Hello,

I've been to accepted to U Texas Law School and still waiting on some others on the West coast. If I go to law school, I'd want to practice in SF and I think I'd want to work in Big Law (venture capital or PE practice)

I've spent enough time reading articles, blogs, and law.com associate satisfaction surveys to get a slightly negative view of Big Law life (long, unpredictable hours, overly aggressive partners, politicking amongst associate ranks, multi-tiered partnership structures, long partnership tracks, etc.).

I'm curious what associates at Big Law (hopefully any in SF) have to say about work/life balance, their prospects of making partner (if they even want to stick around that long), how easy/hard it was to work in your desired practice group when you first started, and whether you feel that working at Big Law was the right choice or if you'd do it all over again if you could. I'm curious if people feel like they have to work extra hard to balance work and family and if the culture at Big Law is friendly/collegial or is political as I've gathered from reading articles.

I appreciate any honest perspectives on your Big Law experiences thus far and any future plans you may have.

First, congratulations for being accepted to UT; that is a great school. If you know you want to practice in SF, I would try to get accepted to a similar reputable school closer to SF (maybe even ranked slighly lower). However, you won't have a problem getting into biglaw from UT, especially if you do well in law school.

Next, I wouldn't worry about partner prospects or even what a 5th year makes. Just get into a good firm and take it one year at a time. You can pay off loans, make some cash and figure out what you want to do if you hate it. If you like practicing law, chances are you will lateral to another firm or go in house. It is extremely unlikely you will make partner at the firm you start with, so I wouldn't even worry about. Several of the biglaw firms you interview with will enable you to have a life outside of law. You can figure that out once you interview.

A law degree is a valuable asset even if you only practice for a few years. It opens up doors and prepares you for other non-legal careers. I am a third year and have come to realization that I do not want to practice law long-term. I'm trying to figure out what else to do while making some good cash and getting some good training. I do not regret going to law school and I'll probably use my legal training for the rest of my life. The lawyers you hear on these blogs saying they regret going to law school are typically the ones that went to TTT law schools and never had a high paying job with the opportunities (networking, experience) it affords.

We have a bunch of UT alum in my office (LA); you won't have any problem breaking into biglaw in SF from UT, especially if you have roots in CA or SF. Make sure you spend your first summer in SF, even if you don't land a summer position. You could clerk for a judge or work for the DA. You need to show commitment to the area in order to line yourself up for interviews for a 2L position in the fall of your second year.

However, you'd be better off if you could get into Stanford, Berkeley, USC or UCLA (in that order). I would chose UT over Hastings, unless they give you free tuition (but UT is so cheap, probably not worth it).

I agree with the other comment not to worry about partnership prospects or associate life yet. You can worry about that once you have offers in your hand.

Thanks all for your insight. I'm wondering how many hours lawyers realistically work. From what I've read on the midlevel associate survey on law.com, it's an average of 40 - 55 hrs per week. Part of me thinks this is too LOW. An average of 40 - 55 hrs per week is doable and wouldn't mean that many late late night and weekends. How can this? I can't seem to reconicle this? If this is an average figure and late late nights and weekends exist, then there must extremely light weeks. I'm wondering how many total hours you all work per week and what city you work in. Thanks again for the info.

First off, few (if any) lawyers in biglaw work 40 hours a week. The real average is probably 50-60 (not including lunch). Also, lawyers waste a lot of time throughout the day, which you can't (shouldn't) bill for. Most big law attorneys bill 2000 hours a year (on average), which requires 8.5 to 9 billable hours a day (in order to take holidays, vacation, CLE days, slow days). It takes 9.5 to 11 (not including your lunch hour/break) to bill those hours. If you don't work weekends and take off a bit earlier on Fridays, you'll probably work 11-12 hour days (including all breaks and lunches) and maybe 10 on Friday. Weekends can knock it down a bit (or just allow you to bill crazy hours). If you take a short lunch and are really efficient, you can bill 8.5 in 10 hours total, but you have to be really focussed.

Thank you very much. I'm actually deciding between Hastings and UT. I like Hastings only because it gets me closer to SF. I imagine it's easier to get into SF Biglaw from Hastings as opposed to U of Texas?

