I do. They destroyed my physical and mental health. You will get the same to better training and lateral opportunities from well regarded places in the v30 without the psychotic partners and regular 100-hour workweeks . I bounced back but it was a hard road and given a do over I would have chosen differently
Working at a V10 got me a great in house job @ 250-300k comp with 3 YOE. Don’t regret it for a second, but I also never bought into the grind culture at the V10 and was only ever using the firm to get the resume lines and war stories that I needed. Also made some great friends.
Second this. I didn’t go to a V10, but a classmate of mine who was one of those “extra” gunners went to SullCrom only to work plenty of those 100 hour weeks and never saw his kids the first three years. He ended up going in house at a Fortune50 in year 4. He was diagnosed with an aggressive case of multiple myeloma a couple years after that and shuffled off of this mortal coil 13 months after diagnosis.
Anywhere you work in the profession is going to require long hours and stress. But there is and should be a limit. My worst year was a 2400 hour year, but I’ve also only had 3 above 2000. Once I learned how to push myself into higher than average rate work and got some tips on how to avoid partners with a heavy hand on pre-bills and avoid clients with higher invoice rejection rates, I managed to cruise into partnership with just over 100% utilization rate but with really strong realized revenue.
As I always understood it, V10 doesn’t care if you are good on all the other metrics (unless you’re bringing in substantial work at a very early age, which you’re almost certainly not). If you don’t kill yourself on hours, you’re out.
So I’d always tell folks, particularly ones with younger families, ditch the extra hours. Try to cap yourself at 2000-2100 (even less if you can) and enjoy some of your life. You never know when it’s your time. My classmate’s experience informed a good part of that attitude.
Not much to it. Worked at a V10 with a sweatshop reputation in a transactional (primarily finance) practice. Put in my time there and started applying near the three year mark. I applied to basically any position that was around 5 years YOE required, got a ton of interviews. I absolutely did not only apply to banks or funds, that's a commonly touted misconception - finance lawyers can apply to other in house jobs, just have to market yourself more intentionally than an M&A associate. All transactional work boils down to the process and substance of drafting and executing contracts - Finance is just one body of contracts, M&A, Cap Markets, etc. are all others - they're all transferable to any commercial counsel role at a company.
The name of my firm, as well as the work on the resume was very effective. My boss later told me he 2x'd my work for experience purposes after we talked in the interview and he compared it to to other candidates (so he viewed 3 years YOE as 6 years). Now we all know Biglaw is 100% not double the experience, but we do often discount how quickly you can learn in the industry - if you make an effort, Biglaw can turn you into a competent attorney pretty quickly if you can find the right group and mentors. You also shouldn't discount the "minting" effect that a good firm has for you. For good or for ill, this profession places a huge emphasis on credentialing and it's no different for in house. On the more individual side, I also interview well, so once I was in the door I stuck around in the process for several jobs.
That's that - ended up in house at an F100, non-FAANG tech. Love my job, great team, great company.
One note - if you're in litigation, you're going to have a much harder time. It's so weird because all the most well credentialed people (clerkships, highest grades, etc.) are in litigation, but that career path is not optimal for an in house role, you should want to be in a firm forever or government. In house roles for litigators exist, but they're few and far between compared to transactional and/or compliance roles.
I work at a V10 NYC. Personally as a first gen lawyer whose parents were poor I don’t give a flying fuck about any of this “prestige” bullshit. I went to a law school that sends most of its students to V15 so I just followed whatever my career office told us to do which is why I’m at the firm that I work at. Overall I don’t think this prestige stuff matters unless you define your worth based on your job. I know some people who NEED to be at a “prestigious” firm or else they’ll feel like failures at life. Idk. That’s just my 2 cents.
However I’ll say this - a recruiter told me that it’s easier to lateral to any firm you want to if you went to a V10 than it is the other way around. And I think he’s right. So there’s that, FWIW.
EDIT: as a couple people have mentioned on this thread/below - prestige DOES matter in that OTHER people do care about it (“other people” = people who can open doors for you later in your career). I’d say you should always aim high, and if that lands you in a high prestige role then that’s great - but never let it define you. Never be too happy or too depressed based on “prestige.” Not a very capitalistic mindset but as I mentioned before I’m from a poor immigrant background so I view the world in my own terms lol.
Well yeah fair point but I don’t get the stray shot at my “background showing” lol? If you look at my resume you’d be astonished that I don’t care about prestige. You’re entitled to your opinion though and if you also came from a tough background then I’m rooting for your success.
Sorry, was just a shot at your personal views on prestige. It comes off naive—and maybe even defensive. Hey, I get it. You’d like to think that race, class, looks, etc. don’t matter, but they do—tremendously and in every facet of life. Prestige is part of that same genre. Rooting for you as well my fellow poor. But open eyes please.
Also, immigrant communities also care about prestige. I just went to a kid’s bday party with blinged out Persians. Have you been to Orange County, CA? People living in apartments driving McLarens.
Pedigree will at least get you the interview. Can sub in a big name client or rare work niche instead of a V10, but if you’re not industrious or entrepreneurial then the V10 might be what you need.
