"You know it's going to be boring, but you just don't appreciate how boring it actually is," one first-year associate at a large New York law firm tells us.
The young lawyer describes long days of reading dense papers, which he only barely understands, and which seem to have no bearing on any actual case.
"Doc review is the most boring experience of your life, but strangely nerve-wracking because you know you're messing it up, but you just can't bring yourself to care that you're messing it up. And you're probably going to mess it up even if you did care, so [screw] it, why even bother," he says.
This is why Biglaw is often described as "soul crushing" and why even as many lawyers struggle to get jobs one recent grad is complaining about the one he has.
His rant at length [recorded and transcribed with permission]:
"You know it's going to be boring, but you just don't appreciate how boring it actually is. You're just sitting there all day, basically contributing nothing. You roll into the office at 9:30 because you're stuck there until 6:30 or 7, so you have no incentive to get there any earlier than you have to be, and then you just sort of sit there. So I get there; from roughly 9:30 to 10:15 I check my email, read the Internet; then I do whatever meaningless task I've been assigned for the day. And I haven't actually even had that much work, so it's not that I can complain that I'm working too hard, because I'm really not. I'm largely sitting there doing nothing, which is amazing, but really boring. After you sit there doing nothing for two hours, you're like 'this is awful' ...
"Doc review is the most boring experience of your life, but strangely nerve-wracking because you know you're messing it up, but you just can't bring yourself to care that you're messing it up. And you're probably going to mess it up even if you did care, so [screw] it, why even bother ... For instance you'll get an email that isn't really legally related but some lawyers are CC'd on it, [and you must determine] is this client-lawyer communications for purposes of lawyer-client privilege or is it not? And you're just like 'I don't really know. I have no idea. Might as well just flip a coin.' And then that's how it is. You say 'yes' or you say 'no' and then you move on, and then you're like, 'well, I probably just [screwed] that up.' So you're anxious that someone is going to look over it and say 'what is wrong with you? You're retarded.' But it's so boring at the same time. It's this weird boring yet incredibly anxious thing that goes on ...
"Really adding value is what I'm doing. Adding value every day. And I don't think my feelings are atypical, [although] I would say that my deep-seated apathy toward corporate law is not encouraging me to be fastidious ...
"Part of the problem is that you know so little about anything that you don't even really know where to start looking for things. You have research methods that you learned how to do in law school, but it takes so long to do anything, because before you can narrow it down to what you're actually looking for you spend a lot of time wandering around reading stuff that's tangentially relevant ... And you still have no idea how to use the computer system, so it takes you forever to do anything. You feel sort of bad because you're wasting time and you feel like you should be more productive, but at the same time you really don't [care] because it's so boring. It's really just this terrible thing ...
"I think it gets better. I'm hoping it gets better. If it doesn't get better it's going to be terrible. If it doesn't get better I might quit after six months ...
"You go from this transition of being a student to working, which independently sucks, so it's hard to distinguish. I think the job independently of the transition is sort of terrible, but it's hard to distinguish to how much of it is just adjusting to life in which you're no longer a student ... For the first two weeks we were there I was actually relatively busy. I know people who literally had nothing to do, literally nothing. They were just sitting at their desks. There's only so many times you can organize your paperclips ... You feel like you should be doing something because they're paying you an absurd amount of money to just sit there and do nothing, but it's their own damn fault. If they gave me work to do I'd do it. It's a very weird experience ...
"I have all these crushing student loans, so I'm still living in a moderately sized apartment ... I don't have time to do anything. It's amazing how little time you have when you work all the time ... And I don't think that my feelings and general level of apathy are entirely unheard of either. I know several other people who have very similar feelings. You have so little time. It's hard to find the time to go to the gym. I don't cook anymore. I don't have any food in my fridge because I'm never in my apartment. I bought a bunch of stuff off Fresh Direct when I started working and all of it went bad because I was never in my apartment, so now I never even buy food ... Usually when you're done with work you try to see friends because it's the only time you can do it, so you get dinner with somebody. So I'm spending way too much money on food."
Hey, at least he's earning lots of money!
Don't miss: A Horrifying Day In The Life Of A Corporate Lawyer Mom >
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