]). No one thinks twice about it.

Outside of that "rate immune" client base, getting 6 hours of actual COLLECTIBLE billable time (the only kind that really matters) is a 10 hour a day job. When you get into mid-market stuff of the $5 million-$50 million dollar deals or lawsuits, people won't fees like they will on $1 billion matters.

So yeah, at NYC Skadden, when the deal flow, 2000 hours is not the toughest haul in the world. At some regional place, even in a big firm, where the matters are much smaller in size, that same 2000 hours is like 2600 or more in NYC.

--been there, done that.

Agreed, 58. 54/55 - that's great in theory, but it doesn't work out that way, unless you have very liberal billing practices, or are just plain lying. (Either that, or the types of work that you do are so repetitive and mindless that you can go for hours and hours without stopping -- not the case for most people of your seniority.) I've been doing this for 5 years as well and don't know anybody that has it that easy/predictible -- even when billing 2000 (instead of 2500+). You can't just tell the client when they need work done -- it works the other way around, and that means things have to get done on somebody else's schedule -- not your planned out cushy schedule.

57, or could it be that there are different boutique firms? Some that pretend to be biglaw and work their associates 2000+ hours, and some that operate differently? Nah, inconceivable. You're right, you and I must work at the only boutique firm in the entire US, and I must be lying about my workload.

65, there is no "rule of 3." It's made up by ignorant law students. Think about it. When salaries went up, overhead costs did not go up by the exact same amount too to match your rule of 3.

It is one thing to work long hours as a lawyer and get paid well and hopefully have some support staff - it is quite another thing to work as a marketing manager, staying up all night to get RFPs out the door, sleeping (when there is time to sleep) with your Blackberry on your pillow because you have 212 attorneys who need you 24/7 for things that will not bring in business - this errands instead support attorney egos and their need to be minor celebrities. Godd news is now marketing managers at my firm make 20k more than first year associates because they just slashed those people's paychecks! And my boss makes more than most partners. Go figure.

26 has a point. It should be called work/life integration. Your community is built around co-workers and clients so choose wisely.

Indeed 63 - I'd bet dollars to doughnuts he billed this time.

-- 19/42

65,

Close, but that "rule of three" is really "rule of me", as promoted by the owners. There is no reason why a third has to go to overhead if you keep overhead low. And there is no reason why profit has to be a steady third every year. (Know any business that can count on such steady returns?)

While I agree that associates and partners all need to pay for their salary, their properly allocated costs (face it, older partners with their idiosyncratic wants and health care costs are WAYYYY more expensive than the tech-savvy 33 year old), and some profit margin, the crude formula of one third is something they should have used in the 70s. Now, they need to consider actual profitability, not just imagined.

Of course, that starts to make the old guys real nervous....

I would actually think that work-life balance would have been restored somewhat by the economic downturn, for those lawyers fortunate enough to keep their jobs. My impression is that even those who have kept their jobs have nevertheless seen their hours reduced, which should mean the ability to go home earlier unless one feels some kind of social obligation to stay at the firm late with nothing to do. One would hope that even the softest and most unspoken facetime requirements are not so demanding.

Think of all the posts that have been written on this site in the past year or so about people struggling to make bonus levels. In economic terms, that's no different than seeing a pay cut and an hours reduction, similar to what #60 (and others like him) have secretly wanted. The NYT recently ran a story about the "slower" feeling at BigLaw shops. Depending on your perspective, that could mean lifelessness or simply a more relaxed atmosphere (though not by the choice of the partners, of course). However, it nevertheless seems to be the case that billable-hour demands have been shrinking even for those who have held onto their jobs. I could be wrong about this, as I'm not in a V10 or even an AmLaw 100 firm, but that is the strong impression I get from this blog and the MSM.

The dissatisfaction American lawyers express here about the legal profession demonstrates that the country needs to further expand the H1B immigrant work visa program to bring in more legal talent from India and China that is better suited to the natives to working lawyers' hours at lower rates.

The dissatisfaction American lawyers express here about the legal profession demonstrates that the country needs to further expand the H1B immigrant work visa program to bring in more legal talent from India and China that is better suited than the natives to working lawyers' hours at lower rates.

