WHAT IS BIG LAW AND WHY I CHOSE IT FOR MY CAREER PATH

when i started law school when i decided to enter into the legal field i was very naive and uninformed [Music] what's up you guys it's your girl angela with the aspiring boss welcome back to my channel today's video i'm going to be getting into why i chose big law as my career path if you're watching this video you're most likely an attorney a law student or an aspiring attorney and so you probably already know what big law is but i do know that some of my viewers are still in high school so just in case you don't when i say big law it's like kind of a buzzword in the legal community but big law basically means a large law firm usually headquartered or based out of a big cities not only a large law firm so you probably have at least like 200 attorneys or i can't remember what the parameters are but i'd say 200 plus attorneys you have multiple practice groups so you're like a full service law firm where you do litigation and corporate and all of the subsections within that not really anything like personal injury or criminal art anything like that but you're kind of your big civil litigation all of the practices within you know corporate transactional law because your clients are going to be businesses and um there's some sort of negative connotations out there about big law i can get into those i can be honest about those but that's just not what this video is going to be about it's going to be a little bit more positive because i'm talking about why i chose this path right so yeah i just wanted to basically kind of let people understand you know big law is what you think about when you hear about you know this big name law firm such as cravath or skadden um i will say though there are levels to big law right so like i said you have like your new york based law firms big names chicago those types of things but it does change a little bit by what markets you're in right so i started my legal career in houston texas huge legal market right but a different culture different vibe than new york um you still work hard you still work a lot of hours and things like that there's still those same connotations that go with big law and same in the midwest where i currently am but yeah there are levels to big loss so some of those horror stories those big law horror stories um i just haven't experienced just because i i didn't do like new york big i already knew like i was not going to even be trying to go um out of state back then i was like texas all the way i'll never live anywhere other than texas obviously that has changed okay but yeah i just kind of wanted to put that out there for anybody who might not know what big law is okay and so before i jump into why i do want to do a disclaimer like when i started law school when i decided to enter into the legal field i was very naive and uninformed i did not do the researching i probably should have done about job prospects legal market in you know job prospects for the law school that i chose i knew i wanted to be a lawyer i got in a few law schools and i decided to go to the one i went to so i will say i was very uninformed that's a big part of the reason why i shifted this platform to how it's going down like more based on law because i realized it would have been great to have people out there like myself and other youtubers here kind of talking about the legal experience law working in a law firm being a lawyer and just getting a little bit more insight because i did go into it very just uninformed you know looking back i was very uninformed i was very naive and just by the grace of god and my hard work i ended up where i am but i will say it wasn't this plan you know and i would like for anybody watching this who has not yet went through it to be a little bit more informed and to have a plan so that's why i'm here so with that being said let's go ahead and jump into the reasons why i chose to go down the big law path okay so first reason i'm just going to go ahead and get this one out the way let's be honest the money the coins the dinero is a lot better starting out as a first-year associate of law firm you're going to be making more money than most you know people at that age can imagine especially if you went straight through like me um and that was a positive for me because who doesn't want to make you know good money but really because i knew i got myself in the student debt to be a lawyer right and i knew i wanted to be able to pay it off and still live comfortably right and i we can talk about this in another video but you cannot let that nice salary be a trap somewhere that you're not happy but again we can talk about that later but yeah so in big in the big law firms you're probably gonna get probably the top salary uh for your job in the area so it'll it'll differ by market if you're in new york versus if you're in texas or you're in the midwest you know the salary might be a little bit different but you're likely going to be making probably as good of money as you can in that field in the city that you're in so that was a big thing for me um just considering my student loans and my dad and i know the life i want to live in the life i want to have okay so the second reason why i chose big law and i will just say this big law gets a really negative connotation in law school i or at least at my law school it did i like people were really negative about it but the way i look at it is if you start out big law you can go anywhere like it really puts you in a position to open up a lot of opportunities for you whether that means you want to go work at a mid-size or a smaller law firm you can whether you want to go in-house you can like i'm at that point in my legal career where i'm starting to get the in-house calls and the reason they're calling me like i'm not looking their head hunters are calling me is because they see what law firm that i work at and again i'm not saying that if you work at big law you're smarter or the best lawyer i'm just saying how the legal field works that that kind of there's there's sort of an eliteness to working at big law again i'm not saying that that's true because i know plenty of lawyers who do not work big law didn't want to work big law who are geniuses right and some top-notch attorneys i'm just talking about the perception of what big law means to people um when you are looking for jobs and you know in corporations and things like that they know you've had exposure you know to certain things and so they like that so again i didn't go into law school with a concise plan for what i wanted my career to look like and