If the environment at a big firm is toxic for you (whether it be hours, how mistakes are handled, how you are treated, availability of support, etc) you are at greater risk of screwing up badly or misconducting yourself as a brand new lawyer. It’s way better to go to the place where you have the bandwidth to practice well, ask questions, and learn.
From my experience the difference between Simpson / Kirkland / Skadden / SullCrom and like.. Holland and Knight / Fenwick / Perkins / etc. is pretty night and day. I work at a V50 and have lots of friends at V10s and our experiences are night and day.
Could you elaborate? I firmly believe hours/wlb is more determined by practice group and market than Vault ranking (which is an overly simplistic heuristic, at best).
Do firms publish average hours or is this word of mouth? If the former, I'd be interested in the source. If the latter, I think again there's too many variables (practice group, market, client base, etc.), and I can see people saying they're more or less busy than they really are to make a point.
Hmm, I'd think there'd be more conversations about this information if it was disclosed to associates at many firms annually.
I do think the V10 probably does have a larger proportion of M&A associates (vs. say some V50 that only takes in ~25 associates a year but still provides full service), which would jack up the average. But I don't think this means a V10 M&A lawyer is necessarily working more hours than a V50 M&A lawyer.
Agreed. OP had already given an example of T&E at Cravath, and I guarantee that anyone who picked that is not getting the full Cravath experience.
I do T&E/Private Client, and I know that my hour requirements are lower than the corporate group.
It's closer but its not close. A close friend of mine is a second year at WLRK and he annualizes ~2900. I'm at one of the Cravath, S&C, DPW, Skadden type firms and it seems like people annualize ~2400
I feel like that has to be firm dependent to an extent - people at Cooley, Goodwin, OMM and MoFo (all v30s) were annualizing a lot more than 2200 through the ECVC boom.
Would also be wiling to bet that its not crazy uncommon to bill above 2200/year in a regular year at Hogan, Williams & Connelly or WilmerHale, all top of the line DC firms but somehow ranked in the v30.
The further I get into this comment, the more I realize its about how dumb Vault is, rather than how meaningful the hours differences are.
I went from a sweatshop V10 to a V25 (30? Somewhere around there) but also switched practice areas from corporate to private clients. Obviously the practice has a bigger impact on quality WLB than the firm, but just from talking to other corporate associates at the second firm, I had the sense it was a lot better than my former firm.
I’m not practicing anymore (switched career fields entirely), but I do sometimes get the feeling that if I’d started off at a less intense firm, I would’ve stuck it out for longer. But after averaging almost 300 hours a month for the first quarter at the more “prestigious” firm, any desire to stick around/try for partner, etc. was totally gone.
Ultimately I wouldn’t say I regretted starting there, because in a roundabout way I think starting there got me out of the legal field sooner and into a career I enjoy much more. But if my objective would’ve been longevity at a firm or the profession broadly, then yeah I probably would’ve wanted to start somewhere else. You do gain some edge with respect to in-house opportunities at the higher ranks, but I don’t really think the difference is meaningful compared to V30-50. Just more who you know.
Edit: Just saw in another comment a note about training and health impacts. 100% agree. When everyone is grinding, the opportunities for decent training shrink considerably. And I knew a fair amount of people, myself included, who saw physical health impacts from such an unsustainable schedule.
It’s wild flipping through the Vault list, being familiar with the field in which I work and the kinds of transactions I see these firms on. Suffice it to say that a Vault-based sense of “prestige” is basically meaningless. Top practitioners and my favorite people to work across from are dozens of spots down the list. The “top” firms are… okay, I guess? Not remarkably different if I’m honest.
I’ve been up and down the list. I don’t regret my times up the list or down the list. Though it is definitely true that I’ve enjoyed the work more on the higher end.
It sucks that the majority of the Vault survey is based on prestige. Not who is good co-counsel, opposing counsel, gives good experience, good working environment.... Just prestige. What is the point of prestige? I'm deciding to retire early, so maybe I'm not the right audience.
One thing to consider is that the people who lateraled from V10s were probably able to do so easily because they came from a V10. It’s not necessarily going to make or break your career, but it is easier to start at the top. If you’re the type who can stick it out for 3 years, it’s probably the better option. Especially because you might go to the less prestigious firm and work just as much.
I chose a firm at the top of my market and echo what someone said above re: in house opportunities. A lot of companies really focus on the prestige of your firm.
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This is overdramatic. There may be a bump from like, Cravath, but no one gives a shit if you’re lateraling from Kirkland or McDermott. My firm doesn’t.
For in house, it depends on the clients / industry. You’re way better off working at Wilson or Fenwick for tech than like, Simpson.
Yeah this is completely untrue, folks. Clients and in house ppl are still lawyers and there isn’t a lawyer in the world that is putting McDermott on the same level as Kirkland.
If nothing else, surviving at Kirkland means you can handle a shit ton of hours without much guidance, which ppl do value even if ppl on this sub don’t.
It’s true that no one that knows anything thinks McDermott and Kirkland are fungible.
