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Bud Manstrong posted:Honestly I should just be a park ranger. I'd I think there's a judge whose only job is to hear cases in Yosemite and, as I recall, they get a free house in the park. That is the best law job you can currently hope for. evilweasel posted:I've heard the bloomberg one is actually much better than either. Never used it though. For a transactional attorney Bloomberg law is absurdly better than either Westlaw or Lexis. It's particularly good if you're doing any M&A or bankruptcy work because it allows you to track companies and then gives you everything related to them. edit: anything that lets you easily search no-action letters is even better. Lilosh posted:There's no way he can reasonably expect enough people to still be awake at midnight for that assignment to be read by enough people for class discussion. Your expectations will change dramatically when you begin work. Unfortunately they will also depend more on which partner you work for than on which firm you work for so you will have no control over whether you are expected to sleep with your blackberry or whether you can stop checking at ten when the partner goes to sleep. builds character fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Oct 27, 2010 |
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Oct 27, 2010 15:25
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Save me jeebus posted:Congratulations to everyone who passed the bar!  , esquire.
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Nov 5, 2010 15:18
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NJ Deac posted:Anyone have any experience dealing with cold calls from headhunters? What gvibes said, plus this Recruiters compile lists of everyone in certain practice areas and then call/e-mail spam everyone who qualifies for whatever job was just posted on the firm's website. It's considered bad form to go apply for the job yourself if the headhunter told you about it and can lead to some serious issues if they come claiming the fee from the firm and the firm thinks that you found the firm on your own. I tell every headhunter that manages to reach me that I'm happy where I am but they're welcome to give me a call about future opportunities. Different headhunters have relationships with different firms/companies and it never hurts to have folks checking in to see if you'd be interested in various positions. You're well within your rights to ask them anything you want and to make them tell you all about the job in detail. They don't care about you, they just saw X experience and matched it up with Y opening and they get paid when you've been at the new firm for six months to a year. They don't care whether you're happy for those six months or whether it's a good fit so even though they're all friendly you can't treat them as a gatekeeper of any sort.
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Nov 10, 2010 00:37
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Sulecrist posted:Hi everybody! I've been in the thread for years and I've already asked these questions in IRC, but I feel like opening them up a little because xo's search functions are broken and the 3Ls in IRC are virulent freaks and all they tell me is to get signatures on a tams petition. Every single one. AUSAs are incredibly competitive. Not that it's impossible, just that it's incredibly improbable. it is impossible Vomit out resumes. Hundreds+. Duke is good enough that people will give your resume a look but that's a far cry from hiring you. Also, apply to every DA in every large city in which you would consider working. For example, the Brooklyn DAs office is huge, and they say they're not hiring but that is a lie. They're always hiring as long as you're good enough. So submit your resume and maybe you'll get lucky. Probably? As a 1L, anywhere that will hire you. Ideally work for free. Does your school have a program where you can do public interest for free for the summer and they'll give you a stipend? Very very bad. If you work in DA's offices there for both summers then you will have a much better idea than I do about whether or not you will be fenced out by local competition. But probably if you can get two summer jobs there you'll be OK. Good luck getting those jobs.
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Nov 10, 2010 19:28
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Mookie posted:Question: is it worth taking over a $100,000/year pay cut for a 9-6, Monday through Friday job? No. You have to make partner so we have someone to tell us what it's like. evilweasel posted:Depends on what the 100k is a cut from and how many hours that frees up, but the answer is almost certainly that you'll be happier based on like every study ever about what actually makes people happy. Or this. After a certain amount of money everyone is happier with more time. Unless you really love the sweatshop you're at (2700 hours  ) I think this is a good deal.That said I see people getting caught up in what they're doing all the time. One of the things that I think NY firms have done incredibly well is defining what the game is about. For whatever reason they've been tremendously successful in making it about money. For associates, it's salary. For partners it's profits per partner. The D.C. firms have done done alright by making it about being a little kinder and gentler and doing interesting appellate and regulatory work. Anyway, I'm just saying I hope you don't get sucked in too. If you're happy with the work you're doing, your salary and your advancement potential then stay. If you'd rather do different work, work fewer hours or don't think you'll be made partner then leave. Don't stay just because of the perception that working at a particular firm or doing a particular kind of law is more prestigious.
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Nov 12, 2010 16:04
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Adar posted:In corporate law where your clients are big enough to be used to large bills, you can bill for practically anything, it's just a question of what shade of gray you draw your line on. At least among the folks I know the commonly accepted practice is to bill after a certain time. If it's during business hours the expectation is that you would be in the office anyway so you don't get to bill for that time. If it's after whatever time you would otherwise have gone home then you can bill for it. HooKars's situation sucks but is not atypical. After the market closes/close of business everyone sends work out to the lawyers who then turn everything that night. This is a dumb way of giving your lawyers work and if, as an associate, you have a good partner they will manage the client so that this happens less frequently. Or they will manage you so that you aren't stuck with a bunch of work to do all night and nothing during the day. This is a big reason why transactional attorneys in NY come in at 10 (or later).
