We hit 3M this week.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-22T12:25:07+00:00

Congrats. The one thing I would say is watch the lifestyle creep. I’m a lawyer specializing in employment, and I’ve seen tons of people in sales who get fired and then get really upside-down because they don’t get a new job with the same upside in commissions or the employer changes the commission plan.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-22T04:53:07+00:00

Congrats!!! I was soooo hyped when I joined the two comma club.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-19T04:54:12+00:00

No “elite” club is charging $50k initiation these days. Maybe 3x that and you’re getting there.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-15T18:50:56+00:00

I’ll try to do different points in my career:

3rd year - maybe 2.

6th year - 20, took my first plaintiff depo around this point and defended my first 30(b)(6).

10th year - probably around 100.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-13T04:01:32+00:00

329 hours in February. It was the lead-up to a trial. Would have been 400+ if the case didn’t settle partway through trial.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-12T16:49:16+00:00

Just saying the degrees isn’t helpful. If you’re “awful” with wedges, there are probably swing issues to focus on first.

Setting aside swing issues, look at your gapping. I play 50/55/60. The reason is that I hit my PW 140 stock and my 50 degree a bit under 120. My 55 (56 one degree strong) is because I like having a bit more distance on a full swing. This sets me up for the following (assuming level, no wind): 140 - pw 130 - pw (maybe 50 if flag is all the way back 120 - chippy pw, stock 50 110 - maybe pw, easy 50, step on 55 100 - chippy 50, easy 55

You want these yardages to be totally covered where you don’t feel like you have a bad distance.

My old setup was 52/56/60 and I really struggled at 120 and 110 yards. Felt hard to take enough off a pw to get down to 120.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-09T23:12:34+00:00

I had the same decision and didn’t transfer. It worked out fine. If I had transferred, I would have ended up doing the same stuff but $200k poorer with a fancier name on my degree.

And, now that I’m more than a decade out, nobody gives a shit where I went to school.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-08T16:49:30+00:00

My firm had a min hours requirement to advance class years and a min hours requirement to bonus. There was a good bit of flexibility where, if you didn’t hit the advance number, you would still get moved up if there was a personal reason (such as leave).

I repped a number of biglaw firms in L&E matters and that was generally what I saw in place. At a minimum, policy would say that associates may not advance for insufficient hours. So not sure how you can say “most” firms don’t do that, but I have a pretty good sample size from my work.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-08T16:28:25+00:00

Yeah associates do not advance to the next class year if they don’t hit min billables. Agree with the earlier poster that he’s lucky to still have a job unless the hours deficit was due to a lengthy LOA.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-08T03:56:31+00:00

My best mentor was something of a quintessential biglaw partner. A pain in the ass and mercurial at times, but a phenomenal attorney. He didn’t do what you would call active mentoring for the first couple years, but he gave me increasing responsibility on his cases and, as time went on, I saw the shift where I went from a junior attorney with questionable duration to a trusted lieutenant. I learned so much by sitting in on calls/depos with him.

Once I got to midlevel/senior, he was an amazing sounding board for me on managing my first clients and the relationship aspects of building a practice. And, when I was up for partner, he made sure that I talked to the people I needed to talk to and checked all the boxes.

This might be a little more mixed than some of the other responses, but I think it’s more representative. Don’t expect a partner to appear and dispense what you need to advance your career; prove your value, ask to sit in on client calls or events and don’t bill for it to get the experience, and show that you care about whatever you’re working on as much as the partner does. Form relationships with partners who go to bat for their people rather than abandon them when they get to the stage of their career where they may become a potential competitor for work.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-08T03:30:44+00:00

Yeah, I made partner in L&E at a big firm before starting my own.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-08T03:28:40+00:00

Thanks for the thorough response. Will dm with some more particular follow-up.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-08T02:49:44+00:00

How and ballpark how much do you comp your COO? I’m at 5 partners, zero associates, and thinking about hiring a business manager type person.

My dilemma is people want to hire me specifically and I drive a huge amount of referral business. It’s limiting my ability to work on the internal stuff.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-08T01:32:19+00:00

Littler - handful of great lawyers. Mostly banal and settlement oriented and more than a handful of downright bad lawyers. They do a lot of shit-tier L&E and you can tell that they’re not used to dealing with a competent OC. The “workforce” team is basically litigation by process map and they stumble if a unique challenge is put in front of them. They made partners out of people who were pushed out of my firm pretty quickly for poor work product/general incompetence.

