Is the Alabama hammer on here? My wife is traveling and a semi back into the front of her one year old highlander then drove off. Wife called 911, took a pic of the tag then tried to flag the driver down. Didn’t do a ton of damage but she is a bit shook up.
lol. Me too man. If it’s not several multiples of that we will have an issue I don’t mind. M&A work is extremely hot right now so I’m happy to grind out as many deals as possible while the environment stays this way. I’ve got two colleagues who will exceed 3k, I couldn’t do that for more than maybe one year.
At my old firm in Alabama, we had a huge work comp/Medicare Setaside practice. Miserable stuff, largely just filling out forms/busy work -- hardly a law practice. We would get spreadsheets of all associates' hours every month (which is messed up in Its own right), and there were multiple MSA lawyers that put up 300 hour months regularly. That's what lead me down the path of legal nihlism, which has blossomed into a beautiful dont give AF attitude.
Depending on your role on the M&A team, a lot of times equity side of real estate is a way better lifestyle. Way fewer firedrills and arbitrary deadlines and the earning potential, at least from what I’ve seen, is largely the same
All the specialists I staff on my deals make exactly what I do (edit: assuming same class year etc) IP, real estate, benefits, labor, tax, environmental moral of the story is I’m dumb
I’m typically between 2300-2400 per year and don’t really mind it. I still leave early on Fridays pretty much every week.
Saturdays only if I’m in trial. Half day pretty much every Sunday, but I do the same easy billing thing weekly.
I grind out Monday-Friday, head home at midnight usually. Try as hard as I can to keep Saturday and Sunday free except for sending some emails from the phone here and there. Starting to get easier now that I’m 5 years in, but the weekend work was awful the first couple years.
What time do you start? I feel like you have to be losing a shit ton of time if you’re working 80+ hours a week and billing 2400.
yeah, there’s some more context needed there. NYC culture is definitely starting later than most. I don’t get in until 9:30 or 10 usually unless I have an earlier call I take from home. The last few months I’ve had video chats with Middle East counterparties that are 7 AM. Absolute nightmare. I also frequently have days where I lose a few billables during the day. Social stuff, nonbillable work, taking out junior lawyers to lunch, grabbing a quick dinner with my wife (she works across the street) or heading to the gym in our building from 6-7.
its not always fun! But part of transactional careers is riding the wave when the swell comes in. People in M&A from 2008-2012 were lucky to 1. Have a job 2. Bill more than 1500 hours. You never know when the market’s going to turn again.
Shit. I hope so. 5 years in and still grinding like that sounds miserable. plenty of other fields in law with a faster track to big salaries without that kind of life sacrifice.
I didn’t have the wherewithal to get into something lucrative like plaintiff’s work out of law school. 8 years later plus golden handcuffs, and you kinda get stuck.
It’s not even a switch sides thing. I’m not in the game. I do commercial litigation, and I’m primarily in federal court. The only potential angle would be class actions.
Class actions are lucrative as fuck. First firm I was at, I did support work on class action cases. 3 support attorneys billing 40 hours a week on just one case. The fees when the thing settles are astronomical.
They’re great if you can find the clients and get the class certified. But then you’ve also got to deal with an high costs and an incredibly long lifecycle before you get paid, and then, a lot of them won’t pan out. I’d certainly consider switching sides to a small firm doing plaintiffs’ classes though.
Oh absolutely. That firm was fronting millions of dollars on the cases. But this was also a massive case with damages in the billions. Smaller class actions obviously have less overhead.
I'm hoping to transition away from litigation in general. High value PI cases generally mean youre dealing with awful injuries/death which can really take a toll on the psyche, and small cases generally result in BS posturing and a very cynical view of all soft-tissue claimants. And my eyes would bleed if I had to do heavy transactional/M&A work. Just want to be a dude that happens to be licensed attorney and can provide general advice.
how do you transition into a general practice lawyer based out of a large town when you're never actually around?
BamaNug should work hard enough to get a few more of his low maintenance Airbnb’s and just stop practicing law
Shoot me a PM I can forward you an email that one of my wife's co-workers sent asking to review a "demand letter" that she can send her landlord in order to break her lease. I'm sure the 23 year old will be happy to pay you $100.
So as I mentioned above, Defense lawyer waited 17 months into litigation to reveal he had a statement from an eyewitness and 2 PI reports about it. Unfortunately for him the NDGA case law on the issue is pretty good for me and he’s likely waived all work product protection on it. this should be a really fun little prelude to the final motion for sanctions. I’ve already been outlining all the misconduct that has happened in the case and it’s so challenging to get everything on the page in a cohesive fashion. BamaNug you like writing don’t you?
There's no way I could sustain working 3000 hours for longer than a year. You guys are mentally tougher than I am.
My motivation this week is probably the lowest it’s been since I got my license Got married 3.14.20 so had to cancel our honeymoon. We were in the process of planning revised honeymoon to England/Scotland to take place this week (to minimize days I had to be out of the office) when delta hit.
Same. Called an allstate UM adjuster this morning. Have 2 UM adjusters on the claim that have coverage: Nationwide and Allstate. Nationwide already consented to the $50k liability settlement and waived subro. The dude from allstate this morning said it was still under review and was a total cunt.
I worked at a much bigger firm in years 1-3 out of law school, Am Law top 40, and bonus structure didn’t even start until you hit 2200. I did a little over 2400 in year 3 and rang up about 50,000 airline miles. That was enough to cause my wife to want to move, so we moved and I changed to a top 150 firm that was a much different experience. The first thing I noticed when interviewing were that partners were all still with their first wife.
I have to ask - what kind of bonuses are we talking about here? At 2200, 2400 etc? Let's assume you're in year three.
There was some very insane shit that happened at the old larger firm. The former global head of the firms M&A practice was doing rails in the rest room at the Christmas party when my wife walked in, then threatened to have her fired, so my wife walked right back out and we left the party before anyone could figure out my wife was associated with me. We had one 50ish partner get caught, literally in the act, having sex with a 20ish associate on the associates desk. The associate threatened to sue, so they gave her two years salary to sign a settlement/no disclosure. Normal stuff.