10 Reasons To Leave Biglaw

They're not giving you that money for free; here's why you should flee.

Ed. note: This post is sponsored by NexFirm.

These days, getting a Biglaw job is the golden ticket you need in order to make law school pay off. Thousands of students are paying grossly inflated tuition rates, and a Biglaw salary is one of the only ways those students can reasonably pay back their massive loans.

The problem, of course, is that Biglaw jobs are generally awful. They’re not giving you that money for free. A starting salary of $160,000 right out of law school sounds like a great deal, until you realize that $160,000 is just the going market rate for your eternal soul.

So let’s talk about why you would leave Biglaw. Don’t worry, I know many of you won’t leave, at least not now. But if you can, here are ten reasons why you should….

1. You Are Never Going To Make Partner.

For most Biglaw associates, becoming an equity partner is about as likely as finding El Dorado (did you hear, by the way, that they kinda found that). Even if you find the gold, it’s likely to be guarded by man-eating gorillas. If you want to be part-owner of a law practice, chances are you will have to leave Biglaw.

2. If You Do Make Partner, May God Have Mercy On Your Soul.

I’m sure you’ve heard that making partner is like winning a pie-eating contest where the prize is more pie. That wouldn’t be a bad thing, especially if you like pie. But it’s not a perfect analogy because pie is not at all like “billable hours,” which is what you are really eating, every day, until you puke. That doesn’t stop once you become a Biglaw partner. You don’t get to set your own schedule like small-firm attorneys. You have to be a partner sometimes for years before you make real wealth from the arrangement. And in this market, you have to be concerned about de-equitization, so you are still terrified of being pushed out. Does that sound like a good life? How much money do you really need to compensate you for having a life like this?

3. Useless Rules and Fake Deadlines.

Wear what we tell you to this meeting, which starts when we say, but don’t talk in the meeting, and write a memo to file about the meeting by 4:00 p.m., ’cause we said so.

If you like being treated like an adult, Biglaw is not the place for you. You’re not trusted to dress in the manner that makes sense to you. You’re not trusted to set your own deadlines in consultation with your clients and opposing counsel. You’re just trusted to do exactly what you’ve been asked to do. It’s amazing that they don’t make you raise your hand to go to the bathroom.

4. My God Your Work Is Boring.

Do you like The Bluebook? How do you feel about checklists? Can you not wait for the day when you are allowed to write one-sixth of a brief about an ancillary issue nobody really cares about? Welcome to the world of Biglaw.

People use the term “good work” as if defending a deposition is the height of intellectualism. Surely, when most people thought they’d like being a lawyer, they didn’t imagine a key milestone would involve being allowed to say “Yes, you can answer that,” without a partner looking over your shoulder.

5. And You Are Almost Always On The Wrong Side.

I’m not one of those people who think Biglaw work is “evil.” Large corporations need lawyers too. And there’s nothing evil about helping your impossibly wealthy client get the better of another impossibly wealthy client as you negotiate the terms of a multi-billion-dollar merger.

But let’s not kid ourselves: Biglaw attorneys are not working for the greater good. The “greater good” that the clients who can afford Biglaw fees are looking out for is their own. And that’s not bad, but anybody who actually contributes to the social welfare can justifiably feel superior to you, no matter how much money you stick in your ears to drown out the sound of their judgements.

6. No, Pro Bono Work Doesn’t Balance It All Out.

Pro Bono = Representing people who desperately need the help of competent attorneys with the leftover dregs of your time that you can carve out after all your paying clients have been momentarily satiated. Your pro bono clients won’t know they’re getting the very least of you that you can offer, but you’ll know.

7. So, You’re Going To Drink.

Or smoke. Or use something. Or gamble. Or kick puppies. Something. Sometime during yet another 80-billable-hour week, you will do something to excess that would make your mother sad if she wasn’t so busy enjoying whatever the hell you bought her for Christmas.

8. Have We Talked About Your Family Yet?

You’ve got two options here: Option A involves having a family who needs and respects the money you bring in. Option B involves having a family that doesn’t really care about how much you’re making.

If you’re in situation A… good luck ever taking a pay cut. There are mortgages and private-school bills and are you really sure your spouse will still love you if you are a broke so-and-so following his or her dream? For richer or poorer is a good line until life turns out to be “for poorer.”

If you’re in situation B… then where the hell are you? Your family wants you home, with them, not off in some office making even more money for things. Who needs things? Your family needs you, and you are nowhere to be found.

9. The Office.

Do you like working in a building with 500 other people who are technically your “colleagues” but 90 percent of them could be replaced by other people of similar height and complexion and you wouldn’t even notice? Yeah, neither does anybody else. Biglaw is big. Don’t forget about that.

10. The Disease of More.

A lot of people talk about the “golden handcuffs,” which is a term to describe the fact that you get used to a fat paycheck and can’t figure out how to live on less, even though you know many people do live on less quite successfully. But the golden handcuffs aren’t really something that Biglaw does to you, it’s something you do to yourself.

Instead, I like to think of the problem as “the disease of more,” which is a line Pat Riley uses when talking about why it’s difficult for teams to repeat as champions. After success, everybody wants more success. It can destroy a team because that means people want more shots, more money, more fame, more of everything, instead of doing the little things that make team success possible.

I think the disease can apply to Biglaw lawyers as well. After the success of getting a highly sought-after Biglaw job, eventually people start wanting more. More money. More prestige. More options. People who were happy about earning more than their parents right out of school start grumbling about their bonuses five years later. It’s natural but it also crushes happiness. Instead of being happy with what you have, you start looking for the next benchmark of success, and in the Biglaw pyramid scheme, getting to the next level is probably not going to happen (see reason #1, supra).

Getting out of Biglaw breaks the cycle of this disease. Sure, you can make yourself sick in other ways, but don’t you want your bonus to be based on what you earn instead of what other people think is enough to keep you there? Don’t you want your successes to be measured on your own terms, instead of the stylized world of partner draws and Am Law rankings? Freedom is its own reward.

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