Job Responsibilities
I work mostly on one lawsuit, brought on behalf of the estate of a bankrupt
entity
against its banks. Because it is early in the life of the case, I spend most of
my time
preparing deposition questions, reviewing transcripts, drafting document
requests, reviewing responses to our complaint, drafting and responding to
motions,
and thinking of ways to move the case forward. I work 40 to 50 hours a week,
with
my time split about evenly with respect to each of the tasks described above.
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Job Requirements
Juris doctor
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Uppers
The best part of this job is that the work we do is very complicated and
interesting. There are a lot of moving pieces and what we do with them requires
creativity and thinking through how various aspects of the case affect other
aspects. We get to talk to a lot of different lawyers and other professionals
and that's fun because we all seem to have different takes on what's going on and
how to proceed. The job is immensely intellectually rewarding and rarely dull.
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Downers
The worse part of the job is that it is very demanding. It is not 9 to 5. An
emergency
can come about because opposing counsel decides to file an unexpected motion.
Dealing with those can be stressful. Also, it is very difficult to coordinate
with co-
counsel and other people working on the case because of its size, which means
that
we can work up a document only to find out someone else has taken care of it
already.
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Lifestyle
I work from about 9 to 7:30 5 days a week. I usually put in a few hours over
the weekend as well. There is no magical minimum billable requirement, but I am
told that the firm likes it if we each bill at least 200 hours a month. The firm
is wonderful about vacation and personal/ sick days. We can take as much time
off as we like as long as we clear it in advance and are not chronically absent.
We travel to another state to do brief document review stints on occasion.
Otherwise, not much travel is involved. The dress code is business, but casual
over the summer. The office is a small one by local standards, so there is a
very congenial environment and everyone knows everybody, which is very nice.
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Compensation
$130k base salary.
Bonus varies but is usually 25% of base salary.
Benefits include good health care coverage, payment of continuing legal
education
costs and malpractice insurance premiums.
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Advice to Jobseekers
I think people interested in being trial lawyers should seriously consider
entering the
bankruptcy field. Business is booming and is expected to continue to. I would
caution against working in a big firm's bankruptcy department. In that
environment,
it is very easy to find oneself doing very repetitive tasks and not having the
chance to
appreciate the context, which is almost always fascinating. As quality of life
concerns
go, this field is less demanding than some, more than others. It varies from
firm to
firm. It's a good idea to research firms and shop around before deciding on one.
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