Ping: FOFC Lawyers

[Noop]

I am thinking about college and as I have started thinking about what I want to do I find being a lawyer as something I seriously wouldn't mind doing.

So here are my questions...

- What is the pay like when you first get out of Law School?
- Would you consider Law School to be hard? If so what made it so?
- How is the vacation schedule?(How many hours or cases do you work in a year)
- I am leaning toward being a defense lawyer but am open to the other kinds if they fit me better.
- This is for Ksyrup how was Law School at Florida State?
- How was the social life like during Law School.
- Since I don't plan on majoring in anything pretaining to Law.(Business Admin) what classes should I take to prepare for Law School.

Thats all I have for now. I will ask more when it comes to me.

[albionmoonlight]

I am thinking about college and as I have started thinking about what I want to do I find being a lawyer as something I seriously wouldn't mind doing.

So here are my questions...

- What is the pay like when you first get out of Law School?

Totally depends. If you end up at one of the big firms in NYC, D.C., Chicago, etc., you will start at $125,000 + bonuses. If you end up doing public defender work, it could be more like $20,000. KSyrup will probably have a better sense of what the market is like in Florida.

- Would you consider Law School to be hard? If so what made it so?

I was always good at school, so law school did not come that hard to me. That said, it does train one in a different way of thinking. Logic and paitence are both virtues, as you work to simplify the complex and attempt to find the right answers. If you are better at "big picture" stuff, then you may have a bit of a problem with law school. Also, most law classes are graded based on one exam at the end of the semester. Having all of your eggs in one basket can be seen as good or bad (I loved it), but it is different than how college does it.

- How is the vacation schedule?(How many hours or cases do you work in a year)

If you go to one of those $125,000 jobs, you will be working 50-60 hours a week with very little break. If you get a cushy government job, you may be spending Presidents Day at home with a beer. It totally depends on what you do. Note also that most lawyers decide that the type of work is more important than the amount of work. Spending your days grinding through boxes of documents in a huge insurance litigation is very different work than doing, say, local real estate transactions.

- I am leaning toward being a defense lawyer but am open to the other kinds if they fit me better.

Law School is a generalist education. You will be forced to take a variety of classes you first year no matter where you see yourself in the future. That is nice because you don't need to know what you are going to do as soon as you show up there.

- This is for Ksyrup how was Law School at Florida State?
- How was the social life like during Law School.

I had a good time. People are busier than they were in college, and a lot of them have families, so there is not as much time to hang out. But I am still friends with a lot of my law school buddies. Also, I was dating Mrs. A at the time, so I guess I didn't need law school to be my main social outlet.

- Since I don't plan on majoring in anything pretaining to Law.(Business Admin) what classes should I take to prepare for Law School.

Just take what you want to take. I can't think of one undergrad class that really would give someone a huge advantage in law school. You may want to take an intro to economics course, but the little bit of economic theory that it taught in law school can be picked up pretty easily without formal training.

Thats all I have for now. I will ask more when it comes to me.

One piece of advice I have for you . . . don't be afraid to take a couple of years off before law school to have fun. Once you are saddled with that debt, the time for fun is over. Look at it this way, when you graduate, would you rather be 24 with a new law degree, or 30 with a new law degree and 6 years of fun memories and experiences?

.

[flere-imsaho]

Is there an age where it might be too late to pursue a law degree (i.e. how old were your classmates)?

[Cringer]

Can a FOFC Law Firm be established? :)

[Airhog]

Colossal, Trout, and Rectum perhaps?

[Glengoyne]

Colossal, Trout, and Rectum perhaps?
Wrecked'em?

Duey, Cheetham, and Howe

[Schmidty]

Duey, Cheetham, and Howe

Did you get that from Car Talk? I used to love that show.

[Noop]

I am glad you all are having fun but I wouldn't mind some serious post.

[GrantDawg]

I am glad you all are having fun but I wouldn't mind some serious post.

I am not a lawyer, but I will mention there are people who go to law school and never practice. Law school can prepare you for many things outside of actual legal practice. You have four years of school to decide if this is what you want to do, and your taste may/will change. Just keep your mind open as you start school, and see where it takes you.

[mgadfly]

I am thinking about college and as I have started thinking about what I want to do I find being a lawyer as something I seriously wouldn't mind doing.

