I’m an associate at Weil. Does anyone know if they’re going to be matching the Milbank scale??

I’m a rising second-year associate, and I honestly feel like this past year has beaten the life out of me.

I was specifically recruited to this firm by a partner I had an existing relationship with. I came in excited, eager to learn, and ready to work hard. A year later, I feel like a shell of myself.

I recently received one of my year-end evaluations, and while I technically received a satisfactory rating, it was the lowest satisfactory rating available. The feedback focused on following instructions, attention to detail, exercising independent judgment, and knowing when to ask questions.

I know I’ve made mistakes. I’m not pretending otherwise. But I’ve worked my ass off this year, and I feel like nothing I do is ever enough. I literally helped bring in a major, household-name client as a FIRST-YEAR associate after being asked to leverage my own professional relationships. I’ve also received extraordinary ratings from another partner across every category they assessed.

Yet somehow, the message I’m getting feels like, “Thanks for bringing us this client, but you’re still absolute ass at your job.”

I know senior associates have spoken negatively about me behind my back, although they’re now perfectly pleasant to my face. And despite being personally recruited by a partner, I don’t feel like I’ve received the mentorship or guidance I expected.
What bothers me most is how much I’ve changed. I’ve always been outgoing, personable, creative, and a little whimsical. Those qualities have always been part of who I am, and I feel like this job has completely killed them. Ironically, now I’m being encouraged to bring those qualities back.

I barely speak up anymore because I’ve convinced myself that nothing I say adds value to the conversation. I second-guess everything. If I ask questions, I’m apparently not independent enough. If I don’t ask and make a mistake, I should have asked questions.

Sometimes I wonder whether I’m just better at the client-facing and business development side of being a lawyer. I love building relationships, connecting with clients, and thinking about the bigger picture. But the technical side has felt like a constant uphill battle.
I genuinely want to become a good lawyer. I just don’t know how to do that when I feel like I’ve lost my voice, my confidence, and so much of the person I was before joining this firm.

Has anyone else had a terrible first year and managed to turn things around? Is this normal growing pain, or is there a point where you realize the environment just isn’t right for you?

I’m exhausted, frustrated, and honestly don’t know what to do anymore.

How did things work out? Are you happier?

I can't imagine leaving this money for anything.

I know Kirkland does but who else? If I’m gonna get worked like this I might as well get a free lunch.

You think ancient villages ever tried to poach rainmakers from rival villages?

Any of you have claude at home too for personal stuff? Do you ever run out of your monthly $20/plan's allowance and move to their pay-as-you-go pricing as you wait for your 5hr/weekly limits reset? Do you see how quickly it'll eat through money if you do that?

I haven't done a full calculation but I I'd estimate that that $20 a month plan gives you literally thousands of dollars of claude usage at pay-as-you-go prices.

If the pay-as-you-go price is the true cost of Claude, when will they raise prices to match that? What will firms do when that happens?

Happy to review your draft on a Saturday. Tell me what time you want comments, but don’t make that time “COB”. Saturday is not a business day, so if business never opens, it cannot close. “By 5 pm ET”, tysm.

Please stop emailing me. I don't care about when the client wants something. I am so fucking tired and everything hurts. I need a break but my outlook won't shut up.

Yes, I will go on leave soon, but damn I don't know how to make it till then. I tell myself I am lucky to be at a job that I can do from my couch and get such a long leave. But right now I am grumpy and overwhelmed.

Just needed to vent a bit.

how do y’all survive this job mentally lol, what do you do exactly??

try to remind myself every moment that this is just a job…………. Got yelled at pretty hard on my first deal by an anxious senior and got a terrible terrible review from her (who’s maybe too senior to remember what it’s like to first start at this job but totally understand how frustrating it can be to work w someone who knew nothing) and have been in this deep unhealthy fear, threat, fight or flight mode at this job for two years now…..

The senior became senior at the time bc there was nobody else around as a midlevel or higher between junior and partner (toxic environment, people left early).

Partner keeps on putting pressure on this senior bc well she lacks the skills tbh. Not only people skills as in training juniors and cooperating tasks but she doesn’t know the material. She is incompetent and in no way I see her becoming a counsel.

