Interestingly, I saw this profile as a "friend" to Saira Rao's profile:

http://www.friendster.com/1241429

Is there anything less glamorous than clerking for a federal judge, except in the eyes of those who've done so, or aspire to? Is there any group of people less glamorous than those who've done so, or aspire to?

Leave it to a refugee from Cleary to write an article claiming that big firms are suffering a "brain drain." It sounds more like they're driving out the morons who went to law school even though they didn't want to be lawyers.

Try googling "associate attrition." Attrition is completely out of control.

"The rate of associate attrition we're seeing today at big firms is the highest level we've ever seen," says Paula A. Patton, chief executive of the NALP Foundation, a nonprofit group in Overland Park, Kan., that examines law-firm hiring trends and practices … According to an NALP Foundation study unveiled last year that looked at law firms for the three years from 2002 through 2004, nearly 60% of all entry-level associates at firms with more than 500 lawyers had left their firms by the end of their fourth years. For firms of all sizes, it was 62%, a record since NALP began tracking it nearly 10 years ago. "

I really don't think the attrition problem is about associates wanting "better, more interesting work." Even if pay was slashed to a fraction of what it is now, most people I know would happily shovel piles of elephant shit for a steady 8 hrs every day, as long as they could take lunch, leave at 6:00 and get their weekends and vacation days. "More interesting work" usually just means more stress and more problems for associates.

I think it's more about associates wanting A DECENT SHOT AT A DECENT LIFE. I mean, junior associates look at senior associates and partners and don't envy them. What good is money when you are a slave to preschool tuitions, your billz, your blackberry, and your clients? And your husband, wife, or partner thinks you're a total douchebag? And even when the work's interesting, it's not as interesting, as say, dinner and a few laughs with your loved ones every night. You know your lifestyle is messed up when you deeply envy your secretary when you watch her walk out door every night when your evening is just beginning. Money is completely meaningless without the ability to live a healthy, happy, satisfying life.

Amen, brother. I get chills up my spine everytime I hear some law firm consultant blather about "more interesting work." I left a perfectly good, good paying, boring job with the federal government for a job as a mid-level associate in BigLaw because I swallowed all that bullcrap about "fulfilling work." Thank you, but I can find ways to be fulfilled outside of work, provided i can leave the office occasionally.

Right, but "associate attrition" is built into the business models of many of these places.

It's like a pyramid scheme. Hire 90 associates per year, make 8 people partners per year. Are the other 82 people part of a "brain drain," or did the firm just get as much work as possible out of them before casting them aside?

Ms. Rao may have a point, but I doubt her objectivity. There are some lawyers with legitimate complaints about big firm life, and there are others who went to law school for the wrong reasons, realize it 6 months into a firm job, and blame their unhappiness entirely on the industry. Read Opinionista, or Jeremy Blachman, or any other person with a JD who spend less than a year in practice but routinely trashes law firms, and look for the post where they explain why they went to law school.

If you really want to be a chef, or a writer, or an artist, or a business person, do that instead. Don't take on $120,000 in debt, go into indentured servitude at a law firm, and then complain that document review doesn't feed your soul.

see I don't get these people who complain about "document review not feeding their soul."

I mean, I don't give a shit WHAT I'm doing as an associate, I just don't want to be doing whatever it is on my nights and weekends, taking me away from living life.

Am I lacking in a soul? Or are all the people who say they are unfulfilled just sick of the horrible hours and lying about it?

Fair point. I don't know what the answer is.

Some people love their jobs so much that they're happy to immerse themselves in the job, and need very little else.

Others use their jobs purely to pay the bills and finance their "real lives," and don't care whether they're arguing at the Supreme Court or cleaning out the elephant cage at the zoo, so long as they can get the most money for the least amount of time on the clock.

Most of us are somewhere in the middle. I think that being a lawyer demands enough of one's time that you shouldn't do it unless you find it at least a little bit fulfilling.

There is a definite problem of big law firms not respecting their associates' time, but there are also people working at law firms who would probably be miserable even if they were only working 40 hours a week.

I feel like people should know what they're getting into, but the ones who leave early act as if they didn't, and blame the firm.

So when someone who left a law firm blames the firm and writes a "news" article about a larger trend, I'm skeptical.

That said, the idea of one of Judge Sloviter's ex-clerks writing a work of fiction about being a clerk for a "power hungry sociopath" sounds intriguing.

I can't imagine being miserable if BigLaw was nine to six. And you always had your weekends. How could you be miserable with such a great salary?

she is my cousin