So here are my questions...

- What is the pay like when you first get out of Law School?

In Spokane Washington most new associates that I know make between 32 and 45 thousand per year. I interviewed for government jobs starting at about 26 all the way up to an IP Firm (in Seattle) that had a starting salary of $126,000. I ended up with a semi-legal job that pays me about $60,000 per year starting out (which is actually pretty good money in Spokane).

- Would you consider Law School to be hard? If so what made it so?

Law School was not hard for me. I rarely studied and would only stress when an article was due for law review or when I had multiple code classes in one semester (that was a mistake on my part in scheduling). I graduated near the top of my class at a mediocre law school that paid for most of my education with relatively little effort. I'm not saying it was easy, but I put in about the same effort I put in as an undergrad. However, your experience may be different. My best friend at law school was a reasonably intelligent person that struggled to maintain a high enough GPA to remain in school (which is a 2.3 at the school I attended) despite having a near 4.0 as an undergrad. He spent hours upon hours in the library or coffee shops preparing for classes. I'm sure he would say that law school was very difficult.

- How is the vacation schedule?(How many hours or cases do you work in a year)

I work in-house for a labor union doing arbitrations and advising them on legal matters. If something is particularly difficult we hire the job out to a firm that specializes in whatever area I can't handle. That said, I work about 55 hours per week but could probably cut back about 20 hours per week and no one would say anything or complain. (I want to make sure that if someone is fired it is because they did something wrong rather than me just being lazy so I put in extra hours).

At the firms I was interviewing with they expected new associates to bill between 1750 and 2200 hours per year. My friends who have those jobs have told me that in order to bill 40 hours in a week (to keep on pace for 2000) they usually have to work 55-60. If they miss some time they fall behind on their billables and are pressured into working even more hours. As was said above, government jobs are a lot less stressful because you usually can get away with less hours (I do know a public defender who works crazy hours because how many cases they expect people to handle).

- I am leaning toward being a defense lawyer but am open to the other kinds if they fit me better.

As someone said above, the great thing about law school is you get a good sampling of all types of law. You don't need to know exactly what you want to do when you get there. I started out wanting to do defense work or labor/employment law. I ended up in labor and employment law because I enjoyed the classes more. I also may do some property law in the future as I found the area very interesting as well.

- This is for Ksyrup how was Law School at Florida State?
- How was the social life like during Law School.

It depends. During my first week at school a global email went out that accused the top 2L of being a slut and a cheat. It gave specifics of guys that she had allegedly slept with (some were married). The social life/rumor mill got so out of hand that the FBI was called in to investigate and our end of the year social ended with a number of people (mostly young women) being arrested for fighting. I guess I'm saying the social life was exciting, but with that many type-A personalities I often enjoyed time away from the bars with classmates as much as I enjoyed going out.

- Since I don't plan on majoring in anything pretaining to Law.(Business Admin) what classes should I take to prepare for Law School.

Law school takes all majors and I don't know of any that require any specific classes. I do suggest that you take a Logic class if your school offers one and take an LSAT prep course (your junior year if possible with review sessions leading up to taking the test). Take the LSAT serious and don't try to study for it alone. Take a class. Also, you may want to do some research and thinking about what type of law you want to practice. Do you want to be an attorney that makes a lot of money? The most sought after person in my class was a top-10% student that had undergrad degrees in the biological sciences (I'm not exactly sure what). The IP firms competed for his services and he went directly from law school to a six digit salary. So you might want to do some investigation, but you can also do what most people do which is play it by ear.

Good luck.

Thats all I have for now. I will ask more when it comes to me.

...

[albionmoonlight]

Is there an age where it might be too late to pursue a law degree (i.e. how old were your classmates)?
UNC was a public law school, so it was afforable enough for some people to go there as a second career. I had a couple of classmates in their 40s there.

I would guess that the average age of the students there was probably about 2-3 years out of college, but, like I said, they had people there in their 40s.

[Hawglaw]

I work in-house for a labor union doing arbitrations and advising them on legal matters.


Funny... I am a management lawyer. :p

[Noop]

Bump

[CraigSca]

Did you get that from Car Talk? I used to love that show.
Actually, I think it was from the Three Stooges, but who knows where they got it from.

