(Author) Associate General Counsel:

What do you find the most annoying and frustrating about your friends who are still in BigLaw - both serious and trivial - and how have you handled those issues, if at all?

Legal Counsel Responses:

• I recently went to a lake house with my friends, most of which are still in BigLaw. They’re absolutely insufferable about money. They talk about it constantly with no regard for the people around them. They’ll casually drop that they spent $20k on something trivial or got a six figure bonus in groups where many people are like, teachers. I think it’s a product of being in an environment where there’s so much transparency about salaries that it’s comfortable to have these discussions, but they fail to understand that this doesn’t apply outside of the BigLaw world. It’s incredibly cringy.
  
  • Do they also complain about not making enough money? Or are super cheap? Mine do.
    
    • Sometimes. It’s really more that they seem incapable of interacting with other people for more than like, a literal hour without talking about money. They do discuss raises and bonuses constantly and act like they’re absolutely entitled to these things.
• They humble brag all the time.
• I don’t really feel any sense of annoyance or anything with them except when they complain nonstop about it while taking no affirmative steps to get out. I have friends who have been saying for years that they were done, but haven’t even drummed up a resume or tried applying anywhere. Oftentimes they have expensive tastes that, if continued, trap them in the job, whether they realize it or not. My life has taken a complete turn for the better since going in-house, but looking back at how they live and how they feel like they’re in prison just makes me sad for them. It’s their life. They just don’t seem to fully appreciate that time marches on and an easier life is never going to land in their laps if they don’t try to do anything about it. They also will at times admit that they thrive off of the money and the prestige. I wish I could explain to them that nobody really cares about the alleged prestige, but they continue to see it that way.
  • Agree with this. It’s a struggle to be sympathetic to their complaints when they refuse to leave. They all have excuses, none of which seem to be true to me.
  • Is it difficult to find time with your BigLaw friends? Do they tend to neglect most of their interpersonal relationships?
    • I don’t find it to be. Dinners are always easy to arrange, and it’s pretty easy to get folks to plan trips. They might have to work a bit while we travel, but we do a ton of weekend getaways as groups without issue.
      • Lucky you. Was this something your big law friends were always good at or did they have to learn over time?
        • This may be more of a self selecting thing than a learned thing. I think most of us are friends in part because we’re pretty active and social. I know a ton of people in BigLaw that really stressed about things and would cancel commitments regularly. I’m not saying I never did that, but I was often happen to work well into the night to make room for dinners or events (especially concerts) with my partner/friends. When I was still at the firm, we also did a lot of stuff that worked around all of our weird schedules, like morning workout classes and breakfast.
          • That’s great that you made that sort of effort instead of just using biglaw as an excuse. Did you have biglaw friends who sort of fell out of your circle because they weren’t active/social or didn’t make the same effort you did?
• Nothing is really annoying. The most frustrating thing is how bad some of them are with managing money. That applies x1000 for the relatively new lawyers in large firms.
• Not being able to hold a commitment.
• Can’t spend enough quality time with them. Even through text … then when they surface for air, it’s all about the shit that was killing them.
• I stopped hanging out with my “BigLaw" friends because it was so difficult to make plans with them and when we actually did hang out they’d just complain about work or brag about money the whole time.