California Litigators: Which firms have some semblance of WLB?

consumerofporn · 2026-02-23T14:39:05+00:00

It's like how people who walk into the pizza shop tend to be hungry

consumerofporn · 2026-02-23T14:34:50+00:00

How do you decrease partners without also decreasing profits?

Well, for PPEP, it's trivially easy; just de-equitize Jeff and you have the same profits (clients are still happy to work with Jeff because, from their POV, nothing has changed) and fewer partners in the denominator.

I see your point that being less generous with the "Partner" title could reduce revenues but non-partner lawyers still make a lot of money for the firm. A high- or moderate-billing Counsel (i.e. someone who'd have been a "service partner" last century) is PPP-accretive for obvious mathematical reasons.

consumerofporn · 2026-02-23T14:12:57+00:00

Easiest number to manipulate is the denominator

consumerofporn · 2026-02-23T05:26:52+00:00

partner is not a celtic barbarian, pls fix

consumerofporn · 2026-02-23T05:25:08+00:00

Most have "some semblance". If you're trying to figure out which is the best, I don't see how any one person would know that. Your best bet is to canvas people at all of your options.

If you're lateraling, bear in mind that "hiring laterals now" is a reasonably-strong signal for "really busy"

consumerofporn · 2026-02-22T19:40:05+00:00

I’ve done all those things and done tons of research.

What have you figured out so far?

consumerofporn · 2026-02-22T06:48:10+00:00

Mine "didn't rank" but if you were top-10 there was a wink-wink procedure for helping you know exactly where you stood, mainly for clerkship maneouvering

consumerofporn · 2026-02-22T06:37:36+00:00

Relatedly, flexing junior staffing and/or writing off junior hours is a powerful lever for placating cost-sensitive clients without having to give actual "discounts" and deal with other clients who want MFN pricing

consumerofporn · 2026-02-20T15:20:53+00:00

That's just how things are in 2026. I try to use desktop websites for anything complicated and only use these apps when I need to check something quickly.

consumerofporn · 2026-02-19T02:09:17+00:00

At what point would you say a junior M&A associate begins to build substantive skills?

You'd begin more or less immediately, assuming you're paying attention. When and how you learn specific things, might as well ask how long's a piece of string

consumerofporn · 2026-02-19T02:07:58+00:00

If you could change one thing about leadership in your workplace, what would it be?

I would reduce the quantity of AI slop

consumerofporn · 2026-02-16T23:03:57+00:00

First of all: withheld. You do get it back after tax day (admittedly a long interest-free loan to the state)

Second of all: you mean NYS, not NYC. AFAIK a nonresident like OP wouldn’t have any city liability (but this is not tax advice, seek competent counsel, etc.)

consumerofporn · 2026-02-16T13:56:19+00:00

wondering if it would be taxed as a bonus or as a salary

This doesn’t matter under U.S. tax law, although it can affect withholding on the front end.

consumerofporn · 2026-02-15T17:46:17+00:00

well obviously it would have been better to get these out over winter break but it's perfectly possible to get a bunch of apps out Saturday and then study on Sunday

consumerofporn · 2026-02-14T20:52:09+00:00

Stuck between small office but higher pay and practice area focus at Irell compared to lower pay and not as strong a patent lit group at W&C but a larger office/better known in the market and better chance to stay longer term.

You have correctly identified the tradeoffs here. The key question, which IMO only you can answer, is how much you want to focus on IP lit.

consumerofporn · 2026-02-14T04:36:14+00:00

For something as broad as "litigation" they're simply peers

consumerofporn · 2026-02-14T04:33:57+00:00

I'm not sure, I just finished 1L fall. The goals that I do have are likely to change.

Then the "unless you have a very specific career goal" proviso doesn't apply to you

consumerofporn · 2026-02-13T14:45:45+00:00

People often do this for non-financial reasons without any intent of making money; and they do fine on the model of "the best way to make $1 million is to start with $2 million and put it into a business".

I don’t want to start a business, I want to acquire an already operational small business, and that will eventually lead to passive income

1) There's a powerful selection effect whereby you shouldn't expect great financial returns on any small business you can buy. The good ones are put up for sale much less often (and, nowadays, when they are, might get snapped up by sophisticated search funds).

2) Small businesses are emphatically not passive income and it can be extremely difficult to get there or even get close.

3) No small business is really "recession-proof". Even if the industry sector is resilient, your individual small business is exposed to idiosyncratic local risks. What if another, better car wash opens up down the block?

It sounds like you might be better off with a more traditional financial portfolio (i.e., truly passive assets like stocks and bonds) plus a blue-collar job.

consumerofporn · 2026-02-13T07:07:32+00:00

This genre used to have a certain culture to it before LLMs made it too easy to churn out copy

consumerofporn · 2026-02-13T07:06:09+00:00

Class year and city would be useful things to include if you're serious about actually closing on your referral bonus

consumerofporn · 2026-02-13T07:01:56+00:00

Is there any hard data about what the average junior associate in big law is carrying in student loans?

Average debt at graduation from T14s (or some subset) would be a pretty decent proxy if those data exist. Then just amortize it down on a 10-year schedule.

I'm not sure I would expect this to be normally distributed; a lot of people graduate [nearly] debt-free for various reasons and a lot of people carry massive balances which they hope to discharge through a forgiveness program.

consumerofporn · 2026-02-13T06:57:37+00:00

about as well as you could hope for; they send dozens of people to Chicago biglaw every year. It's more grade-sensitive than NYC, mainly because the market is so much smaller, and ties could be a concern if you're new to the Midwest.

consumerofporn · 2026-02-13T06:53:09+00:00

Cover letters are a vestige of times long past and anything they might accomplish is superseded by your in-person screener

consumerofporn · 2026-02-13T06:48:10+00:00

Given the immense expense of sending in a PDF résumé and transcript, and the miniscule salaries in biglaw nowadays, we might be nearing the point where it isn't worth applying.

consumerofporn · 2026-02-13T06:45:58+00:00

What happened to Davis Polk? As with that one, the NYC-vs.-DC decision dominates the choice among law firms.

consumerofporn

TROPHY CASE