[sterlingice]

Actually, I think it was from the Three Stooges, but who knows where they got it from.
I seem to remember Click and Clack saying they got it from the Three Stooges.

SI

[Noop]

So now one else here is a lawyer?

[st.cronin]

So now one else here is a lawyer?

I'm no lawyer but I did succesfully represent myself twice - once in traffic court, once in civil court.

I have no idea how much $ I saved myself.

[John Galt]

I just saw the thread, so I'll add a few thoughts.

First, which law school you go to and how well you do drastically changes the answers to your questions. If you go to a top 10 school and do reasonably well, you can have a high paying job in any city you want. You will also have a lot of good, fun low-paying opportunities. If you go to a top 25 school, pretty much the same applies if you do very well, but you may be limited more regionally. Go to a top 50 school and you need to do extremely well to have that sort of flexibility. You can still do very well locally as long as you do pretty well. After the top 50 or so, the pressue to succeed is much higher. There are far more people going to law school than there are law jobs. Many people go to law school and don't become lawyers.

Second, which law school you go to is in large part determined by your LSAT. For people thinking of going to law school, I usually say, take the LSAT, see how it goes, and then look at what your options are. Some decide their score isn't good enough to make their dreams come true. Others decide to go ahead and see what happens.

Third, good students do well in law school. Bad students don't. That may seem a little silly, but being "smart" or "clever" doesn't get you as far in law school as it does in undergrad. You need to put in a lot of hours studying to do very well. The students who did well at my law school were the smart grinders. So, if you were a good studier, you can probably expect to do well at law school. If you weren't, notsomuch.

So, basically, being a lawyer can be fun and worthwhile, but because of silly prestige focus of the legal community, you need to do extremely well if you don't attend a top law school. That being said, nothing precludes anyone from going to any law school, hanging a shingle outside, and practicing solo. But in terms of being hired by firms, prestige matters a lot.

[Joe]

Second, which law school you go to is in large part determined by your LSAT. For people thinking of going to law school, I usually say, take the LSAT, see how it goes, and then look at what your options are. Some decide their score isn't good enough to make their dreams come true. Others decide to go ahead and see what happens.


That would be me. My score sucked, but I am studying and will take it again someday. Any tips on that front?

[John Galt]

That would be me. My score sucked, but I am studying and will take it again someday. Any tips on that front?

Not really. Sorry. I know some people do very well with prep classes, but I didn't do anything other than take practice tests. I guess the only tip I would offer is to figure out your weaknesses and focus on them. But that's not really that helpful.

[Honolulu_Blue]

That would be me. My score sucked, but I am studying and will take it again someday. Any tips on that front?
I took the LSAT twice. The first time I did "ok". I then plunked down the money and took one of those prep classes. I forget which one, but one of the big ones. The one section the prep class really helped me with was the games section. I think it is the one section of the test that really can be "taught." If I recall there are a limited types of games on the test. There are something like 3 or 4 different types and one hybrid or something. The class teaches you how to identify the type of test and then how best to solve the problems. I ended up getting a perfect score on that section of the LSAT. If you struggled with the games section, I would recommend the prep class as a way to get some improvement.

[Joe]

was it kaplan?

[Honolulu_Blue]

was it kaplan?
Yes. It was Kaplan.

[Honolulu_Blue]

So now one else here is a lawyer?
I don't have too much more to add to your questions than what albion already said. He summed it all up very nicely and I agree with all of his points.

[judicial clerk]

I just saw the thread, so I'll add a few thoughts.

First, which law school you go to and how well you do drastically changes the answers to your questions. If you go to a top 10 school and do reasonably well, you can have a high paying job in any city you want. You will also have a lot of good, fun low-paying opportunities. If you go to a top 25 school, pretty much the same applies if you do very well, but you may be limited more regionally. Go to a top 50 school and you need to do extremely well to have that sort of flexibility. You can still do very well locally as long as you do pretty well. After the top 50 or so, the pressue to succeed is much higher. There are far more people going to law school than there are law jobs. Many people go to law school and don't become lawyers.

Second, which law school you go to is in large part determined by your LSAT. For people thinking of going to law school, I usually say, take the LSAT, see how it goes, and then look at what your options are. Some decide their score isn't good enough to make their dreams come true. Others decide to go ahead and see what happens.