72 nails it, the "rule of 3" is something that law firm "consultants" came up with years ago that the firms gladly adopted, even though it makes ZERO economic sense and no other business model works that way. I'm glad to see the newer associates are buying into the BS.

Sigh.

Folks, in the end, you either have business or work for a lawyer who does have business.

If you are the former, you decide what your life is like, at some level. If you are the latter, you don't.

This is true if you are working in a two man shop or a 2,000 man shop.

Interesting topic. I find there is some difference between expectations of single attorneys and those with families. And I am not referring to gender. I worked on a team where we needed to be in Paris for long periods of time. ( I know it sounds good but when you are working 18 hr days, the glitz wears off fast) I became the glue, the constant on that team because I had no family obligations. I had no excuse that sounded anywhere near as good as piano recitals or baseball camp initiation. I know family is important but where do you draw the line? reallconstantlyi

-69

Based on those business practices, your firm will go under.

4,5,6

What's with you people and the tough talk? You sound like old partners goin off on a "kids these days" diatribe.

Does being the tough guy/girl at the firm make you feel better about yourself? Do your friends appreciate your pragmatic views?

-NOLA smooth

44/60 - looking for a substantial pay cut from law firm plus corresponding time decrease (to join the ranks of the 9-5ers)? Join the federal government, as many other associates do who have the same problems with law firm life. Problem solved.

"X = Your profit to the firm
Y = Direct and indirect expenses from the firm on you

As long as your X is greater than your Y, what's the problem?"

Not a business major, were you. If they can cut you out of the picture all together (i.e. there is no Y), and reassign your work to other associates (redistributing X), then they make more money.

I don't know where you people work, but consistently billing 8 hours in a 10-hour day is a PIECE OF CAKE for a litigator at a busy shop. 8 hours x 5 days x 50 weeks (assuming 2 weeks of holidays and sick time) = 2000 hours. Of course, you'll have the occasional late night and working weekend, but vacation time makes up for that. I know literally dozens of people who bill in the 1950-2100 range and have full lives outside of work.

so 54, you don't ever take vacations and you go into work on holidays? or have sick days? that assumes billing every weekday for the entire year. Take roughly 1 month out of the days you're counting. that drops you to 2400 if you're billing 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, and 2160 if you're taking tha tlunch break.

And assuming you'd only take an hour of nonbillable time every day is kind of ludricrous, don't you think? Even thinking you'll bill 8 hours a day every single day you're at the office is a big stretch, and that would only get you to something like 1920 if you were there 5 days a week. Forgive me if my math is off, it is not my favorite thing to do.

Point being, it is not realistic to think you can hit a 2000 hour target and have time for a "normal" life if you can just be really super duper efficient

-27

To 68: You're kidding yourself if you thing the rule of three doesn't exist at almost every law firm in the country.

Over the last fifteen years, I have discussed salaries with probably a hundred non-equity members, associates, and of counsel, at firms in Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, and New York. I've asked them to multiply their billing rate by 600 and tell me (without saying their salary) whether the number they come up with matches their salary, give or take a few thousand. Almost invariably, it did.

In Atlanta, for years, if you looked at lockstep compensation, and the billing rates per class, the rule of three worked perfectly.

I have been to partners meetings (I used to be a non-equity at a 500+ attorney firm) where this topic was discussed. For every $15 increase in associate billing rates, the firm expected about $30,000/year in increased revenues, of which $10,000 would go to the associates.

I'm sorry, but you're living in a fantasy land if you think things aren't this way.

Just so you can see the math, let's try it another way:

In AMLAW 200 firms, the average profits per (equity) partner matches the average income per partner. Assuming that the associates/of counsel/non-equity pool covers the firm overhead, this makes perfect sense. That is, the partner bills X, has no overhead to pay, and need not share the profit. What does the partner take home? X!

I sat on an of-counsel/non-equity committee, and we asked the firm's equity membership to consider some other way to compensate of counsel/non-equity so that we weren't compensated in the same rule of three mode as the associates, and we were refused. I can see why - people without a huge book have no ability to do anything to change the system.

I had a book, I brought it with me, though to a smaller firm, and started off with a 50% pay increase. Of course, I can no longer say that I'm a partner at an AMLAW 200 firm, but the extra salary makes up for that.

