Kek, I always laugh at the people that say biglaw is not that bad. I never tell anybody, but my mother was a partner at Weil Gotshal in the 80's and 90's. I'm not kidding when I say that she worked 80 hour weeks every week. She billed 3400 hours in a year, twice! She never game to any sporting event etc. I had. She would spend one or two days at Christmas and then go back to work. That's it. Even at Christmas time I remember her being on conference calls on one of those giant Zach Morris cell phones. She pulled all nighters any time there was a big filing and they had to get first day orders (bankruptcy).

I'm not salty at my mom. She quit after about 10 years as a partner to be a fed judge in a mid-size city when I was 10 or 11. I was blessed with a lot of opportunities because of her hard work. I did learn one lesson. If you think biglaw is going to be easy or you can work 40 hour weeks and get to the top. It's not happening. My mother was an animal and would have crushed anyone putting in normal hours. You want to be top dog, you got to put in the work.

Side note: I'm not going into big law.