Third, good students do well in law school. Bad students don't. That may seem a little silly, but being "smart" or "clever" doesn't get you as far in law school as it does in undergrad. You need to put in a lot of hours studying to do very well. The students who did well at my law school were the smart grinders. So, if you were a good studier, you can probably expect to do well at law school. If you weren't, notsomuch.

So, basically, being a lawyer can be fun and worthwhile, but because of silly prestige focus of the legal community, you need to do extremely well if you don't attend a top law school. That being said, nothing precludes anyone from going to any law school, hanging a shingle outside, and practicing solo. But in terms of being hired by firms, prestige matters a lot.

I agree completely. I would also add to look at cost when deciding which law school to go to. Aside from the very best law schools, I don't think there is that much prestige difference amongst schools, and so I would recommend going to a cheaper public school. Also, go to school in a place where you want to live and practice. You will make contacts in law school that may only be valuable to you in that location.

Research the job a little bit. Check out what an attorney actually does while at work. Check out different kinds of law jobs. I worked as a judicial clerk for a state trial judge. This was kind of like a paid vacation. I also worked as an associate at a private firm. This was kind of like being sentenced to prison. Wait, wait, ignore that last sentence, I didn't mean to write that. What I ment to write is that it is a demanding job. There is a fair bit of pressure, both to perform well for your clients (win cases and not screw up) and to perform well for your firm (bill 8+ hors per day, its hard if your are ehtical).

The money is pretty nice, though.

When you say you want to be a defense lawyer, what do you mean? I assume you mean you want to be a litigator. So you either want to do insurance defense or criminal defense. They are two different animals. Check them both out.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Did you get that from Car Talk? I used to love that show.
It's still on, you know. I just listened to it last week.

[Ksyrup]

Just to add some specifics directed at me:

1. FSU was fine, I guess. I don't really have anything to compare it against. It's not as good a school as UF, but then again, the people who run UF are pretentious pricks. The one positive it has over any other school in the state is the access to state government clerking jobs, which helped me get me first job out of law school.

2. As far as salaries go, I made shit as a first-year government attorney, although they remedied that to a small extent several years ago by bumping the starting and 2-year attorney salary ranges up. Frankly, I have no clue what starting associates make. 10 years ago, $60K plus a bonus and moving expenses was probably the best anyone got. Now, I have no clue.

[Crapshoot]

At the big firms (Skadden, Davis Polk), I believe associates start at 140 or so. The other big names are pretty close as well.

[Ksyrup]

You're talking in the major cities and certain high cost of living areas, though. I do not believe very many, if any, associates would start at $140K in Florida - even in Miami.

[John Galt]

At the big firms (Skadden, Davis Polk), I believe associates start at 140 or so. The other big names are pretty close as well.

I think Skadden is the only firm that pays a 140 base for first years. Most firms pay 125. However, they match the year-end bonus to match Skadden at the first-year level. Most of the top firms pay the same for the upper class levels as well, but there is some variation. If you stay the whole year, the pay is the same, but if you leave, you actually get paid less for working elsewhere. Since I left one of the non-Skadden big firms in NYC during the year, the difference was clear to me. ;)

[John Galt]

You're talking in the major cities and certain high cost of living areas, though. I do not believe very many, if any, associates would start at $140K in Florida - even in Miami.

That's definitely true, although some of the big NYC (and maybe LA and DC) firms with branch offices pay the same in their branch offices. That is why Skadden Dallas is crazy in terms of pay considering the low cost of living.

[digamma]

I think Skadden is the only firm that pays a 140 base for first years. Most firms pay 125. However, they match the year-end bonus to match Skadden at the first-year level. Most of the top firms pay the same for the upper class levels as well, but there is some variation. If you stay the whole year, the pay is the same, but if you leave, you actually get paid less for working elsewhere. Since I left one of the non-Skadden big firms in NYC during the year, the difference was clear to me. ;)
It seems to be a non-NY program to pay a prorated bonus for associates who leave during the year. I left a big firm in September and got a nice check last Christmas, however a good friend from law school working at a large NYC firm made his decision of when to leave the firm around his bonus payment schedule (because he knew he wouldn't receive a prorated amount).