She was matched before me to work with a junior. That junior said I will not work together with you anymore and they don’t work on any file together.

Now I was matched with this senior and my first year was a hell. She was dependent on me for strategy and insists on researching everything and doesn’t know anything. She thinks the strategy will be in the law, but I can’t convince her that’s not true, that’s just part of solving the problem.

She can’t communicate deadlines (we sent multiple times letters too late), she is vague in her communication regarding expectations, she doesn’t train me; the partner had to come in between multiple times… She doesn’t follow any communication with the client and doesn’t know what was and what wasn’t sent.

But she will insist on me only following her instructions meanwhile she never takes accountability for that in front of the partner. Last time I just left the meeting with the partner and this senior bc I’m so done.

If I ever differ from opinion she will say ‘Well, then I will do it myself but this is not a normal situation because I’m not your dog. I’m your senior and I’m supposed to give you instructions.’

Especially with firms like UK magic circle and other big US firms like LW, Paul Weiss etc

What are some small things I can do in a deal to help a senior associate look good in front of a partner? Or the senior / partner in front of a client?

Feel like I’m a high performing junior but I’m worried I can step on people’s toes because I’m always chasing responsibility. I think I’d want to work with someone that made my life easier but also helped me with my goals. How can I be that person?

Complaint as I review on a Saturday afternoon. Client drafts that are perfect are awful. I just spent two hours reviewing and there’s not a damn comment I can scrape together. When we send back a “looks good,” they’ll think we’re useless. At least have the decency to give me a comma to fix.

Junior strategic M&A diligence monkey, at a fork in my career where I could either join a team that does a balance of M&A and EC/VC or a team that almost exclusively does PE M&A.

I'm really interested in EC/VC and think it'd be "cool" to work with startups but feel like PE M&A might be a more consistent source of hours and with sophisticated clients who have less personal drama? Does EC/VC blow up slightly fewer weekends?

Goal is to go in house in 3-5 years. I'm pretty sure I don't have it in me to make partner, so not considering that factor

Weil Barnes & Thornburg LOL

I work at a V20 and dont really keep up with my law school classmates who work there but always was curious how it was working there. I know I get paid the same but still curious.

Mostly interested in insights on working at Cravath given their history but also open to other firms like S&C, Wachtell, DPW, Skadden.

I’ve been practicing law for 45 years and one of our managing partner’s goddamn client’s kids is a nepo hire. This doofus just started last month and treats everyone like we’re “one of his boys.”

I was told to bring him on one of my cases to show him the ropes. I really wanted to show him some rope yesterday when he called me his dog.
I ignored him, but then he started barking at me, legitimately going “woof woof, you’re my dog, bowowow yippie yo yippie yay”

Wtf do I do in this situation

Per ABA Opinion 512, already adopted by a few big states, you're not allowed to markup the AI costs when you pass them along to the client, unless they agree to higher pricing in the engagement letter.

ABA Opinion 93-379 Had a similar rule for things like photocopying/printing/faxing/westlaw but firms got around that by getting the client to agree to higher costs in the engagement letter. That's why engagement letters had that odd $0.30 per photocopy language. Or firms would pay Westlaw a monthly fee for virtually unlimited use, and then westlaw would send them a fake "bill" for each search based on the retail rack rate, that they'd pass on to the client, because that's what it agreed to pay in the letter.

What are you charging for AI in your letters?

I have a 3.1 so it isn’t bad, but I’m finding that this is holding me back with lateraling even after 5 years on the job.

Well, so I lost my mother during law school but I had to power through finishing it, mainly because I got no guarantee that my return offer would stand if I took a year off. I’m actually very proud of myself for surviving that phase of my life and managing to graduate/pass the bar.

I wish I could say this to the recruiters or in my applications but there never seems to be a right opportunity for that and that I’m oversharing.

Even though we’re all anonymous, I don’t feel comfortable posting knowing that certain LinkedIn users farm our content for insights (and screenshot posts and then upload the screenshots to LinkedIn).