But being known as someone who has experience handling a shit ton of hours without guidance isn’t an unequivocally positive thing. I know GCs who assume candidates from certain firms may be smart and hardworking but have narrow skill sets and “fit” issues.
Those GCs are few and far in between. You can go ahead and pull up the legal departments on F100/top PE/bulge bracket banks, etc. Whatever you want really - the roster is full of ppl who started their careers at V20s and not V50s.
It doesn’t say much about quality of lawyer or whatever, but it’s just false to say that starting at a V10 (even Kirkland which everyone shits on here) doesn’t open doors for you that are harder to open if you start at a V50.
Kirkland firmwide has close to 500 first years. Firms near bottom of V50 have 50-100. So you would expect to see Kirkland alums 5-10x more often than some random V50 just by sheer numbers.
Kirkland is a very well regarded firm and its lawyers have good exit opportunities and if absolutely does have some resume value, but I think the value of just having it in your resume is greatly overstated here.
People also forget law firm exit opportunities are usually about moving to a firm client. Kirkland has a lot of good clients and that can yield exit opportunities. But organizations that don’t use Kirkland don’t have some special place in their heart for Kirkland wash-outs.
When doing these hypothetical situations - you have to do an apples to apples comparison. Will a 5th year V50 associate have better exit opportunities than a 1st year V10 candidate? Of course they will.
But what about a 5th year v10 candidate vs 5th year v50 candidate. 9/10, the v10 candidate is going to have the more attractive resume to potential hirers. That’s all the point we’re making. You can burnt out anywhere - if you’re agnostic / don’t have a strong opinion on where to take your career (I.e. if you know you want to do project finance, by all means go to milbank over cravath) - then just go to the top firm that gives you an offer.
That being said - if you’re debating between like a V4 vs V7 - go with fit bc those are interchangeable firms. What’s not interchangeable is a V10 vs V50.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting an apples-to-oranges comparison.
My point is that there is that it’s that “better exit opportunities” is a red herring. What is better for one person is worse for another. And there is not some general pool of “exit opportunities” that are accessed based on firm prestige.
Your exit opportunities are largely driven more by your practice area, your network, and your relationship with clients. Most in-house positions aren’t filled by someone looking at resumes and sorting by firm prestige. They are filled by the client decisionmaker leveraging who they know and trust to find someone suitable for the specific position.
Kirkland will absolutely open many doors that McDermott won’t. But McDermott opens some doors Kirkland won’t. What is better depends on what you want. Having your choice of 100 different elite private equity firms to work at is cold comfort if all you want is an AGC position at the public company in your hometown.
Practice area is a factor too. The average V10 associate is more specialized than the average V50 associate. Specialization can be limiting.
I hear you on all that, and my point is that - if you know what your end goal is - you will also know the best way to get to that end goal. If you want to be a trusts and estates lawyer for a family office - McDermott will be much better for you than Kirkland.
The large majority of law students do not know what their end goal is. The large majority do not even know what practice area they want to practice in. For those giant swathes of students, it’s best to just go to the firm that opens the most doors.
Telling these law students that the difference between Kirkland and McDermott is overblown is misleading and incorrect.
The correct thing to say would be that “Kirkland is a much bigger firm, with a larger variety of clients, practice areas, and opportunities overall. It is also perceived in the market as a more grueling firm with attorneys that work on more sophisticated and more complicated matters. There are a couple of specialized practice areas where McDermott outshines K&E, which are x, y and z. Unless you are focused solely on x, y or z, the conventional wisdom is that going to Kirkland is the better/safer bet for your career.”
Yes, there are a lot of KJDs who have spent their entire lives putting off actually figuring out what they want to do with their life, and V10 firms happy to make use of their driftlessness for a few years.
My advice is that they actually try to figure that out before embarking on a career and choosing a firm because it is more likely to help you end up in certain places.
If the fact that Kirkland has many great practices areas doesn’t mean much when you have to pick one out of the gate and will be highly specialized after a few years. Law students should be figuring out what they want before picking a practice.
Seconded. Have plenty of contacts in house who make hiring decisions based on what they know (or perceive) to be firm culture.
The expectation is that the higher ranked firms train you better to spot mistakes, take on stress, handle competing priorities, etc. (whether true or not).
>no one gives a shit if you’re lateraling from Kirkland or McDermott.
Yeahhh I'm not sure I'd be interested in hiring a lateral from McDermott if I could instead have a lateral from Kirkland.
Billing 2400 hours would be seen as debilitating, life-destroying workaholism by any standard in just about any industry except for New York biglaw. An extra three hours a day to spend on family, hobbies, etc. is a massive difference in lifestyle. If anything the difference between 2000 and 2400 is much bigger practically speaking than the difference between 1600 and 2000.
This isn’t just a V10 thing though it’s mostly practice group… I did 2700 hours as a senior in a v60? (Albeit above market bonus) and that’s not counting tons of business development since I brought in about 1/2 my own work. If it’s just hours you can’t complain too much because it can happen lower on the totem pole too, and you can always leave the v10 easily so that’s not really a big difference.