[John Galt]

It seems to be a non-NY program to pay a prorated bonus for associates who leave during the year. I left a big firm in September and got a nice check last Christmas, however a good friend from law school working at a large NYC firm made his decision of when to leave the firm around his bonus payment schedule (because he knew he wouldn't receive a prorated amount).

It is very obvious in terms of the number of depature memos in late January and early February. Most people wait to cash their bonus check before leaving. Since I was headed to a clerkship, I didn't have that flexibility.

[Honolulu_Blue]

It is very obvious in terms of the number of depature memos in late January and early February. Most people wait to cash their bonus check before leaving. Since I was headed to a clerkship, I didn't have that flexibility.
Unless you have to, like in John's situation, you'd be a fool to walk away from the bonus money. Even as early as September and October it's hard to justify walking away from a bonus that could be anywhere between $30K - $60K if you just toughed it out a few more months.

[yabanci]

Some interesting info from this year's survey:

Law Firm Leaders: Conservatively Optimistic
Thursday December 1, 2005
Brenda Sandburg, The American Lawyer

No doubt about it, leaders of Am Law 200 firms are upbeat about the future. Eighty-nine percent of respondents to our annual firm leaders survey said they are optimistic about 2006, almost exactly the proportion who expressed optimism last year and the year before that. Only 11 percent of the respondents to our latest survey said they were uncertain about the future, and none said they were pessimistic.

That's not to say that there aren't plenty of frustrations too. For the first time, this year's survey asked respondents to name their greatest disappointment with their firms in the past year. The result was a host of woes: soft demand for transactional work, a dearth of qualified lateral partners, the inability to open offices in London or China, a failure to grow enough in New York, and lawyer productivity that fell short of expectations (especially grating after increases of more than 9 percent in gross revenue and profits per partner in 2004).

But one of their most frequent laments concerned their failure to connect with a new generation of lawyers. "Associate satisfaction continues to be lower than we would like," wrote one respondent. "Could not find as many high-quality lateral associates as we needed," wrote another. "Number of associate resignations," responded a third.

Associates have been complaining for years that partners don't pay enough attention to their needs and make them feel dispensable. In fact, the whole economic structure of nearly all large firms is built around hiring large numbers of first-year associates and winnowing them down as they advance in seniority. As an associate at Shearman & Sterling put it: "It's part of the game. They hire 100 associates and lose a vast percentage."

Our special report on the outlook for 2006 underscores that one pressing topic for firm leaders is dealing with the revolving door for associates, along with such areas as billing rates, expansion, and expenses -- and, naturally, hitting profitability targets. We conducted the Leaders Survey in October, asking the heads of Am Law 200 firms to complete a confidential online questionnaire. We received responses from 147 firms.

Despite the worry about associates, most of the leaders who responded to the survey forecast improved conditions for 2006. Seventy-two percent said they expect the economy to grow slightly. Seventy-eight percent said they expect deal flow to increase, albeit moderately. Other responses provide a snapshot of what firm leaders anticipate 2006 will be like at their firms:

• Billing rates will continue to go up. Fifty-three percent of respondents expect to increase billing rates by 5 percent or less; 46 percent anticipate raising them by more than 5 percent.

• Profits will keep rising, too. Sixty-eight percent of respondents expect profits per partner to grow more than 5 percent; 27 percent think profits per partner growth will be 5 percent or lower.

• Litigation will remain the No. 1 practice area. Thirty-eight percent of respondents see it as next year's fastest-growing practice area, while 30 percent cited corporate work. (A year ago, 49 percent of respondents predicted that litigation would be 2005's fastest-growing area, while 33 percent opted for corporate work.) Forty-seven percent said they expect to see head count grow the most in litigation, while 28 percent said they expect more hires in the corporate area.

• Nobody's changing their associate hiring patterns. Thirty-four percent of respondents plan to increase the size of their first-year classes by more than 5 percent, but 37 percent plan to keep the class size the same. Those are roughly the same percentages as in our survey a year ago.

• Firms embrace temp workers -- at least domestically. Seventy-seven percent of respondents said their firms are using contract lawyers or plan to do so. But just 6 percent said they currently offshore work to a foreign country or plan to do so.

• Firm leaders still aren't spending much time getting feedback from their clients. Forty-eight percent said they had met with five or fewer of their 20 top-billing clients in the last 12 months to discuss the firm's performance. Six percent said they hadn't met with any.