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Nov 15, 2010 21:54
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Roger_Mudd posted:How the hell does that work? Maybe if the client is paying a lump-sum per month/period I could see it. I think it's a holdover from going to the printer. When you went to the printers everyone would go and you'd all make changes to the disclosure and then waited for the printer to run another copy while you drank their ridiculous liquor, ate whatever food you wanted and played on their water slide. Then you reviewed the new copy and commented on the new copy, repeat ad nauseum until you were done. You still billed for the time you were at the printer. Now lots of disclosure is purely electronic and for public disclosure you still don't actually go to the printer they just send you a PDF and you review that and then go home. More commonly you send them the PDF and then review what they send back to make sure it's ok and then you go home. Anyway, I think that's where that particular practice comes from. As far as billing when you're just waiting for a partner to mark up a document or for the other side to return comments I don't know where that practice comes from but it's definitely there. Ideally you're doing other work at the same time and generally there's something for you to do but not all the time and people don't usually stop billing because there was 45 minutes where they didn't have work to do. Think about it like travel time - you're not actually doing legal work during travel time but you still bill for it because the client needs you to go somewhere you wouldn't otherwise be. In this case the client needs you to stay at the office (or the partner is terrible at managing associates time but then the bill is really their problem anyway) rather than traveling to Manitoba but either way you're not getting to go home. Phil Moscowitz posted:For starters here is the firm liquor cabinet. Why is it on the bottom shelf? Do you have top shelf liquors too? HooKars posted:I'm in a smaller practice group where the bills are watched. There's some leeway but I can't turn my 10 hours of real billable time into the 16 hours of time I was actually in the office tonight (the last two of which I did absolutely nothing. At least I have bar studying that can get done while I sit around and wait).  Seriously, this is terrible. Sorry.
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Nov 16, 2010 16:27
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sigmachiev posted:Was coming to post this too. 5k again for newbs, I think it topped at 35k for class of 03. It's lovely and people should be pissed. Class of 2009 – $7,500 Class of 2008 — $10,000 Class of 2007 — $15,000 Class of 2006 — $20,000 Class of 2005 — $25,000 Class of 2004 — $30,000 Class of 2003 — $35,000
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Nov 22, 2010 22:03
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Defenestration posted:Shoulda gone to Quinn, since they seem to be the only firm that is willing to make an independent decision on anything rather than follow the leader like corporate sheeple Plus then you could have gone hiking with JQ who is, I hear, a totally awesome dude and does run a "sweatshop" in any sense of the word. At least their firm leader is honest about bonuses (or at least he was last year). Defleshed posted:That is basically all I see when I read the posts about this poo poo on ATL. Why do I even read ATL I don't think I could care any less about 95% of the things that get posted over there. Sometimes it's really difficult to walk a mile in someone else's bespoke shoes.  edit: 2007 was the best year. 115k bonus for 8th years. 
builds character fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Nov 23, 2010 |
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Nov 23, 2010 15:50
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Stunt Rock posted:If anyone is a UCC expert I have something I could use some advice on. What's the question? edit: I know a lot more about article 9 than article 2.
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Nov 23, 2010 20:57
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Defleshed posted:A BLOOOO I forgot to buy myself a car with my 180k salary You'd think that someone who gets to drive tanks would be a little more sympathetic toward folks who just want a hyundai.
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Nov 24, 2010 00:47
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Defleshed posted:I wish I got to drive tanks I would use one to run over law firm associates! Joke's on you, they're all in tall office buildings and your tank wouldn't fit in the elevator!
