You have no life, are chronically sleep deprived, gain a lot of weight, and are otherwise miserable due to the long unpredictable hours. You can work 70 hour weeks for months and then suddenly have nothing to do. Work appears and disappears unexpectedly, making scheduling any semblance of a life difficult. There will be times when there is no work and you’re struggling to cobble together your hours. Family and friends don’t understand the constant state of fear, or why you’re always cancelling last minute.
Grief over how much time you can bill. Actual time does not equal billable time. Just because a project takes 12 hours to complete doesn't mean you can bill even 8 hours. You’re constantly told to be more efficient when high rates and tight client budgets are the issue. Firm management is focused on high level engagements and moving upstream, but that doesn’t necessarily square with what existing clients need right now.
Limited support. Only partners and senior associates are assigned secretaries. There are few paralegals. Staff is constantly cut or turning over. Mail room, copying, records, word processing, and IT help desk were outsourced long ago. Billing and accounting were sent to a back office in Florida. One year, three of the four people in New York HR were pushed out in quick succession. Yet, HR remained horrible and worthless. There was even an attorney in another office who sued the firm because someone in benefits supposedly contacting the firm’s insurer to scuttle his long term disability benefits.
The ventilation system is turned off outside of regular business hours. So working in the office at night and during the weekend is sweltering during the summer and freezing during the winter. Floor lights automatically shut-off at night. Renovations occur on occupied floors, meaning you may have to cope with construction noise and dust. The office administrators move your office location occasionally for seemingly no reason, disrupting your workday.
The biggest problem is that your involvement is mostly limited to low level drudgery for the first few years. In that same time, law school classmates who are working as prosecutors, defense attorneys, city attorneys, plaintiffs personal injury lawyers, etc. actually learn the nuts and bolts of an area of law, negotiate contracts, go to court, interact with clients, etc. They develop marketable skills while you’re making binders, doing due diligence, or babysitting document reviewers.
If you make it to mid-level and senior associate, you start receiving better work and begin to fill out your skills set. Clients and lawyers at other firms start noticing you exist. You finally begin establishing your professional reputation. But since you’re always one small mistake away from begin fired, it’s unlikely you’ll be around that long. All corporate law firms operate on an attrition model.
So you need to have an exit plan, starting day one. Otherwise, you’ll end up like those doc reviewers that everyone at the firm mocks and abuses.