While firm leaders mull over improving their relationships with associates, they clearly don't believe in throwing money at the problem. Thirty-seven percent of respondents said they did not plan to raise associate salaries, which have been frozen since 2000, when top-tier firms boosted first-year pay to $125,000. For one thing, associates receive an annual boost in pay as they move up in seniority -- fourth-years earn $165,000 at most top-tier firms, a 10 percent annual pay raise that few other professions guarantee. For another, overall compensation has gone up, since firms have been increasing their associate bonuses, an approach that is encouraged by Citigroup's DiPietro.

Associates, though, sometimes paint the issue as one of pay equity. "Associates are definitely getting fed up with how flat salaries have been," says an associate at O'Melveny & Myers. "It's not because we don't think we're paid enough, it's watching the partners' share increase while ours stays the same. We're more like regular employees as the years go by and not partners in training."

By early November, two Los Angeles firms -- Irell & Manella and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges -- had boosted first-year associate pay to $135,000, although it hadn't set off a larger round of salary increases. Nonetheless, Sullivan & Cromwell Chairman H. Rodgin Cohen says that if a top Am Law 100 firm raises associate salaries, everyone else will follow. Morrison & Foerster Chairman Keith Wetmore agrees. "You can bet most of us will be there if the market moves," he says. "The jungle drum suggests that there probably will be an increase."

While firms are reluctant to open their wallets to boost associate salaries, they have been financially conservative in other areas as well. Most notably, firms are avoiding debt. Nearly one-third of leaders (32 percent) said their firms carry no long-term debt, while 26 percent said their debt load was less than $5 million. Seventeen percent said their debt load was $5 million to $10 million, and 24 percent said it was more than $10 million.

Hogan & Hartson and Quinn Emanuel are among the firms in the no-debt club. Hogan Chairman J. Warren Gorrell Jr. says that over the past three years his firm paid off debt it incurred from expansion and has not borrowed on its line of credit since June. Quinn Emanuel's John Quinn said his litigation shop has never had any debt. "Our clients pay, and we don't live beyond our means," he says. Thomas Clay, a principal at the consulting firm Altman Weil Inc. attributes that to large firms' high profitability. "The Am Law 200 have printing presses in their basements, so they can afford to be conservative," he says. "If you can run a business and avoid debt, you should do it." A pay-as-you-go philosophy can force partners to invest more capital to cover firm expenses. Lee Miller, joint CEO of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, says his firm raised its capital requirements over the last three years to help pay for information technology costs, which were around $20 million last year, and for the firm's expansion. "I think you will see a trend" of firms increasing capital requirements, Miller says. "Many firms [have been raising their requirements] in the 20-25 percent range." Still, 59 percent of respondents to our survey said they do not plan to increase partners' capital contributions next year, up from 50 percent in last year's survey.

One reason for firms' reluctance to borrow is the lingering ghost of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison. That firm had $80 million in debt when it self-destructed in 2003. More recently, Coudert Brothers owed its banks $22 million when it shut down in August.

Debt makes firms unattractive merger partners. Yet, that doesn't appear to be a factor in firms' reluctance to borrow. Only 24 percent of respondents said they are looking for a merger partner, about the same proportion as in last year's survey. That surprises Clay. He distinguishes merger deals from acquisitions, a term firms avoid using since it acknowledges that one firm is being consumed by the other. He estimates that more than three-quarters of Am Law 200 firms are considering acquiring a firm one-half to one-quarter of their size.

Just as firms are financially conservative, they are also wary of new trends. Although offshoring has gotten a lot of ink in the financial press in the past few years as a way for companies to save money, firm leaders reject the idea. Ninety-four percent of our respondents said they do not send work overseas and had no plan to do so. When firms did send tasks overseas, they primarily involved document management, contract and brief drafting and discovery work. But in 2005, a few firms, most notably Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, began offshoring patent prosecution work at the request of a few clients who were looking to reduce legal costs.

