Question about being an attorney for a corporate law firm.?
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at
3:29 am
I was recently accepted into law school and I plan on attending this upcoming fall (Fall 2010).
My question is about life as an attorney at a major corporate firm (something like a Fulbright & Jaworksi).
What is it like working as a new associate at those types of firms? What does it take for a person to make partner? I understand that you have to be a good attorney order pills online without prescription and put in a lot of hours, but is that it?
Thanks for your answers.
If you work in BigLaw, the job essentially owns you for your first 3-5 years as an associate.
Generally speaking in order to be considered as partnership material you have to meet billable hour requirements of around 2,300 hours per year minimum. Not every hour spent at the office is billable. The ratio is usually anywhere from 3:2 to 3:1 depending on how efficient you are and how efficient the people with whom you are working are. That translates into roughly 3,100-3,800 hours per year. Obviously the quality of the work must be good as well.
You must develop good client-handling skills, keeping the clients satisfied and informed in your interactions with clients.
You must display entrepeneurial attitude, that is to say you must think like an owner rather than an employee and share the partners perspective and understanding in the business matters of the firm.
Client development is another important factor. Your efforts must have a direct impact in the increase of business that is brought to the firm. In a smaller firm this would often mean introducing new clients to the firm yourself but in a big law firm, where the firm is generally only interested in bringing in new clients that can generate 6 figures worth of income in legal fees, that is often not feasible, so the firm looks to how the quality of your work and client-handling skills builds or strengthens the business relationship between the client in the firm resulting in more work from the client.
How well your personality meshes with others at the firm, especially partners, but also other associates plays a factor in consideration for partnership promotion and of course the firm also has independent criteria to determine how many partners it is able to take on from the senior associate pool such as the overall growth of partnership income each year.