Getting Your Legal Career Started

While David is still away on his well-earned vacation, it’s time for some career advice! ...

By
23

While David is still away on his well-earned vacation, it’s time for some career advice! Megan L. Brown – partner at Wiley Rein LLP – joins Sarah to talk about choosing (and getting hired by) the right law firm. How to get your best self across in interviews? How to judge a firm’s work culture? Is it wise to inquire about a firm’s work-life balance? And, most importantly, should you take career pointers from Netflix’s Partner Track? All shall be answered.

Oh, and by the way, the views expressed in this episode are Megan’s and Sarah’s, they do not represent necessarily the views of Wiley Rein, its partners or clients.

Editor’s Note: Views expressed are not necessarily the views of Wiley Rein, its partners or clients.

By
Comments (23)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Shbier

    This was a very good podcast. I take the comment about the elite element to the discussion. That said, there are more opportunities in big law than there were 20 years ago. The classes are more diverse and the variety of law schools is much larger. Megan did a great job. It did make me feel bad because it’s clear she’s a much better interviewer than me!

    Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    Gabrielle G

    While the cat’s away, the mouse will hold a recruiting fair

    Collapse
  3. Alex Winkleman

    I am really ambivalent about how thankful Megan was for not being fired when her kid was born. On the one hand, you have to be able to see things from the employer’s side not take for granted that people will do the right thing. On the other hand, is it too much to ask for a law firm to follow the law?

    Collapse
  4. Hcreedlaw

    I know that much of what was shared is true of BigLaw, but that is part of why it is so discouraging. The number of times the advice was to "talk to your network" to find out the truth about a firm or practice area is why it is difficult for people not coming from a legal background (or in many cases just an affluent background) to break in. And the idea of hiring people you want to work with (which is of course natural) can quickly lead to (unintentional) discrimination against those who can't trade stories about their favorite Harvard Law professor or the best golf courses they've played - neither of which is what makes a good lawyer, or even defines who is great to work with.

    Collapse
  5. Avatar photo
    Me_and_mike_d

    I love this podcast and will keep listening whatever, but I’d be really curious to know what Sarah and David think an engineer should be getting out of it…

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photocircle-angle-nib
      Sarah Isgur vertical-nib Author

      The podcast as a whole or this episode in particular? I’d say all of it is about law and part of understanding law is understanding who makes it—which is lawyers!

      Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    Rjosephpaquette

    Flashbacks to be beginning of my medical career.
    Medicine has it's own idiosyncrasies when starting out.
    The advice I've been giving to young doctors for decades (which probably applies to lawyers) the most important term in the contract is how it can be ended. As Sarah and her guest noted, it's ultimately going to be about people you will end up spending your days (and nights) amongst. You often won't really know what that is like to you get there.

    I also highly recommend not just an interview with the medical practice, but follow a doctor working there for one full day. I've avoided several catastrophic situations after that eye opening experience.

    Collapse
  7. Kyle C

    Megan mentioned working 3000 billable hours a year like it was a lot. I don't know much of anything about the daily schedule of a lawyer and what percent of work is billable, but as a doctor, 3000 is on the low end for residency. Right out of medical school I worked about 3600 hours per year. We got 66 days off (4 days each month, three 5 day weeks off, and 3 days at Christmas or New Years) and worked an average of 12 hours/day. That probably decreased in the later year or two, but was still wind 3000. I've got a skewed view on this, but I don't think it's unreasonable to work that much in the first few years of being in your real job. There were several women in my program that had children at various stages in training (I also had 2 kids during that time. Of course, I didn't have to carry them or give birth) and they made sacrifices then (took all vacation at once instead of maternity leave that would have delayed their graduation or had their kids start with grandparents more) to get through training and have whatever work-life balance they want now. I don't want to sound callous. I know that's not for everyone, but I don't think it's unreasonable for a time.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photocircle-angle-nib
      Sarah Isgur vertical-nib Author

      Hard to give an exact formula for billable hours into actual worked hours…but the max a lawyer could probably bill with all their waking hours and no vacations or weekends is probably around 3,400.

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Rjosephpaquette

        Young lawyer, 39 years old, is killed in a tragic car accident. He presents to the Pearly gates. He protests loudly to St. Peter that he's too young to be there. St. Peter checks his records, and announced, not according to his billable hours, he's 78.

        Collapse
    2. Avatar photo
      Kevin M. James

      I think it's been well established that working doctors that hard is a good way to kill patients...never mind the effect on the residents' own well-being.

      Collapse
      1. Kyle C

        I went through residency long after work hour restrictions were implemented. 80 hrs/week average over 4 weeks. That's a max of 4160 per year. In olden times, the long-long ago, residents worked 100 to 120 hours per week and sometimes with minimal oversight. They were called residents because the literally resided in the hospital. Those days are past. My example of 3600 hours per year is probably on the higher side because that was General Surgery, but it was certainly doable for a limited time. Also, I'm not sure there's any data that supports less hours being safer (certainly more oversight is). Shorter shifts means more handoffs and more handoffs means more opportunities for error. Both models have advantages. I definitely prefer not working 120 hours in a week though.

        Collapse
        1. Avatar photo
          Kevin M. James

          Thanks for the informative reply.