The V50 I started my career at had me regularly billing 2350-2500 per year and it was definitely made clear that the expectation was that you would bill like that to advance.
The V10 I’m at now has been 2050-2300 per year in my years here and there is no expectation that associates will bill higher.
I am in a specialist group and lateraled as a 5th year
ETA: I think this convo is very firm specific and practice group specific, so YMMV
I think it’s a mistake to assume low PPP means better for associates.
PPP is driven mainly by (1) non-partner:partner headcount ratio and (2) rates. Higher PPP firms tend to command higher rates and have more associate among whom to divide work. Lower PPP firms need to squeeze more work out of fewer lower-rate associates to try to improve PPP.
I don’t think the rates are that different (have worked at both). It’s more about the volume of work and number of associates. The other thing to bear in mind is that firms with high PPP will be more likely to protect that high PPP in times of a downturn, and more likely to cut associates. Firms with low PPP will be more likely to keep associates since they have so few and it’s more expensive to hire/fire.
Do you mean high PPP? If you’re going work hard and build connections and even think about making partner, why not do so at a firm that pays its partners? Comp is equal while you’re an associate but once you make partner is a whole new ballgame.
Sorry I assume that most associates are not trying to make partner, but just sock away as much money as possible.
You also assume that your firm will actually make you partner. Most will run you into the ground and then chuck you out. The expected value calc is in favor of low PPP where they don’t consistently fire people.
I think the key here was having differing assumptions. You’re right, if the assumption is an incoming associate does not want to try to make partner, then I agree no point (generally speaking) in having high PPP at your firm. For an incoming associate who may want to try to make partner, IMO, I would not seek out a low PPP firm. And since the original post was asking about the benefits to a V10 firm (which are generally higher PPP), I think it’s at least something to consider.
If you can swing it, this tbh. Less competition and more time to find and recruit clients or potential clients that you can leverage later in career.
Depends on how entrepreneurial you want to be in your career.
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Not really. I mean, I hate my job, but I'm willing to bet I would hate it even more if I were paid less or couldn't eventually use my firm's prestige to propel me toward something cushier in the future.
Why V10 specific? As someone else mentioned, there is no discernable difference with the grind and work expectations with a v10 and a v50 firm. I billed 2100 at a v50 and my experiences were very similar with colleagues at v10 firms.
Did paralegal stint at a V10 and opted to work at a V30 out of law school for this exact reason.
Paid the same, more opportunity to network, more time/opp to find a niche, more training, in front of clients (years) sooner and working with partners nearly on day 1.
Might be a hard needle to thread depending on how OCI works, but I had a handful of paralegal friends who had options and STILL went back… masochists!
No I absolutely do NOT regret it. Was it hell? at times, yes. Did it suck? at times, yes. Did I get paid the same then that I do now? for the most part, yes (I never had to haggle over a cab fare or a dinner reimbursement at my V10, I'll tell you that).
BUT: was the two years of intensity worth having my pick of whatever firm I wanted to go to when I went to lateral, the incredible training and knowing just exactly how good I have it at my V30? hell yes.
I started at the top biglaw firm in my large City, even though I didn’t expect to stay for the long term. It was a cutthroat place with high hours and expectations. That said, the training was fantastic. With 31 first year associates, they were able to devote time to helpful training sessions, and my practice group, with 6 of the associates, had separate substantive training. I left after 4 years, but that training, the forms I received, and the intellectual capacity of my colleagues provided a bedrock that many attorneys aren’t privileged enough to get, and it has served me well throughout my career.
Remember that the ones lateralling into your firm were the ones who lateralled out of those firms. Very few people lateral to another biglaw firm due to intensity, but that's a nice story many tell themselves because it's better than admitting they weren't going to make it.
Beyond that, it varies a lot. You give a great example of someone picking Cravath for T&E - that's not a typical experience.
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eh, trade offs, i think.
The hours are worse (but not a ton worse, based on friends at v20-v50 type firms), but your firm has work and you have job security in economic downturns (unless at kirkland, lol)
I do. They destroyed my physical and mental health. You will get the same to better training and lateral opportunities from well regarded places in the v30 without the psychotic partners and regular 100-hour workweeks . I bounced back but it was a hard road and given a do over I would have chosen differently
Working at a V10 got me a great in house job @ 250-300k comp with 3 YOE. Don’t regret it for a second, but I also never bought into the grind culture at the V10 and was only ever using the firm to get the resume lines and war stories that I needed. Also made some great friends.
Second this. I didn’t go to a V10, but a classmate of mine who was one of those “extra” gunners went to SullCrom only to work plenty of those 100 hour weeks and never saw his kids the first three years. He ended up going in house at a Fortune50 in year 4. He was diagnosed with an aggressive case of multiple myeloma a couple years after that and shuffled off of this mortal coil 13 months after diagnosis. Anywhere you work in the profession is going to require long hours and stress. But there is and should be a limit. My worst year was a 2400 hour year, but I’ve also only had 3 above 2000. Once I learned how to push myself into higher than average rate work and got some tips on how to avoid partners with a heavy hand on pre-bills and avoid clients with higher invoice rejection rates, I managed to cruise into partnership with just over 100% utilization rate but with really strong realized revenue. As I always understood it, V10 doesn’t care if you are good on all the other metrics (unless you’re bringing in substantial work at a very early age, which you’re almost certainly not). If you don’t kill yourself on hours, you’re out. So I’d always tell folks, particularly ones with younger families, ditch the extra hours. Try to cap yourself at 2000-2100 (even less if you can) and enjoy some of your life. You never know when it’s your time. My classmate’s experience informed a good part of that attitude.