Pillsbury managing partner Marina Park declined to identify the clients that asked the firm to pursue offshoring, but Silicon Valley-based Cisco Systems Inc. and LSI Logic Corp. are known to have asked their outside counsel to send patent application work to India. Park says her firm isn't advocating offshoring, but says that if clients find it beneficial, Pillsbury would experiment more with it. She says she regularly gets calls from companies that provide services -- primarily litigation support, but also some intellectual property work -- in India, and she says she suspects that general counsel get similar calls.

Leaders are also sticking to the status quo in the area of firm management. Seventy-nine percent said five or fewer lawyers in the firm spend more than half their time on management, about the same proportion as in last year's survey. Wetmore says that's to be expected, since pulling partners away from their practices slows their careers. "In law firms your credibility comes from practice," Wetmore says. If partners cut billable hours down to 700 or 800 hours annually to take on management duties, their "credentials ... are being eroded," he says. "You probably should have as few [in management] as possible because you're destroying their careers."

Despite their conservatism, firm leaders ultimately are confident in the ability of their firms to beat the overall economy. Although 94 percent of respondents predicted that the nation's economy will be flat or grow only slightly next year, 89 percent said they are optimistic about their firms' prospects, and 99 percent said they expect to raise rates. That may be a tribute to the recession-proof nature of large, diversified firms. "Lawyers are pretty cycle-neutral," says Hildebrandt International consultant Joseph Altonji. "Firms seem to do well no matter what. ... It's a complicated economy, and lawyers are there to help navigate transactions and sort out messes." For that, firm leaders are eternally grateful.

[ISiddiqui]

I am thinking about college and as I have started thinking about what I want to do I find being a lawyer as something I seriously wouldn't mind doing.

So here are my questions...

- What is the pay like when you first get out of Law School?

As others have said, it depends. I have friends that are making $80k, $120k, etc., but are working like dogs (50, 60, 70 hours a week, hardly any vacation time). I'm working for the government (federal) and starting off at $42k, but the salary automatically jumps about $10k every year until I hit about $60k (3 years). What's nice is 40 hour weeks (and far less than that in actual 'work' sometimes ;)) and decent number of vacation time.

- Would you consider Law School to be hard? If so what made it so?

Not particularly. Some classes will be difficult, but most you can figure things out as long as you WORK at it. Its far different than undergrad, where I just didn't do much and got great grades. You have to put in the time every day. 2-5 hours of reading every night before class. You have to be prepared. The profs will call on you early and often, especially if you are unprepared in the beginning. Just realize you have to put in a lot of work, and you'll be fine. So, not hard, but just a lot of stuff to do.

- How is the vacation schedule?(How many hours or cases do you work in a year)

I don't do "cases" in the traditional sense of litigation. I do have cases I have to deal with as an federal investigator. I'm sure it makes everything different. Like I said, pretty good vacation. We get 4 vacation hours at the start every pay period (every 2 weeks), so 104 hours a year, which is about 13 days (2.5 weeks). After 3 years of service, it jumps to 6 hours a pay period (156 hours = 19.5 days [3.9 weeks]). And then, a bunch of years after that, it becomes 8 a pay period (208 hours = 26 days = 5.2 weeks).

- I am leaning toward being a defense lawyer but am open to the other kinds if they fit me better.
- This is for Ksyrup how was Law School at Florida State?
- How was the social life like during Law School.

Pretty good. At Emory, there were those who were married and went home to their families every night, but plenty of single folk who wanted to hang out, go to bars, that sort of stuff

- Since I don't plan on majoring in anything pretaining to Law.(Business Admin) what classes should I take to prepare for Law School.

Whatever you want. We had engineering students in our classes. I majored in political science and economics, but all you need are good grades and good LSAT scores

Thats all I have for now. I will ask more when it comes to me..

[Ksyrup]

I've been out of law school for almost 10 years, and I'm not making that kind of money. Of course, I live in Tallahassee, not NYC.

[judicial clerk]

something else to consider is that the article yabanci postedapplies to a small percentageof lawyers. large international firms such as those mentioned will only consider hiring graduates who are in the top ten percent of their law school class. That means that 95% of new lawyers will not work in the atmosphere described in the article.

I think it is important that a law student explore all the different types of practices out there.

[Schmidty]

I've been out of law school for almost 10 years, and I'm not making that kind of money. Of course, I live in Tallahassee, not NYC.

I've seen your fireplace. I DEMAND a photo of your rich ass in a red velvet smoking jacket.