Perhaps a bit of a silly question, but i was wondering if biglaw work wasn't as challenging as it would seem. Assuming one were to get a biglaw gig, is the work itself that hard? or is it just a lot of time-consuming, maybe unfulfilling, work?

I am not a lawyer yet, so take this with a grain of salt, but all my research on the topic of biglaw implies that the work is mostly mind-numbing and tedious. In other words, not necessairly all that challenging to the mind, but very much an energy-suck. Expect close to 80-hr workweeks your first several years and repetitive -- and yes, unfulfilling -- daily tasks. You might want to take a look at the books "Double Billing" and "Proceed With Caution" to get a good sense of the day-to-day work in a biglaw firm. Good luck!

It can be stressful, demanding and challenging because you work for jerks and everyone expects perfection (no typos, didn't miss anything). However, it is rarely intellectually stimulating. But you get to work on big deals, work with sophisticated clients, make a boat load of cash and it opens lots of doors. Someone once described it to me as a residency. Tough for a few years, but good practice and a necessary evil.

The ideal situation is to be in a small local office of a biglaw firm. You get the relatively big $$ and work on big deals without going through the insufferable doc reviews and 80hr weeks. You will still work hard, don't doubt that, you will spend 12 hours in the office once in a while if there is need. But you'll get to work hands-on on a lot more stuff than your counterparts in the main biglaw office.

This site has a lot of data on associate salary plans, but I was wondering if anyone knew what the expected compensation would be for partners: non-equity, junior, etc. Thanks for your help.

I need to clarify my above post, I want to know what the expected compensation for partners at BigLaw would be.

Non-equity AmLaw 100 partners in big cities make between $300K (junior) to $600K (more senior). It is frankly all across the board, but that range probably captures the 10% to the 90%, if not more.

what about equity partners?

Depending on the city, say like Denver, you can expect non-equity partner compensation to range between $250,000 to $450,000 plus bonus. I agree with the above post, a branch office of a large firm is the right way to go. You have more autonomy but the draw back is that you're not mixing it up on a daily basis with the center of the firm.