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Nov 24, 2010 01:27
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Stunt Rock posted:It's a moot point since it settled, but here's what happened. Yay, it really was article 9! everything is article 9 Physical collateral, perfection by possession, plus kid signed title over too. Your client can almost certainly foreclose on the collateral. The other side is stupid because it's not a sale of goods. The kid was loaned money and the car/truck was collateral to secure the debt. The uncle was also acting as the kid's agent in selling the car so maybe there's something there but until it was sold it's still collateral. If it were a sale then there would probably have been a single transfer of both assets or one transfer of funds for each vehicle. The other side could argue that the loan is invalid because it's not in writing but then there's a partial performance defense (and as a practical matter your client still has the cars and the other side still got the the money). Still, because it's family settling is probably for the the best. entris posted:I'm suggesting that the BigLaw model has had inflated compensation arrangements for years, and now BigLaw clients are realizing that they don't have to put up with it. economics  edit: nm posted:Law firms are far more likely to fire you than a first year. very close but I think marginally more accurate is they will keep mookie and fire someone else his year because they know mookie will pick up the slack. They will also defer hiring the first year for two more years. builds character fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Nov 24, 2010 |
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Nov 24, 2010 18:50
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Roger_Mudd posted:No doubt, but big law lock-step discourages this activity. The only economically rational reason I can see that big law-ers don't just coast for 6-24 months on their huge salary is they think they'll make partner. My understanding is very few associates ever make partner. That's why I suggested he start Mookie & Associates, at least his hard work would benefit him vs. padding the profit per partner stats at his firm. At least on the transactional side, for the most part only institutional clients are willing to pay those kinds of rates and they expect a broad level of sophistication that is extremely difficult to maintain in a very small firm. So you'll get a guy who advises a small fund on everything it does but because the small fund is only ever a minority investor he's really just reviewing stuff a big firm drafted and telling his client what he thinks about it. He's never going to be able to advise Fortress on their deals because they're going to need a much larger team of lawyers for the kind of deals they do. I don't know how it works for litigation, but my guess is that it gets pretty comfortable at 200k+/year and lawyers tend to be risk averse. A friend of mine started his own white collar defense practice and is incredibly successful. He makes more than he used to at a firm and works about 1/5 of the time, all on his own time. But there's no certainty that his next case won't be his last. He's objectively quite good but also quite lucky. It's certainly not an experience I would recommend anyone else use as a model.
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Nov 24, 2010 19:01
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Linguica posted:Still no jobs here, die alone as well (the latter becoming much more apparent when my long-term GF broke up with me last night) Stunt Rock posted:I really wish we had more law practice advice/chat in this thread. Sometimes it's good to be able to bounce ideas off of other lawyers or get help with pleadings or legal issues. Nobody wants to talk about transactional law. Roger_Mudd posted:Do I have a cause of action against my minecraft neighbor for building a giant lava vomiting face that obstructs the view of my castle? yes but damages are $00.00001 because it's really just your time and if you're loving around on minecraft your time is worth very little. CmdrSmirnoff posted:The income tax consequences for space travelers at sub-light speeds. Probably not interesting. As a US citizen you're still obligated to file a return every year (assuming you make anything) and I'm willing to bet that the government does not consider the time in foreign jurisdictions when determining whether or not you failed to comply.
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Dec 1, 2010 17:35
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JimTheSarcastic posted:Jumping in a shark tank with blood on the water... Check V&E's web site to see if anyone went to your undergrad and then give them a call and ask if you can talk to them about law school. They do a ton of work for energy companies. I do not know whether or not they do any work that is similar to what you do but I suspect that either they do not or they do it as a courtesy for their clients. Still, your background in the industry would probably reflect very well on you if you went to law school, did well and then interviewed with them. http://www.velaw.com/
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Dec 7, 2010 18:25
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BigHead posted:I disagree with the T14 thing too. I would recommend the T5. Every oil lawyer I know went to HYS (except for one from Northeastern of all places). UT-Austin may work for Texas, but in Alaska they like HYS people. http://www.velaw.com/lawyers/lawyersearch_result.aspx?fname=&lname=&pname=&school=texas&office=&ip=&id=1134 UT is OK for energy. Otherwise HYS or bust. It's not clear to me that Alaska has a bunch of folks practicing energy law.
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Dec 8, 2010 16:16
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Four Finger Wu posted:Thank you! I read the thread for a while before dropping in. What's the best way to set up a college fund? If I buy an index stock and put it into a trust in the name of not-atlas-of-bugs-in-20-years and they're entitled to the trust estate on enrollment in not-school-in-new-orleans will the tax base be the initial amount I put the stock in at? I vaguely recall there being some trick here but don't remember what it is. Which firms are good at T&E law and how much lateral movement is there among those practices? What are your exit opportunities? Do you typically establish statutory trusts or common law trusts? In Ca. or in Delaware? What do institutional trustees typically charge?
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Dec 16, 2010 16:19
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Shifood posted:Need some advice for sending out a resume. I am a second semester 1L at a Tier 1 school and I have a 2.75 GPA. I have 4 years of work experience working as a legal assistant in law firms. I am afraid that putting the GPA on my resume will get it tossed, BUT leaving it off could make them think I did even worse. At this point I am looking at just applying to law firms (not the big ones though, probably no point), but I will expand my search if it seems like that won't be possible. 1. Leave it off. Don't mention it until it comes up. Get your foot in the door and then make your pitch to a real person. Something like "look, I'm far better at working than I am at school. I've got the experience that will make me a great first/second year associate and I can hit the ground running. And I will because I will work like a dog." I think that's your best play. 2. If you don't get a job then go do something else. Better to figure it out now than to figure it out after another 100k of debt. 3. Just wondering what happened to everyone who posted in this thread two/three years ago.
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Feb 11, 2013 05:14
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