i'm still at that point where i just really don't know you know i could shoot for a partner in several years or i could go in-house i don't know but i do know that with my resume and the places that i worked at it will put me in a good place if i decide to interview somewhere else or go do some other things and i've always known that before i started big law and that's something that i always keep in the back of my mind and like i said i'm not by any means saying that if you're if you do big law that that means you're any better than anyone else i'm just saying on the outside people assume you've been really well trained and you know what you're doing and so they like they'd like to see that experience that's all i'm saying okay so the next reason that i chose big law and this i found out when i actually you know interned i was lucky enough to get a big lost summer associate position my 1l year and then my 2l year i got two at two separate firms i know the legal field is changing a little bit where like firms are less like open to allowing you to split but back in my day we got split summers between firms and so i got to work at um two firms and get exposure to certain work and you guys the type of work that you get exposed to in a large law firm i don't you know i don't have any other experience but it's so just challenging high level like highly substantive good work now i'm not saying that you're busting through the door the first day doing that work but just the exposure just the types of matters that you get to work on so like as a first year in m a right you're probably going to be doing very like menial tasks you know very junior tasks closing checklist due diligence things like that but if you're doing it for a 100 million dollar deal you're getting to see negotiations you're getting to see what the documents look like you getting to see you know the the important substantive points you're getting to just see like very good deals and work being done you guys and that is how you learn learn by exposure and this is one of the things that i know a lot of people criticize about big law especially on the litigation side in law school right they were like oh well you're never gonna go to trial you're just like the third man in charge you're never going to be the one if i go work somewhere else i'll be first cheering and i'll be doing you know whatever i don't know litigation terms so correct me if i'm wrong but i think when it's a first chair like you're the one actually advocating and speaking in the courtroom and that is true but the the matters that you're actually first sharing you know at that smaller place is going to be not as you know big huge matters like you would in a larger law firm so it's a give and take right and it just depends on what your preference is i'm not saying one is better than the other i'm just saying that was one of the things that went into why i chose like i get to be on an 80 million dollar deal and yeah i'm not you know the one negotiating or whatever but the fact that i'm working on it is pretty freaking cool and one day i'm gonna get to a point where i am negotiating these things so um and this is me talking you know back then as a summer associate or a first year like these are the things that were going through my mind all right so the next thing is the resources you guys i don't i haven't worked anywhere else but i've talked to people who are in-house i've talked to people who are at smaller law firms and the resources are unfreaking matched you guys i feel like most lawyers are going to have like an assistant so that's probably pretty common to have an assistant but um just some of the artificial intelligence we have some of the technology we have is amazing you guys and the firm knows what they expect from their attorneys at big wall right so they do whatever they can to try to make your life easier because they know you're working a lot and you're stressed right so for example um if you're not practicing yet this might sound kind of weird or whatever but a lot of times i'll like have to run red lines which seems really easy and a red line is just comparing one version of a document to a new version or another version of a document and it seems really easy but when you're on a deal and you have 40 documents that you need to burn red lines for you're busy you have calls and everything like that like tasks like that can take time and they're easy tasks but they take time you don't need i can just email the support center and they'll run those things for me or if you need somebody to proofread for you or if you need to any kind of like tasks like that you have like all right so the next reason why i chose big law is the types of clients we have right so i think i mentioned this earlier but in big law like your clients are going to most likely be companies right in like big uber companies and that is really cool to me because i already talked about this before but i'm very interested in businesses and how business works i just think knowing about business and having access and exposure to how business works and how businesses are run and how they operate is really cool and i've always liked that i really like the exposure to different types of clients in different types of industries i really just think that it not only rounds out my experience as a lawyer but just as a person as a person who is interested in so many things and um i really really really really do love that so the next thing is kind of piggybacking off on this but i like the fact that in big law you have access to so many different types of law like most law firms whether small mid size or large you're going to have more than one practice group unless you're like just like a solo practitioner or a boutique law firm but in a big law firm you literally have everything ip m a venture capital litigation all the different types of litigation employment law like literally everything you're gonna have access to so which means one you get exposure to especially as a summer associate you will get to try out different practice groups and be able to see like oh i kind of like that right but also when you're practicing and when you're developing your own clients right so there is nothing better than talking to a client and you're dealing with an issue and again i'm a corporate lawyer and then they say something about a litigation matter well yeah i don't have any litigation experience but i can call my girl on the next floor up and hey my client needs this and it's just really cool to be able to work in a full service law firm like that i get exposure to so much