So, it's not just "ignorant law students." The non-equities and of counsels at an AMLAW 200 firm came to the same conclusion, and tried to change it.

Maybe 68 is a partner at one of those AMLAW 200 firms, and doesn't want the truth to be told.

More likely, 68 doesn't understand that law is a business, and is run by certain rules.

83 - I don't know where you work, most most Big Law (Vault-ranked places) aren't purely litigation shops. Groups straddle litigation and other groups, and in each of these groups, there are myriad responsibilities outside of the billable work requirement itself. Many such responsibilities have already been touted here, but a few off the top of my head are (i) writing articles/speeches/insert here for partners that don't give you credit; (ii) interviewing/ recruiting/ other SA or lateral-related activities; (iii) business development (any type - insert here), etc.

Moreover, even if you're just looking at the billable hours themselves, partners aren't as flexible as you would have us believe - they don't like seeing associates walk out the door at 5 p.m. (8 hours according to your calculus), and they often schedule meetings for 6 or 7 p.m. So regardless whether you've billed 2 or 12 hours that day, you have to be around when your group "needs" you.

Congrats to you for working in such a flexible work environment, but that's not typically the case in a large AmLaw/Vault practice.

I am not a litigator, but my impression is that the lifestyle that 83 is describing (incredible consistency and predictibility) is not typical for litigators. Perhaps I am wrong. In that case, congrats guys -- you chose correctly because the rest of Biglaw sure doesn't seem that way.

85,

You write and sound like a 2L.

86-- I guess it really does depend on where you work. I'm clerking now, but last year I worked in the D.C. office of a V20 firm. My usual day was 9:30 until about 7:30--you almost never saw a partner in the office after 7 PM unless there was a deadline looming. For a while I was working on a couple of matters with a partner who was an early riser, so I went in around 8:30 for a couple of months and left a little before 7. Toward the end of the year we had a summary judgment filing. I worked my ass off for a couple of months; when it was over, I went to Europe for two weeks.

Granted, in non-litigation practices, or in firms with rigid face-time requirements, your mileage may vary. But I know enough people at enough other firms to know that my situation was not unique.

As for non-billable work--everybody will have some, but I doubt that most people get stuck with more than 5 hours or so per week. Eat lunch at your desk and bang it out. Furthermore, non-billable stuff usually can be dodged half-assed with little risk--unless you're gunning for partner, in which case you can just forget about work-life balance anyway.

To 88 - thanks for your eloquent compliment. Let's see, it took you only five words to counter an argument that almost all would acknowledge is the way business is run. I don't agree that business should be run this way, I just know that it is.

Since you're obviously a better lawyer than I am, I look forward to reading a more coherent argument from you as to why I'm wrong about the rule of three.

I don't mind being wrong, but would be interested to read your thoughts on why exactly I'm wrong.

Perhaps you're a law professor (and thus used to reading the work product of 2L's), in which case, you're obviously right, since law professors are never wrong. In that case, I'm sure you can put together a very good argument (despite the fact that the rule of three is in force around the country, and everyone with any intelligence knows it).

89

You hit it on the nail.

If you're gunning for partner, can you have a work life balance?

73,

The problem with economic suckage is that even during the one month where I billed low, I stayed in the office in case projects showed up. If anything, I was at the office more than I had been before the economy tanked.

Rule of 3 supporters (86, I think?),

You're just wrong. Just because we get paid 1/3 our billables doesn't mean that of the remainder, half goes to overhead and the other half goes to profits. Why does my overhead increase every year I get promoted? Makes no sense. Sure, it is something they may sell to us, but that doesn't mean it has any basis in mathematics.

85/90, when salaries went up from $125k to $160k over the span of a few years, did the cost of overhead go up by 28% as well? From 2000 to about 2005, when salaries remained constant, overhead and profits obviously also remained constant, right? And at all firms that paid the $160k market rate, all the law firms made the same amount of ~$160k profit per associate? You gotta keep everything around 33/33/33 if this rule is supposed to exist.
Do you even know what the word "rule" means?

Those who criticize other posters for lacking in business sense are often the most lacking themselves.

I meant 85. My bad. -92

85,

Your entire argument is based on "discussions." And you've had "hundreds" of them? Get a life. You need real evidence. "Everyone knows that the rule of three is the word of God" argument doesn't cut it.

