Posted by Peter Lattman

We've heard it all before: the soul-crushing hours, the brutal quality of life, the ever-rising salaries, the demanding employers. In the eyes of many young lawyers, big law firms are the white-collar equivalent of the 18th-century sweatshop. (O.K., fine, maybe not the ever-rising salaries part.)

A group of law students wants to change that. Last night, Stanford Law�s Andrew Canter and Craig Holt Segall � along with roughly 125 students from the nation�s top law schools � emailed hiring partners and recruiting coordinators at the AmLaw 100 law firms. Their new organization, Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession, wants the country�s biggest law firms to sign-on to principles espousing a saner work environment for lawyers.

�We are writing as a group of over 100 law students to propose a change in the way we all experience our profession,� the email begins. �We are working to ensuring that practicing law does not mean giving up a commitment to family, community, and dedicated service to clients.�

Here is the letter sent to law firms, the group�s principles, its findings of fact and its new Web site. The group�s principles revolve around four themes:

1. Making concrete steps towards a transactional billing system;

2. Reducing maximum billable hour expectations for partnership;

3. Implementing balanced hours policies that work; and

4. Making work expectations clear.

The group asks the firms to commit to the group�s principles. Prior to the fall interviewing season, it will let law students know which law firms have and haven�t signed on. The group isn�t going so far as to blackball firms that don�t sign-on; rather, the principles are �an aspirational state we want the law firms to commit moving towards,� explains Segall.

To get their message out, the group has conducted presentations at Stanford, Boalt, NYU, and Yale. �We believe that law students have the market power to address key issues in the legal profession that associates no longer feel they can influence,� says Kanter.

Here�s the kicker: They want less money. This is a labor movement asking for a smaller paycheck. �We recognize that changes in work structures come with an economic cost, and we are willing to be paid less in exchange for a better working life,� the group says.

Neither Kanter (a 2L) nor Segall (a 3L) have yet committed to a big firm. Kanter will split his summer between the Justice Department and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Segall has a clerkship on the Ninth Circuit.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/04/03/you-say-you-want-a-big-law-revolution/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7864610)

if they don't like the hours - go work somewhere else. Im sure some shit firm in Flint Michigan or Gary Indiana would be glad to acquire their services.

While TTT grads are less preftigeous, they are at least, relatively, more hardworking and appreciative of the big money being thrown at them. These fags and their little association should suck it up and move on to Academia or shit law.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7864686)

You're a fucking idiot. Why isn't "seek change" an option?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865266)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865417)

Soft schools, soft minds, no work ethic.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865791)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7866463)

The reason this happens is twofold--one, the types of work that elite law firms do requires long, unpredictable hours. Investment banks work heavy hours, and expect their law firms to do the same. Even if the firms were less leanly staffed, you'd still be there at 3am if the deal prints the next day, or if the brief's due the next day.

The second problem is that law students are prestige whores and go to the most prestigious law school that they can, and the most prestigious firm that they can. One of the draws to 80hr/wk biglaw is getting rid of the crushing debt from law school. If you went to a lower ranked school, you'd likely get a full ride, and not have to worry about the debt.

If you don't want to work long hours, get a scholarship and work in public interest/government. You'll be much happier.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7864702)

http://refirmation.wordpress.com/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7864711)

MYTH 5: GOING “IN HOUSE” IS THE WAY TO ACHIEVE BALANCE. Going in house is a mixed picture. Some lawyers who go in house find themselves working as many hours, often for less money, than they worked at their former law firms. Others do not. A typical schedule for an in house lawyer is 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., with rare weekend work vacations that don’t get cancelled.9 (As a comparison, associates in San Francisco average 2200 billable hours per year, which means working 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every weekday and one day every other weekend, with 15 days off a year10; law firm lawyers reported one in four vacation days interrupted by work.11) Yet part-time work is often more difficult to find in house than in a law firm. Job shares, on the other hand, are easier to find in house than in law firms (where they are just beginning to emerge).

So, are they really saying in-house is a "mixed bag" because it offers signficantly better hours but less part-time work? Who are these people begging for part-time work???