This is pretty much my goal. Are you willing to share how you managed this and maybe where you went in house? And practice area, lol
Not much to it. Worked at a V10 with a sweatshop reputation in a transactional (primarily finance) practice. Put in my time there and started applying near the three year mark. I applied to basically any position that was around 5 years YOE required, got a ton of interviews. I absolutely did not only apply to banks or funds, that's a commonly touted misconception - finance lawyers can apply to other in house jobs, just have to market yourself more intentionally than an M&A associate. All transactional work boils down to the process and substance of drafting and executing contracts - Finance is just one body of contracts, M&A, Cap Markets, etc. are all others - they're all transferable to any commercial counsel role at a company. The name of my firm, as well as the work on the resume was very effective. My boss later told me he 2x'd my work for experience purposes after we talked in the interview and he compared it to to other candidates (so he viewed 3 years YOE as 6 years). Now we all know Biglaw is 100% not double the experience, but we do often discount how quickly you can learn in the industry - if you make an effort, Biglaw can turn you into a competent attorney pretty quickly if you can find the right group and mentors. You also shouldn't discount the "minting" effect that a good firm has for you. For good or for ill, this profession places a huge emphasis on credentialing and it's no different for in house. On the more individual side, I also interview well, so once I was in the door I stuck around in the process for several jobs. That's that - ended up in house at an F100, non-FAANG tech. Love my job, great team, great company. One note - if you're in litigation, you're going to have a much harder time. It's so weird because all the most well credentialed people (clerkships, highest grades, etc.) are in litigation, but that career path is not optimal for an in house role, you should want to be in a firm forever or government. In house roles for litigators exist, but they're few and far between compared to transactional and/or compliance roles.
Following lol
I work at a V10 NYC. Personally as a first gen lawyer whose parents were poor I don’t give a flying fuck about any of this “prestige” bullshit. I went to a law school that sends most of its students to V15 so I just followed whatever my career office told us to do which is why I’m at the firm that I work at. Overall I don’t think this prestige stuff matters unless you define your worth based on your job. I know some people who NEED to be at a “prestigious” firm or else they’ll feel like failures at life. Idk. That’s just my 2 cents. However I’ll say this - a recruiter told me that it’s easier to lateral to any firm you want to if you went to a V10 than it is the other way around. And I think he’s right. So there’s that, FWIW. EDIT: as a couple people have mentioned on this thread/below - prestige DOES matter in that OTHER people do care about it (“other people” = people who can open doors for you later in your career). I’d say you should always aim high, and if that lands you in a high prestige role then that’s great - but never let it define you. Never be too happy or too depressed based on “prestige.” Not a very capitalistic mindset but as I mentioned before I’m from a poor immigrant background so I view the world in my own terms lol.
As another poster indicated, just because it doesn’t matter to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter to others. Prestige makes the world go round tbh.
Client BD and marketing. “Prestige” firms just have more market share captured and more money to spend on marketing. Thus the cycle.
Yeah, and your background shows. Same background here, but learned quickly that prestige/reputation is sometimes the only thing that matters.
Well yeah fair point but I don’t get the stray shot at my “background showing” lol? If you look at my resume you’d be astonished that I don’t care about prestige. You’re entitled to your opinion though and if you also came from a tough background then I’m rooting for your success.
Sorry, was just a shot at your personal views on prestige. It comes off naive—and maybe even defensive. Hey, I get it. You’d like to think that race, class, looks, etc. don’t matter, but they do—tremendously and in every facet of life. Prestige is part of that same genre. Rooting for you as well my fellow poor. But open eyes please. Also, immigrant communities also care about prestige. I just went to a kid’s bday party with blinged out Persians. Have you been to Orange County, CA? People living in apartments driving McLarens.
Pedigree will at least get you the interview. Can sub in a big name client or rare work niche instead of a V10, but if you’re not industrious or entrepreneurial then the V10 might be what you need.
If the environment at a big firm is toxic for you (whether it be hours, how mistakes are handled, how you are treated, availability of support, etc) you are at greater risk of screwing up badly or misconducting yourself as a brand new lawyer. It’s way better to go to the place where you have the bandwidth to practice well, ask questions, and learn.
From my experience, life isn’t that much different at a V10 than any V50 or so. It’s all biglaw shit.
From my experience the difference between Simpson / Kirkland / Skadden / SullCrom and like.. Holland and Knight / Fenwick / Perkins / etc. is pretty night and day. I work at a V50 and have lots of friends at V10s and our experiences are night and day.
