Cherish your time at biglaw
This is to the junior associates, from a loser former biglaw. I know it’s hard. I know some of the junior associates may feel burnt out. But pls cherish your time at biglaw. In retrospect, that may be the easiest job I’ve ever had (besides clerkships, ofc). And those were my prime days speaking of earning capacity.
Save aggressively. I know you may feel you will make more money with more experience, but that’s not true. For some of you, this may be your peak earning potential. I know it sounds outlandish if someone tells you so, but sorry, you could be flop after biglaw. At least, I am. Money gives you freedom to choose, so you don’t have to be forced into crappy and stressful jobs as I’ve been for the past few years. Money is everything. Save enough so that you don’t have to be me.
Cherish the time when you can ramp on gradually and learn and get training. Because there are tons of terrible jobs out there providing 0 training but expect you to perform as Elena kagan in her best years. When I was at biglaw, I thought it was brutal, but now I think it’s heaven bc at least I got training b4 being thrown under the bus.
Biglaw is stressful, don’t get me wrong. There’re others jobs that are as stressful (70 hour weeks with 0 support) and pay shit. I’m not making it up, trust me. If I knew what I know now, I’d work much harder at biglaw, so that I don’t have to do the crappy job with long hours and crappy salary.
Good luck to everyone young. I hope you never have to go through the hell I’ve and am got bf through. Cherish your time at biglaw, bc the world is cruel and some of you may end up like me (a big loser forced to accept jobs they . . . Euphorically speaking. . . Would very much not to do). I miss may easy life at biglaw when I was young (though I hated it back then). Remember, there’re tons of worse jobs in this profession. Oh did i mention thanks to our two-party system, I’m really enjoying my miserable working life. Cheers