Sorry for yet another question (I'm very grateful for the answers I've received thus far. You guys are really wonderful), but thinking my interest (venture capital/private equity practice in the SF Bay Area), would getting an JD/MBA help get me placed in that practice area or does it really not matter in the end anyway? I have a BA in Mathematics and a MSE in Industrial Engineering but I don't think I want to do IP and I fear that I may get placed there. Has anyone faced a similar situation or would anyone have any thoughts? Again, thanks and my apologies for so many questions.

M: I would be careful about assuming it is easier to get into biglaw in SF from Hastings rather than UT. Unless you are totally set on SF and no other areas of the county or world interest you, I would chose UT because of the name recognition outside the bay area. Hastings is a good school, but it is not seen as an equal to UT in biglaw. As long as you have ties to SF or even Cali, you won't have any problem getting into SF biglaw from UT. If you don't have ties to SF, I would chose UT b/c you can't be sure you want to live in SF until you have lived there (i.e., have ties).

Anon: If you think you may end up outside a law firm, the MBA can't hurt and it is only a year. I didn't get one because my wife wanted out of school ASAP, but I wish I had pounded out the extra year. If you are pretty set on making partner, then the MBA likely isn't worth it. If you are waffling, you can typically make the decision during your first year.

Definitely, you guys are wonderful!!! I'm a poor soul, 1L in Puerto Rico, of all sorts. I was accepted here because of my low LSAT, however, I am doing everything I can to go through law school. My first semester was crazy, I'm in my second semester now, much easier, less strenous, 12 or more students transferred out last semester so the Profs are on our cases not to transfer. One of them expressed to one of my colleagues that he will do everything (low grading us) so we cannot transfer out. Let's see what happens. Love and kisses.

Transfer to a better school. Transfer, Transfer, Transfer, Transfer, Transfer, Transfer, Transfer. Don't wait until after your second year b/c your diploma will be from your first school. Work you A off, get good grades and get out ASAP. Make sure you move up a whole tier (4th tier to 3d tier, 3d to 2nd, 2nd to 1st tier), or it may not be worth it. Your school is the one thing that follows you for the rest of your career. You can hide your first job, but not your school. Good luck.

Transfering after your first year is one of the best kept secrets of law school hoop jumping. It pisses off schools, but they all participate in poaching students from lower tier schools. It makes OCI interviews tough fall of your second year, but if you get to the better school and prove yourself, you'll be all set your third year to land a position.

I have been accepted to the U.S. Naval Nuclear Engineering Program and have been advised to take distance learning classes from Old Dominion University. My advisor stated that if I complete the nuclear program the I could choose between two engineering degrees which are ABET accredited. The two are Mechanical Engineering-Nuclear Engn.(BSET) which gives you 42 accelerated credits. Or choosing to pursue Electrical Engineering-Computer Technolgy(BSET) but does not give you any crdits for completion of the Naval Nuclear Eng. program. Which of the BS degrees would be better in obtaining if I choose to practice IP law?

I would pick the one you are most interested in as you may get into law and just hate it. Either way you'll be set. You'll work less hours and make more money than the rest of us and get into a better firm from a worse school and with worse grades.

I'm in my second year at a tier II school and am trying to bounce back from a bad first year. I go part time, and have a full time job as an in-house clerk at a Fortune 500 company. I'm trying to write on to law review and get on the moot court board (ours is ranked #1 in the US). Although I have no plans on transferring, I was wondering if I should go get my MBA after law school to try and get into biglaw...or go work at a small firm and hope to luck out as a lateral. I guess what I'm asking is, is there any hope for an average law student at an average law school?

Not really. I apologize for being so brutally honest. Your school will follow you to the grave. Not to say that you can't make a lot of money still in law, but biglaw is like a fraternity. A few lawyers from tier II schools make it to biglaw, but they are few and far between and are both really smart and work like crazy. You'll have a tough time lateraling from a small firm, especially from a Tier II school. You have to at least get into a medium size firm 25-50 attorneys.

An MBA won't help you get into biglaw, but it may help you if you want to lateral or may not want to end up in law. Good luck with law review and moot court; both good experiences (after the fact, they suck during).