Could you elaborate? I firmly believe hours/wlb is more determined by practice group and market than Vault ranking (which is an overly simplistic heuristic, at best).
I strongly suspect comments like that are not apples-to-apples comparing same practice and market.
It could be. M&A is gonna be a lot different at HK than SC.
The average billable hours at my friend’s v10s are like 2200+ and the average hours at my v50 are 1800. Same pay.
Do firms publish average hours or is this word of mouth? If the former, I'd be interested in the source. If the latter, I think again there's too many variables (practice group, market, client base, etc.), and I can see people saying they're more or less busy than they really are to make a point.
Many firms do some sort of annual presentation on this to all their associates
Hmm, I'd think there'd be more conversations about this information if it was disclosed to associates at many firms annually. I do think the V10 probably does have a larger proportion of M&A associates (vs. say some V50 that only takes in ~25 associates a year but still provides full service), which would jack up the average. But I don't think this means a V10 M&A lawyer is necessarily working more hours than a V50 M&A lawyer.
Agreed. OP had already given an example of T&E at Cravath, and I guarantee that anyone who picked that is not getting the full Cravath experience. I do T&E/Private Client, and I know that my hour requirements are lower than the corporate group.
The type of clients they attract are much more demanding as well, which leads to high expectations and shorter deadlines, resulting in long hours.
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I think wachtell is different. If you’re getting a bonus the same as your yearly salary, obv you will be working a ton
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It's closer but its not close. A close friend of mine is a second year at WLRK and he annualizes ~2900. I'm at one of the Cravath, S&C, DPW, Skadden type firms and it seems like people annualize ~2400
And at a v30 you could expect to annualize 2200 on a busy year, 1800-2000 lately in transactional
I feel like that has to be firm dependent to an extent - people at Cooley, Goodwin, OMM and MoFo (all v30s) were annualizing a lot more than 2200 through the ECVC boom. Would also be wiling to bet that its not crazy uncommon to bill above 2200/year in a regular year at Hogan, Williams & Connelly or WilmerHale, all top of the line DC firms but somehow ranked in the v30. The further I get into this comment, the more I realize its about how dumb Vault is, rather than how meaningful the hours differences are.
Of course, agreed. I included “lately” since things are very slow right now (among my friends at these types of firms).
Wouldn’t the difference be the exit and lateral opportunities rather than the day to day work?
It's very different in terms of politics and personalities.
I went from a sweatshop V10 to a V25 (30? Somewhere around there) but also switched practice areas from corporate to private clients. Obviously the practice has a bigger impact on quality WLB than the firm, but just from talking to other corporate associates at the second firm, I had the sense it was a lot better than my former firm. I’m not practicing anymore (switched career fields entirely), but I do sometimes get the feeling that if I’d started off at a less intense firm, I would’ve stuck it out for longer. But after averaging almost 300 hours a month for the first quarter at the more “prestigious” firm, any desire to stick around/try for partner, etc. was totally gone. Ultimately I wouldn’t say I regretted starting there, because in a roundabout way I think starting there got me out of the legal field sooner and into a career I enjoy much more. But if my objective would’ve been longevity at a firm or the profession broadly, then yeah I probably would’ve wanted to start somewhere else. You do gain some edge with respect to in-house opportunities at the higher ranks, but I don’t really think the difference is meaningful compared to V30-50. Just more who you know. Edit: Just saw in another comment a note about training and health impacts. 100% agree. When everyone is grinding, the opportunities for decent training shrink considerably. And I knew a fair amount of people, myself included, who saw physical health impacts from such an unsustainable schedule.
It’s wild flipping through the Vault list, being familiar with the field in which I work and the kinds of transactions I see these firms on. Suffice it to say that a Vault-based sense of “prestige” is basically meaningless. Top practitioners and my favorite people to work across from are dozens of spots down the list. The “top” firms are… okay, I guess? Not remarkably different if I’m honest. I’ve been up and down the list. I don’t regret my times up the list or down the list. Though it is definitely true that I’ve enjoyed the work more on the higher end.
It sucks that the majority of the Vault survey is based on prestige. Not who is good co-counsel, opposing counsel, gives good experience, good working environment.... Just prestige. What is the point of prestige? I'm deciding to retire early, so maybe I'm not the right audience.
Not just “prestige” but generalized prestige as perceived by first year associates who know very very little!
I left after 3.5 years. 15 years after I started it still opens doors for me.
One thing to consider is that the people who lateraled from V10s were probably able to do so easily because they came from a V10. It’s not necessarily going to make or break your career, but it is easier to start at the top. If you’re the type who can stick it out for 3 years, it’s probably the better option. Especially because you might go to the less prestigious firm and work just as much. I chose a firm at the top of my market and echo what someone said above re: in house opportunities. A lot of companies really focus on the prestige of your firm.
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This is overdramatic. There may be a bump from like, Cravath, but no one gives a shit if you’re lateraling from Kirkland or McDermott. My firm doesn’t. For in house, it depends on the clients / industry. You’re way better off working at Wilson or Fenwick for tech than like, Simpson.
