Truth Behind Horror Stories in Big Law?

ariesathena
Wed, 29 May 2013 23:51:27 +0000

There is no area of law that is uniformly free from working long hours under tremendous pressure. Let me emphasize again - CLIENT SERVICE INDUSTRY.

One business lawyer gave me very good advice: the only thing that you can charge for is your time, so act accordingly. First, don’t give it away for free, and second, realise that you cannot make money when you aren’t actively working.

In some industries, the amount of money you make is not a function of the number of hours you spend on something. However, in law, you make money when you work, and only when you work, because of the way lawyers bill their clients.

Obviously, you also cannot cut down your hours and your salary; this isn’t engineering, wherein you can go on a 32-hour week for 80% of the pay. As the hours are variable, it’s not really easy to just say “I would like to work a bit less and earn a bit less money.”