          My own experience (second-hand, but very up-close-and-personal) was before the 2003 regulation changes, and also saw me hanging out in emergency departments far more than surgery. I'm sure both of those differences made the risk of bad outcomes seem greater and more vivid than it was in your experience.

          I remain of the firm opinion that whenever anyone is regularly working as many as 80 hours a week (never mind 100 or 120) in the employ of someone else, either the economic situation must be brutally difficult, there must be a severe labor shortage, a dire emergency must be afoot...or, failing any of these conditions, there have been some profound failures of wisdom and judgment somewhere along the line in allowing such a thing to become at all normal for human beings.

          Collapse
          1. Kyle C

            I get the concern about over working, but it takes time to hone skills. You've probably heard the 10000 hours to master a skill. 80 hours per week for 5 years over 20000 hours. Of course, you don't actually work that much every week. But in that time you need to master the art of medicine and develop surgical skills. It already takes 11 years after high school to become a medicine doctor and longer for specialists. Shorter hours means less experience per year and could lead to more time in training. Obviously, that line of thought has limits. You need to actually be learning while working and that's impossible if you haven't slept or are only dying menial tasks (a lot of older training had doctors doing what other hospital employees do now like transporting patients or starting IVs). And there is a shortage of residents. There are many more medical school spots that residency spots because most residency programs pay their residents with money from medicare/medicaid. It's not economical for hospitals to have residents without that money and there's not enough funding for more spots.

            Collapse
    3. Avatar photo
      Young Riprock

      Not every hour you’re working as a lawyer is billable. Big Law is worst than most as they will overcharge on files and projects to meet their billable requirements. If you don’t have good in house counsel monitoring and pushing back on the bill, your business will get eaten alive in running up attorney’s fees.

      But in my practice, I would say only 70% of my hours in the office turn into billable hours.

      Collapse
      1. Kyle C

        That's good context

        Collapse
  8. Avatar photo
    William Hultman

    Sarah, long-time subscriber to the podcast and once upon a time practiced law. Enjoyed this episode, but the experiences described would only apply to a small percentage of your listeners. Most lawyers don't go to elite laws schools, clerk in federal courts or work in "big law". It certainly didn't track with my experience as a lawyer. But having work for several large corporations that engaged such lawyers, I am familiar with that type of practice. So the advice provided is wasted for the majority of law student tuning into to your podcast. Some diversity appears to be needed.

    Collapse
    1. Rick

      Current lawyer and I have to agree. So much of how the practice of law is advertised to the world (in fictional media and IRL discussions like here) focus only on the tiny fraction of lawyers at the top.

      There is a massive middle class of lawyers who are your county prosecutors, public defenders, consumer bankruptcy lawyers, real estate attorneys who close your family home, tenant attorneys, estate lawyers for mom and pop, etc. These people are not earning "Skadden lockstep" but also don't put themselves through the (IMO) extreme lifestyle biglaw demands.

      I respect Ms. Isgur and this is not a critique of her, but it is tiresome to once again hear "general advice" that specifically applies to the top 10% of law firms who select the top 10% of students from the top 10% of law schools.

      There are normie lawyers out here!

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Kevin M. James

        And if more people has a clear view of what that looked like (I'm thinking here not just of my students, but of the somehow-equally-naive parents and other grownups who uncritically egg them on thinking "oh, if the kid just gets into law school, they're set!"), they could make decisions.

        Because for the vast majority of people, the real law school decision is, "Do these middle-class lawyer jobs--which can pay well, but not nearly as well as you probably think; and many of which are not only low on drama but will see you in an actual courtroom approximately never--do these jobs as they actually are seem better to you than working as, say, an electrician for approximately the same or perhaps a bit more money?"

        I'm not personally invested in what the answer to that question is...or at least not nearly as much I am in whether that question gets properly thought through *before* my students graduate and start running up law school expenses, or after.

        Collapse
    2. Avatar photo
      Kevin M. James

      I advise undergraduates for a living, a lot of whom are interested in law school...a lot of them because they take it to be a sure bet.

      Outside of the top 14 law schools, it's not anything like a sure bet.

      The numbers have looked a bit better over the last few years (whether it's because they are better, or law schools are getting better at gaming the latest disclosure requirements, I'm not sure), but over the past decade it's been common enough to see non-elite schools send classes out into the world and see half the graduates never find permanent work as lawyers.

      Collapse
    3. Avatar photocircle-angle-nib
      Sarah Isgur vertical-nib Author

      Agree that not all the advice will apply to every law student or every law firm, of course. But I talk to law students at many of the top 75 law schools and this episode was taken from their questions. And from the other end, Wiley is ranked 141 these days—so if we look at the amlaw top 200 firms we’re talking about tens of thousands of lawyers they employ and this is how the find them.

      Collapse
  9. Avatar photo
    Garrett.Heckman

    I sincerely wish this podcast had been available when I was in law school.

    Collapse
  10. Mathew A

    This is just chock full of good interviewing advice for whatever job you are trying to get hired too.

    Note the other thing I do when hiring, it I ask a couple of technical questions related to the job. I'm head of finance, so that's normally accounting related questions. It's SHOCKING to me the number of people with degrees in accounting, (at least 1 with a masters) that can't answer basic accounting questions like what accounts do you debit and credit when you make a sale, or capitalize a piece of equipment.

    If you are applying for a job, make sure you are really ready to do the job. If you're skills are rusty, better brush up on the technical side too.

    Collapse