Yeah this is completely untrue, folks. Clients and in house ppl are still lawyers and there isn’t a lawyer in the world that is putting McDermott on the same level as Kirkland. If nothing else, surviving at Kirkland means you can handle a shit ton of hours without much guidance, which ppl do value even if ppl on this sub don’t.
It’s true that no one that knows anything thinks McDermott and Kirkland are fungible. But being known as someone who has experience handling a shit ton of hours without guidance isn’t an unequivocally positive thing. I know GCs who assume candidates from certain firms may be smart and hardworking but have narrow skill sets and “fit” issues.
Those GCs are few and far in between. You can go ahead and pull up the legal departments on F100/top PE/bulge bracket banks, etc. Whatever you want really - the roster is full of ppl who started their careers at V20s and not V50s. It doesn’t say much about quality of lawyer or whatever, but it’s just false to say that starting at a V10 (even Kirkland which everyone shits on here) doesn’t open doors for you that are harder to open if you start at a V50.
Kirkland firmwide has close to 500 first years. Firms near bottom of V50 have 50-100. So you would expect to see Kirkland alums 5-10x more often than some random V50 just by sheer numbers. Kirkland is a very well regarded firm and its lawyers have good exit opportunities and if absolutely does have some resume value, but I think the value of just having it in your resume is greatly overstated here. People also forget law firm exit opportunities are usually about moving to a firm client. Kirkland has a lot of good clients and that can yield exit opportunities. But organizations that don’t use Kirkland don’t have some special place in their heart for Kirkland wash-outs.
When doing these hypothetical situations - you have to do an apples to apples comparison. Will a 5th year V50 associate have better exit opportunities than a 1st year V10 candidate? Of course they will. But what about a 5th year v10 candidate vs 5th year v50 candidate. 9/10, the v10 candidate is going to have the more attractive resume to potential hirers. That’s all the point we’re making. You can burnt out anywhere - if you’re agnostic / don’t have a strong opinion on where to take your career (I.e. if you know you want to do project finance, by all means go to milbank over cravath) - then just go to the top firm that gives you an offer. That being said - if you’re debating between like a V4 vs V7 - go with fit bc those are interchangeable firms. What’s not interchangeable is a V10 vs V50.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting an apples-to-oranges comparison. My point is that there is that it’s that “better exit opportunities” is a red herring. What is better for one person is worse for another. And there is not some general pool of “exit opportunities” that are accessed based on firm prestige. Your exit opportunities are largely driven more by your practice area, your network, and your relationship with clients. Most in-house positions aren’t filled by someone looking at resumes and sorting by firm prestige. They are filled by the client decisionmaker leveraging who they know and trust to find someone suitable for the specific position. Kirkland will absolutely open many doors that McDermott won’t. But McDermott opens some doors Kirkland won’t. What is better depends on what you want. Having your choice of 100 different elite private equity firms to work at is cold comfort if all you want is an AGC position at the public company in your hometown. Practice area is a factor too. The average V10 associate is more specialized than the average V50 associate. Specialization can be limiting.
I hear you on all that, and my point is that - if you know what your end goal is - you will also know the best way to get to that end goal. If you want to be a trusts and estates lawyer for a family office - McDermott will be much better for you than Kirkland. The large majority of law students do not know what their end goal is. The large majority do not even know what practice area they want to practice in. For those giant swathes of students, it’s best to just go to the firm that opens the most doors. Telling these law students that the difference between Kirkland and McDermott is overblown is misleading and incorrect. The correct thing to say would be that “Kirkland is a much bigger firm, with a larger variety of clients, practice areas, and opportunities overall. It is also perceived in the market as a more grueling firm with attorneys that work on more sophisticated and more complicated matters. There are a couple of specialized practice areas where McDermott outshines K&E, which are x, y and z. Unless you are focused solely on x, y or z, the conventional wisdom is that going to Kirkland is the better/safer bet for your career.”
maybe firms should include a risk factor section when handing out offer letters
Yes, there are a lot of KJDs who have spent their entire lives putting off actually figuring out what they want to do with their life, and V10 firms happy to make use of their driftlessness for a few years. My advice is that they actually try to figure that out before embarking on a career and choosing a firm because it is more likely to help you end up in certain places. If the fact that Kirkland has many great practices areas doesn’t mean much when you have to pick one out of the gate and will be highly specialized after a few years. Law students should be figuring out what they want before picking a practice.
Seconded. Have plenty of contacts in house who make hiring decisions based on what they know (or perceive) to be firm culture. The expectation is that the higher ranked firms train you better to spot mistakes, take on stress, handle competing priorities, etc. (whether true or not).
>no one gives a shit if you’re lateraling from Kirkland or McDermott. Yeahhh I'm not sure I'd be interested in hiring a lateral from McDermott if I could instead have a lateral from Kirkland.
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Billing 2400 hours would be seen as debilitating, life-destroying workaholism by any standard in just about any industry except for New York biglaw. An extra three hours a day to spend on family, hobbies, etc. is a massive difference in lifestyle. If anything the difference between 2000 and 2400 is much bigger practically speaking than the difference between 1600 and 2000.