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7864761)

Even if firms sign on to this, there are still a lot of Type A people. They will continue to outshine the people who are laid back.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7864896)

ask wachtell.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7864947)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865346)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7866093)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865521)

There is one thing that bothers me about their proposal, however. Law firm economics (big paychecks in exchange for long hours) is intricately tied to law school tuition: as the paychecks get fatter, so too do the tuition fees.

There needs to be a way to ensure that those who want fewer hours (and a correspondingly smaller paycheck) don't face the same loan-repayment pressures that all of us face right now.

I don't see an obvious solution to this. Loan repayment won't work, because presumably Andrew and Craig's proposal in practice means something like a true 40-hour week with 100K base pay - LRAP usually disengages at 60K or so (but this probably fluctuates across different law schools). Can anyone think of a way to make this work?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865467)

There are too many poorly regarded law schools churning out graduates in numbers that the profession cannot absorb. No federal or state agency has tried to limit either the number of law schools out there or the size of the incoming classes at those schools - and the result is that there are too many grads out there who, as you rightly point out, have "no chance at firm work." The same problem exists in the business world with respect to absorbing newly minted MBAs.

This is sad, and it's really unfortunate that so many people go 100K in debt with little chance of ever being remunerated handsomely for practicing law. But that's a separate problem. Canter and Segall know that they're just trying to make things better for JDs from (roughly) the T20.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865510)

Yeah, got to a school that gives you substantial scholarship money. Then go and work MIDLAW. If you want less hours and responsibility, then you can't complain when you aren't on top of the prestige ladder. I respect people who make the choice of less prestige/less hours/less money, but I don't respect dipshits who expect the whole package without any sacrifices. It sounds really naive to me.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865666)

Do you mean "intimately"? In any case, tuitions have been rising quickly at all levels, not just those schools that send lots of people to biglaw.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865706)

No there doesn't. Why should someone who chooses to work less for less money pay less than someone who got the same education but chooses to work more for more money?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7866486)

And why the fuck are people bitching about working 60 hours a week or thereabouts? Jesus Christ some people are lazy.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865488)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865613)

[insert Vault firm name] announced Friday that it will pay first year associates a $15,000 bonus, less than half of what associates at [insert Vault firm name] received last year. Elder Elderstein, the firm's managing partner, told the American Lawyer that this decision was in response to concerns publicized by Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession. "We got the message: law students want less money for less work. Keeping bonuses at least year's level after raising salaries from $145,000 to $160,000 would have resulted in increased billables," Elderstein said. "By reducing bonuses by the same amount as the salary increase, we can maintain the status quo on billables and compensation, just like our associates want."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865818)

Plus it doesn't have to be an actual decrease. Look at the fake news release -- more likely than not it'll be cutting bonuses in exchange for not increasing billables (at least this year, after there was a raise). And if there is a decrease, it'll be a bullshit decrease, like "We're reducing the minimum billable hours requirement from 1950 to 1900," even though virtually everyone at the firm exceeds the minimum requirement.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865904)

Yet in six years you'll be the associates that are miserable and leaving the big firm life in your early thirties essentially after working 8-8 for years only to move to a 'midlaw' firm that works you 8-7.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865986)

So, I guess my position is that this thing can fuck biglaw associates in two ways:

1) law firms use this as an excuse to not raise salaries while keeping hours the same

or

2) law firms give in to these guys' demands and lower salaries in exchange for lowering hours, thus screwing over all the associates who want to get paid almost $200k for 60-80 hour work weeks so they can pay back loans / save up for a down payment / whatever.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7866033)

And I've answered that more than once on this thread, and you don't have an answer.

"2) law firms give in to these guys' demands and lower salaries in exchange for lowering hours, thus screwing over all the associates who want to get paid almost $200k for 60-80 hour work weeks so they can pay back loans / save up for a down payment / whatever."

Yeah, I answered that, too.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7866388)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7866751)

And they'll still be able to talk to their friends at other firms. This board will still exist. Vault will still exist. Greedy Associates will still exist. LSD will still exist.

If they offer less money for a substantively identical requirement, their competition will steal their associates.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7866433)

this thread is yet another example of exactly how far from basic reality the average law student is.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7869729)

But whatever right? Lets continue to scorn any and all attempts to change the status quo, which is obviously optimal what with horrible retention rates, terrible quality of life for associates and partners, and intense hours that leave all but a select few that don't wish to have a life outside of law miserable.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606943&forum_id=2#7865917)