Job Responsibilities
As a litigation partner, my responsibilities are to my clients -
to ensure that their cases are given the level of attention they
deserve while balancing the high costs almost inevitably
attendant to litigation. Calendaring and case management are
substantial headaches, as conflicts can and do arise.
Additional responsibilities include continuing legal education -
by reading or attending seminars - marketing, and internal
timekeeping and billing.
Days are long - generally 10 hours or more during the week, with
one or both weekend days thrown in.
Vacations tend to be unsatisfying, as litigation waits for no
man - you'll find yourself tethered to a laptop at Disneyword,
thumbing your BlackBerry at the beach, and furtively checking
email at the finest of restaurants.
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Job Requirements
The education path is straightforward - a bachelor's degree in
just about anything, followed by graduation from an ABA-
accredited law school, and then the dreaded bar exam. Many
firms give substantial preference to incoming attorneys who have
clerked for a judge for one or more years before coming to the
firm.
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Uppers
Well, it's no longer prestige, and it's not nearly as profitable for most
attorneys as they had hoped it would be. Being a lawyer does demystify the legal
process and makes the prospect of being sued much less intimidating that it
otherwise could be. Also, being trained as a lawyer drills a logical, deductive
thought process into you that gives a lawyer the unique ability to size up a
dispute and marginalize irrelevancies.
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Downers
Long hours, relatively low pay for the hours worked and years of
academic preparation, low societal esteem, pressure to rainmake.
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Lifestyle
Poor. Hours are long, travel is not uncommon, days are filled with arbitrary
deadlines (with very negative results if those deadlines are not met), the dress
code is doctrinaire, and the high end of the profession is very diverse if you
can find diversity between different old white men. Social events are few and
far between, as lawyers see so damned much of each other during the long workweek
that the last thing they want to see is a lawyer outside of work hours.
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Compensation
Initially looks attractive, but ultimately relatively low based
on hours worked. A $100,000 starting salary may look nice, but
it's not much per hour if you have a steady diet of 12- to 15-
hour days. Bonuses are generally reserved for those who bill
extreme amounts of hours, or generate substantial business,
neither of which is an option for most associates. Benefits are
becoming increasingly self-paid; very little of the cost of
benefits is absorbed by the firms as opposed to the component
attorneys.
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Advice to Jobseekers
The world will always need attorneys, but law schools are
generating too many of them (and too many incompetent attorneys
at that). As long as law schools remain the cash cows of
universities, there will be no incentive to restrict the number
of new attorneys entering the job market, and that job market
will remain flooded bicoastally.
I would strongly encourage those I love and care about not to
practice law. Law school is, in and of itself, excellent
training for life, but the practice of law leaves a great deal
to be desired.
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