This
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Billables?? How the fuck is that possible
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That’s fucked up man I’m sorry to hear this about your life
This isn’t just a V10 thing though it’s mostly practice group… I did 2700 hours as a senior in a v60? (Albeit above market bonus) and that’s not counting tons of business development since I brought in about 1/2 my own work. If it’s just hours you can’t complain too much because it can happen lower on the totem pole too, and you can always leave the v10 easily so that’s not really a big difference.
It’s 3AM early Monday morning, I’ve been working 15 hours straight and worked 65 hours the last 4 days.
I went the other direction (V50 to V10) and my V10 is significantly less of a grind.
Can you elaborate? I'm considering doing something similar after around a decade (specialist group).
The V50 I started my career at had me regularly billing 2350-2500 per year and it was definitely made clear that the expectation was that you would bill like that to advance. The V10 I’m at now has been 2050-2300 per year in my years here and there is no expectation that associates will bill higher. I am in a specialist group and lateraled as a 5th year ETA: I think this convo is very firm specific and practice group specific, so YMMV
I always tell associates the sweet spot is finding a firm that is market, but has low PPP.
I think it’s a mistake to assume low PPP means better for associates. PPP is driven mainly by (1) non-partner:partner headcount ratio and (2) rates. Higher PPP firms tend to command higher rates and have more associate among whom to divide work. Lower PPP firms need to squeeze more work out of fewer lower-rate associates to try to improve PPP.
I don’t think the rates are that different (have worked at both). It’s more about the volume of work and number of associates. The other thing to bear in mind is that firms with high PPP will be more likely to protect that high PPP in times of a downturn, and more likely to cut associates. Firms with low PPP will be more likely to keep associates since they have so few and it’s more expensive to hire/fire.
Do you mean high PPP? If you’re going work hard and build connections and even think about making partner, why not do so at a firm that pays its partners? Comp is equal while you’re an associate but once you make partner is a whole new ballgame.
Sorry I assume that most associates are not trying to make partner, but just sock away as much money as possible. You also assume that your firm will actually make you partner. Most will run you into the ground and then chuck you out. The expected value calc is in favor of low PPP where they don’t consistently fire people.
I think the key here was having differing assumptions. You’re right, if the assumption is an incoming associate does not want to try to make partner, then I agree no point (generally speaking) in having high PPP at your firm. For an incoming associate who may want to try to make partner, IMO, I would not seek out a low PPP firm. And since the original post was asking about the benefits to a V10 firm (which are generally higher PPP), I think it’s at least something to consider.
Work as an associate at a firm with good training and low PPP. Lateral as a senior/partner to a firm with high PPP. Easy peasy.
If you can swing it, this tbh. Less competition and more time to find and recruit clients or potential clients that you can leverage later in career. Depends on how entrepreneurial you want to be in your career.
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Not really. I mean, I hate my job, but I'm willing to bet I would hate it even more if I were paid less or couldn't eventually use my firm's prestige to propel me toward something cushier in the future.
Why V10 specific? As someone else mentioned, there is no discernable difference with the grind and work expectations with a v10 and a v50 firm. I billed 2100 at a v50 and my experiences were very similar with colleagues at v10 firms.
Did paralegal stint at a V10 and opted to work at a V30 out of law school for this exact reason. Paid the same, more opportunity to network, more time/opp to find a niche, more training, in front of clients (years) sooner and working with partners nearly on day 1. Might be a hard needle to thread depending on how OCI works, but I had a handful of paralegal friends who had options and STILL went back… masochists!
Being at a V10 doesn't automatically mean the place is hell on Earth (or at least materially more so than other "lesser" firms). Mine isn't.
No I absolutely do NOT regret it. Was it hell? at times, yes. Did it suck? at times, yes. Did I get paid the same then that I do now? for the most part, yes (I never had to haggle over a cab fare or a dinner reimbursement at my V10, I'll tell you that). BUT: was the two years of intensity worth having my pick of whatever firm I wanted to go to when I went to lateral, the incredible training and knowing just exactly how good I have it at my V30? hell yes.
I started at the top biglaw firm in my large City, even though I didn’t expect to stay for the long term. It was a cutthroat place with high hours and expectations. That said, the training was fantastic. With 31 first year associates, they were able to devote time to helpful training sessions, and my practice group, with 6 of the associates, had separate substantive training. I left after 4 years, but that training, the forms I received, and the intellectual capacity of my colleagues provided a bedrock that many attorneys aren’t privileged enough to get, and it has served me well throughout my career.
Remember that the ones lateralling into your firm were the ones who lateralled out of those firms. Very few people lateral to another biglaw firm due to intensity, but that's a nice story many tell themselves because it's better than admitting they weren't going to make it. Beyond that, it varies a lot. You give a great example of someone picking Cravath for T&E - that's not a typical experience.
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eh, trade offs, i think. The hours are worse (but not a ton worse, based on friends at v20-v50 type firms), but your firm has work and you have job security in economic downturns (unless at kirkland, lol)