I'm just echoing everyone else's sentiments--your law school and your law school grades remain of paramount importance to employers. If you have the opportunity to make a change now, do it! I thought it would be best to take on every single activity offered in law school to beef up my resume and show how well-rounded I was. I even got an MBA at the same time. I thought that a 3.0 GPA along with an MBA, an externship, clerking at good firms, and law review would make the world my oyster. Here I am, many years later, and I STILL fight the stigma associated with a so-so law school with so-so grades. I can't even get an interview in big law because the minute they see my transcript, I'm out--regardless of my hard work and regardless of what I've done since! So go to a good school and get good grades. It matters FOREVER! Good luck!

Stuck,

Where'd you go to school? I'm finding it so hard to believe that grades matter so much especially with all you have. What BigLaw firms are/were you looking at?

Trust me, I'm having a hard time believing it, too, but it's true. The minute they see my transcript, I never hear from them again (except for an occasional "thanks, but no thanks" letter.

I've looked at just about every firm who has a salary posted on this site. Went to a private midwestern law school that is actually pretty large, but not so high in the rankings. Had I known then what I know now, I would have gone somewhere else. Truly sad! (Sorry for the pity party....)

Hey Stuck,

Do you know around where your school ranks? Is it a tier 2 school?

It is apparently a second tier school now, though when I attended I believe it was teetering back and forth between 3rd and 4th tier. No one ever explained the whole "tier" system to me before I applied, either. Again, lesson learned!

What's horrible is that Law Schools are complicit in pumping out graduates that have dim job prospects. These high fallutin Ivy Leaguers who don't want to get a real job go and decide to teach - but they're really doing a dissservice to the people they're teaching...yet they constantly have to recruit people to law school so that they get their pay checks.

I think the students bear most of the responsibility for enrolling in a high-cost, low-ranking law schools, especially in the last few years. You may have had a better argument for ignorance 10 years ago, but there have been several prominent (Wall Street Journal, US News, NY Times, etc.) articles written over the last few years about the dim employment prospects of non top-tier law grads. Regardless of what the school's recruiter told the students, they should have done their own research. Like a get-rich quick scheme, they had dollar signs in their eyes despite what easy research would have revealed. Although I sympathize with the plight, I have about as much sympathy as I have for the real estate investors of the past few years who claim they did not understand their loan terms before they bought the Million Dollar home on stated income because their realtor told them home prices always go up.

Anonymous (5/2)-- I do take responsibility for my choices. I did choose a private school, and did so knowing it would cost more. At the time it didn't matter to me. I was excited and figured, eh, what the hell. It's only a loan.

And don't get me wrong--while my law school was low ranking, I had a blast and made great friends and learned a lot. When I applied to law school I didn't know a single other person who was a lawyer or who was applying to law school. My college advisor was a joke and knew nothing about law school, either, other than to tell me graduate school was a great idea. At the time, I didn't even think that it mattered where I went to school and thought none of it mattered so long as you pass the bar. I know differently now, and that's fine. I don't blame anyone else. If I sounded that way, I didn't mean to. I take responsibility, and trust me, each day that passes that I get another rejection in the mail, I remember that I made a mistake. I'm just optimistic, I guess, and hope that someday someone will see me for my capabilities and experience and for more than my school. Thankfully my current employer did!

Stuck; I didn't mean to attack you personally. You've owned up to your mistakes and are warning others that may make the same mistake. I respect your honesty and humility.

However, there is a way for you to move past your grades. You noted that law school was several years ago. You must stop seeing yourself as an employee (waiting for someone to give you a break) and become your own boss and make it happen for yourself. No biglaw firm is going to take a risk on a senior associate that has not proven themselves yet. Good lawyers are always in demand by other firms and clients. If you are truly a good attorney, you'll rarely have a hard time finding a job or work.

Grow some balls, take some risks, become the type of lawyer you keep trying to convince the biglaw firms you are and bag some good clients. If you are good enough for biglaw, you can make a ton more money on your own and don't need a biglaw gig. You can become an expert on your area of law, publish an article or two, speak at some conferences and aggressively court clients. I takes work; not just sweat, but smart, intellectual work.

Best of luck to you.

Anon--that's a good point. In between my pity parties I really am trying to work in that direction. :-) Thanks for the info!