Apparently, every single law firm in the country operates on 33.3% gross margins. Over 15 years, through two recessions, in all major cities. Wow, who knew. Harvard Business School should do a case study on this magical result. What happens when a firm dares to violate this "Rule of 3"? Fire and brimstone, I'm guessing.

96,

The rule of 3 is like the law of gravity: it is very difficult to defy. If it is, look around. You may very well witness a dog and a cat having sex with one another. It's just that crazy. I have spoken about this to thousands of people. Thousands!

Rule of 3=bullshit. Might have made some sort of sense when associateship was 3-4 years and everyone made the same in the office.

Now? Crap. There is no such thing. Total myth. The marginal cost of an associates doing biglaw grind work is almost nothing. Gussied up 70 sq foot cubicle "office" with hand me down furniture. Business cards. Laptop. A secretary who will ignore the associate mostly. And scant benefits.

But oh, that person needs to bring in 700,000 to justify a salary of 160, don't you know. lol

Person stresses at work 60 hours a week for 51 weeks=3060 hours. What is that, just over $50/hour? Then you get fired a few years later, knowing nothing and ready for no other job? What a lousy deal.

My friend gets paid 90k, has a 1300 requirement.

Here's a magic trick for you big-law associates/of counsel/non-equity members.

Take your billing rate, and multiply by 600. Substract your salary from that number. If the number turns out to be a negative number, congratulations - you're paid more than one third of what you bring in.

Law firms typically run on about 30% profit margins.

When associates don't bill enough hours, the profit margins go down.

When profit margins go down, associates get fired, until all who remain are billing at least 1800.

Of course, some of the overhead remains, particularly if a large number of associates are let go, and the firm can't renegotiate their lease.

If letting associates go doesn't work, and the partners can't bring in more work, then profits per partner have to go down.

If profits per partner go down, then partners with books of business are flight risks.

if partners with books of business actually take flight (i.e., Morgan Lewis, et al.), then all that's left are a bunch of lawyers with no book of business, no rainmakers left to generate business, and a lot of overhead. This explains how law firms fail (i.e., the downward spiral).

Seriously, folks, don't you read ATL? This is how now bankrupt firms have failed, and explains the layoffs.

It would be nice if this were not the case, but it is.

@100 - then why is morgan lewis fine?

101

Who says it is?

100

I was laid off in March and now I have no work and no life.

103

Sorry about your little pink layoff letter, bro.

Didja frame it?

100,

I understand you are explaining how things are. But that is because it is how they are, not because of some magical mathematical formula. They could still manage to get 30% profit on more associates with lower pay and fewer hours, even assuming they have to maintain 30% profit per associate in order to keep PPP where they need to be for the sake of competing with those who will steal their partners if they don't.

100, could you explain how profits always equal overhead costs in your Rule of 3? When billing rates go up, why do overhead costs automatically go up by a third of the gain?

I also think it is cute that 100 thinks we bill only 1800. Yeah, at my firm, if I did that, I could take off two months a year.

I work on a contingency basis. Therefore, it is actually in my firm's best interest for me to work as efficiently as possible. So, forty-five to sixty hour weeks are the norm for me. And, yes, I get paid real lawyer money.

When I compare the way that I work to my defense counsel friends (and enemies); it seems that the billable hour is the real problem. I get evaluated on the quality of my work product not by the number of hours I've spent in a shiny office tower all year.

101 - Ooops - I meant Morgan and Finnegan. Please forgive me.

105 - I couldn't agree with you more. Some firm will ultimately step up to the plate and stop sending folks with no savings (i.e., people just out of law school or staff who frequently live check to check) out on the streets. Someday, they will realize that they don't need a million a year, that during the worst economic times we've seen in a long time, maybe they could take a pay cut, rather than forcing it on the junior associates and staff. I actually met a partner at a patent boutique who said their firm is doing just that - he said the senior partners took a 40% pay cut this year so that no one had to be let go. Their firm showed tremendous class in doing so. After the recession is over, they will be well positioned to grow. The greedy partners at BIG LAW will have to live with the aftermath of the recession, and I hope that rather than going back to the big firms, the laid off associates and senior associates/non-equities will join together and create a competing firm that does all of the work for significantly less. Such a firm could do well in this market, I believe.

