First year First job dilemma
I posted about this the other day but panicked and took it down.
I need to figure out a realistic path forward because it’s eating me alive…I don’t know if I can keep this up.
My firm pays associates by the hour. I also have a billable requirement. If I don’t enter all of my time, I literally don’t get paid for it. We do not get paid for admin work, training, or CLE.
At the same time, partners are apparently not really allowed to cut associate time without getting higher approval, so instead of time actually getting cut when matters go over budget, I get emails/comments about my time entries or budgets.note - even if the time is cut we do get paid they just hate cutting time.
Of note - I only get really positive comments about my work itself - like how high quality it is or how ahead of my year it is- but I’m “too slow” apparently. I’ve compared the time I take with my friends at other firms on specific things and it seems like I’m actually pretty fast?
The frustrating part is that I’m already trying to be as efficient as I possibly can. I’m not sitting around wasting time. I’m a first year — things just take me longer than they take a partner or senior associate. I’m not working on easy stuff/doc review- I work only on substantive challenging material.
So what exactly am I supposed to do here? Underreport my time? Work unpaid? Eat hours because the matter budget is tight?
And the worst part is that if I cut my own time, it’s not even recorded anywhere that I actually worked it. So then it just looks like I worked less AND I have to work for free.
I’ve had multiple weeks where I worked at least 60 hours and cut myself down to like 40 because I was worried about getting harassed over budgets or efficiency comments. I cry or feel totally fried almost every day now from the exhaustion and the mental load of balancing all of this. I’m not normally like this. I finished top of my class at a good school and I’m usually very tough- but it’s been too much.
Meanwhile, partners can no-bill their own time if they want to. I can’t really do that without effectively reducing my own pay and also making it look like I’m not working enough hours.
I feel stuck between:
trying to do careful, good work,
trying to move quickly,
trying to meet billables,
and simultaneously feeling anxious every time I spend “too long” on something even when I’m working as fast as I can.
The worst part is that it is making me want to leave. I really like the main partner I work with - they go out of their way to mentor me and give me challenging and advanced work - but they are very critical at times (which is fine- but I can’t just do a mediocre job or they get mad) and most of the others in my group are just ok. But I want to stay for my main mentor.
I’ve had some other weird experiences here that are too specific to list but all together it’s adding up. I don’t want to look like a job hopper but I do have a lot of friends in similar field sending me potential options but leaving before 1 year looks very bad right? Any ideas how I can salvage the current job?
I took this offer over more prestigious offers because of a promise of flexibility and being compensated for being a hard worker willing to put in the hours but now I feel that I’m being punished for wanting to do a good job. And that I’m being given partner level responsibilities that I cannot effectively handle. The hourly pay is high- but the benefit is not realized if I don’t actually get paid for my time.
Maybe I’m too slow for this firm? Maybe it is not well suited for young attorneys who need to learn still?
Ps our manual says NEVER cut your own time and no one says I have to - but it’s an unspoken thing imo
Does anyone have any advice?