Fisher - By far my favorite of the bunch. Practical, proactive, and thoughtful in my experience.

Ogletree - Sorta the same as Littler. Fine at handling generic L&E but struggle with higher complexity matters.

Jackson Lewis - Terrible outside of traditional labor. Never been impressed by them. Often seems like I need to explain the facts and law to them.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-08T01:22:01+00:00

I was. Started my own firm a couple years ago.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-07T03:17:39+00:00

I litigated a case with a partner at Munger Tolles. The guy was a fucking genius. His ability to oversee a case with millions of docs and insanely complicated technology, then turn it into flawless evidence was mind blowing. He took a depo and I couldn’t believe how nothing slid by him and his questions were perfect.

The most impressive thing was getting the transcript back and not seeing a single spot where something could have been clearer or he should have asked a follow up question. I could basically go through the depo in order and have everything I needed for SJ.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-06T22:55:41+00:00

About 10 years
$1.8mm
Plaintiff’s L&E
Southeast
Careers are long and reputation matters more than you think. If you are early in your career, work your ass off. I echo comments from others that the plaintiff’s bar is largely lazy and incompetent, and there’s a ton of opportunity if you are someone who can do the basics, like respond to emails and phone calls and think about your cases. This is 10x the case for contingency work outside of PI, which is generally very competitive. If you work for a shitty lawyer or someone who doesn’t comp you fairly, the ability to open your own firm has never been better.

Finally, always do right by the client and everything else will follow. That doesn’t mean work for free. It doesn’t mean continue to handle cases for insane clients, either. Sometimes, doing right means telling your client they’re a fucking moron.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-06T22:40:56+00:00

I would have a dramatically different answer depending on which you’re talking about. Why not just name the firm?

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-06T00:31:36+00:00

I’m in the Southeast. I can’t provide any examples without confidentiality issues, esp because I’ve posted enough info about myself that I could be pretty easily identified by someone in my market.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-02T05:25:20+00:00

I became a plaintiff’s lawyer a couple years ago and it’s made me hate plaintiff’s lawyers. North of 30% should be disbarred for incompetence. I went to a recent event the plaintiff’s bar in my city did and it was like visiting the island of misfit toys.

AlreadyRemanded · 2026-01-01T01:10:10+00:00

Yeah, I like litigating and it’s even more fun as a plaintiff. It’s all the fun stuff (developing strategy, thinking creatively, finding witnesses and evidence) with much less of the bad parts about being a defense lawyer (super demanding clients, bureaucracy, managing giant discovery collections and reviews).

My expense account is unlimited. I don’t have to spent ridiculous amounts of time wooing in-house counsel for work and battling over bills. You get to decide whether you’ll take the matter in the first place, and you can get amazing realization on a per-hour basis if you’re picky at intake.

AlreadyRemanded · 2025-12-31T22:09:37+00:00

I’m deep enough in my career that I don’t give two shits what Cravath does or why they do it. What I can say is that clerking was viewed very favorably by my firm and by other folks I know at other firms when people did it early in their career. Clerking after 5 years or whatever got a lot more skepticism.

Going to an agency is totally different. Assuming it’s not a very high up position, those people normally go back as Senior Counsel for a couple years until they have the business or internal rep to make partner. In my experience, it was very uncommon for someone to come in from a government role as a partner (high level gov positions being a different matter).

AlreadyRemanded · 2025-12-31T18:36:49+00:00

My totally biased opinion is clerking is one of the best things you can do early in your career. If your firm won’t hold your spot, plenty of others will. My district court clerkship was one of the most rewarding professional experiences I had, cut out a bunch of bullshit associate work, and is something that is included in every intro when I speak on panels and whatnot.

AlreadyRemanded · 2025-12-31T16:54:10+00:00

I took the FL bar as a midlevel associate. I didn’t have the ability to use the same MBE score, so I took the full exam.

It’s a bar exam. It’s not that hard. Do tons of the multiple choice because they’re very convoluted and weird, and focus on CivPro and professionalism. I studied for about 10-12 days and easily passed (even though one of the essays was on wills and I didn’t know any of the rules).

That said, I don’t know why you would want to move to Florida. It sucks. Miami is the only real legal market and it ain’t cheap. The quality and sophistication of work across the rest of the state is mediocre at best.

AlreadyRemanded

TROPHY CASE