106 - The rule of three is not perfect in predicting absolute profitability, or actual costs. But it's the approximation that has been used for at least the last twenty years. Consider this - a first year associate presumeably has the same overhead as a sixth year associate. The sixth year has a higher billing rate and higher realization rate. The first year's overhead is more than one third of what he/she brings in. The sixth year's overhead is significantly less than one third of what he/she brings in. But, on average, it works out, more or less.

I work at a small firm, and just went over the books. Our overhead was much larger than I would have thought. When I was at BIG LAW, we always wondered how realistic the $190-200K/lawyer figures were. I'm guessing that they're not too far from the mark, or at least they weren't before there were a ton of empty offices and laid off associates/paralegals/secretaries. I don't know how the numbers play out these days.

The other issue is leverage. If the firm has one associate per partner, then partners can count on associates to pay their overhead. At extremely profitable firms, where there is more leverage, partners can take home not only all that they bill, but the profit from one of the associates (the other associate pays the partner's overhead).

I've been on the receiving end of this for longer than most of the posters, and couldn't agree more that the system doesn't seem fair. I never liked giving my partners more profit than I earned in salary, only to get a paltry $15-25K bonus at the end of the year.

At some point, I think all non-equities either get a book of business, or decide that the bonus isn't worth killing themselves to bill more hours.

Never forget - billing hours and doing quality work helps you make non-equity; building the book makes you equity, or at least gives you the freedom to walk. These days, it's almost impossible to make equity without a book.

If you're not padding your hours, you're cheating yourself.

Can we have an open thread about padding hours?

111 +1.

Has anyone else done the math and figured out that they are WAY underpaid based upon the mythic "rule of 3" even if they just bill the official minimum? At my outside NYC v50 firm associates billing as necessary to be considered for partner (20%+ above minimum) seem be be paid by a "rule of 4," or worse, even if you consider the peak bonus year and use the unofficial discount rates and ignore profit from rack and blended rates with partners.

I have a friend at a V10 firm in NY that figured out she needed to bill 6 hours per week to earn her salary. 6.

I'd LOVE to make 1/3 of the receivables associated with my billing. Seriously.

The only people I know that have done the math and figured out that their firm is actually paying by the "rule of 3" are people at regional firms with low salaries and low billing rates that, until they do the rule of 3 math, think they are underpaid.

Which, of course, is another reason why saying associate salary freezes/cuts are "client driven," when the rate increases have mostly gone to partners, not associate pay, at top firms.

There are two fundamental precepts hopefully we should all be able to agree on. First, of course working at a top firm is a job. It requires hours -- and plenty of them. Second, and more fundamentally, the fact that you are expected to work hard does NOT mean the firm can or should be able to treat you inhumanely. Unions are not tantamount to whining when you can't go to the bathroom or cannot eat anything in a 12 hour day because a partner makes you do straight back-to-back interviews. If you were a field worker, you'd be able to sue for that kind of treatment. Law firms should treat their associates with at least MINIMUM standards of decency -- including respect for health and safety. To the extent that they do not, complaining is not an "entitlement" unless you do not believe in human rights.

114, the remedy you are searching for is called quitting a job. People do it frequently. Just not lawyers, for some reason.

One of the best days of my life was telling a partner I worked for that his firm sucked and I detested the way they treated people. I was going to a mega corp as an in house lawyer, so he pretty much smiled and asked if I would think of him for future legal work.

It was unbelievable. I told him he was shit, and I thought his firm was shit, but he still tried to pitch me as I quit. Biglaw in a nutshell. GTFO, people.

115, how are these solutions mutually exclusive?

I say this as someone who plans to quit in July (yes, I have a job lined up and am thankful every day, and no I was not laid off).

However, I still do not see how this relates to decent treatment of associates above certain minimum standards. We can talk normatively -- and hopefully everyone will be one board -- but we might also think in a purely utilitarian fashion. Though I do not have a background in labor law, from the little I know I suspect the firm could easily be sued for its treatment of certain associates, not for the long hours, but again, for the health risks it has made many take. (For example, partners frequently ignoring known conditions of disabled employees). I don't get why this is terribly controversial -- even in this economy.