and it really just allows you to better service your clients right and like that is the end game right that's the whole point of what we do is to service our clients as good as we can right so so yeah i really do like that and one thing i didn't even think about this but i just thought about this right now but a lot of times in big law firms they will support you working on pro bono like i've done pro bono i've done a couple pro bonos during my career so far that had nothing to do with what i do and my law firm was cool with that and they let me use their resources to support that so that was really cool and i find that i've been at three i've been at three law firms i find that every big law firm that i've worked at is like that and i've talked to other people and they seem to have that same experience so i really do like that as well i didn't even think about that that was just like a little extra nugget that came up um right now when i was talking all right so the last thing is the perks okay you guys the perks are good i can't lie you know you work hard but there's some perks to it y'all i'll tell you i've been to drake concert deal hugely comedy show houston texans game been invited to go to the chiefs game but couldn't make it like i have had opportunities to do things that are fun and it was on the firm i've had the firm pay for nails massages facials and things like that and i'm not gonna lie and say like this is an every week everyday thing but i have had like some cool perks during you know my little four years of practicing and it's really great and those perks those are some of the bigger perks but just like the small everyday things um back when we were all in the office there wasn't a week that went by that there wasn't something going on at the firm that i didn't get a free meal you know like a free lunch and y'all know i'm all about saving the coins but i can i bring my lunch uh or i try to bring my lunch every day when i was back working at the office i'm still working from home right now but yeah like that was pretty cool free coffee breakfast on fridays like things like that and i don't know that might be everywhere but that's one thing that is really cool is just those those extra perks being in a suite i would never pay for a suite for drake like i like drake but i'm not paying for sweet for drake the person the only person i probably pay for sweet boy would be beyonce um and just but just things like that those really cool perks you know happy hours lunches coffees things like that that's something that is really pushed in the big firm big law culture um we work a lot um and so i think that the firm tries to make sure that you are at least having a good time because they know you're working a lot and so i really do like that part about it it was really fun especially back in my junior days y'all i used to like eat that stuff up um and especially when i was a summer associate you guys oh my god like i know this past summer most people were doing their summer associate clerkships virtually y'all if you're still in law school and you're 1l or 2l i pray that you guys get to experience it next summer i can talk about that a little bit more in another video but yeah that summer associate clerkship it's really fun a really good experience and a really good uh the firm does go out of his way to kind of whine and dying you and that is really um fun so like in your day to day once you start working it's not like that's not an everyday thing like it is in the summer associate program but you still do get a lot of cool perks all right so that's pretty much all i have for you guys today one thing that i did want to point out is like i mentioned this a couple times i think but big law has a really negative connotation from a lot of people and i saw this a lot in law school people were like oh you're going to work so much you're not going to have a life blah blah blah blah work-life balance sucks and you guys i i got to keep it 100 i work a lot you know i had plans last night today saturday i had plans last night after work it's about labor day it's about to start i had plans last night to get off at five something came up somebody sent something at 4 45 and i had to work like so i'm not gonna sit here and say like that i just work a nine-to-five job but what i will say is that's a profession you're an attorney you're gonna work hard and you're gonna work a lot i really just think that that is the profession um i have friends in small firms who work weekends just like me who work nights just like me so um don't let people deter you from that i would say at least experience it on your own if you have the opportunity to do a summer associate uh clerkship or some sort of internship with the big law firm if you're thinking about doing big law i would say go ahead and get your own experience before just listening to other people in the horror stories because i'm not gonna lie there are some negative things if you guys want i can do a video about that you know kind of addressing the negative connotations and what's true and what's not because some of that stuff is true i can't front but yeah i can do a video about that or i can talk about the big law process like how to get a job in big law in this video i just kind of want to talk about like my choice and why i went down this path i know that's something that i've mentioned before like what type of law firm environment i work in that's all i have for you guys today i'm about to enjoy the rest of my saturday morning if you like this video go ahead and give it a like if you're not yet subscribed go ahead and hit that subscribe button make sure you click that notification bell so you are notified every time i upload also if you are not yet follow me on instagram at underscore the aspiring boss i post daily on my stories there where you can get sort of a little bit more insight about me my daily life and my work life so i will see you guys in the next video bye [Music]

Channel: The Aspiring Boss

Views: 10,323

Rating: 4.9765167 out of 5

Keywords: big law, how to get a big law job, how to get a job at a law firm, big law salary, what is big law, big law summer associate, lawyer lifestyle, law firm lifestyle, job after law school, working at a big firm, what is it like to work at a big law firm, what is big law like, why should I work in big law, working at a law firm, life after law school, associate in big law, big law associate, law clerkship, law student, law school advidce, summer associate, 1L, 2L

Id: pmQsAnWOvCk

Length: 18min 18sec (1098 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 06 2020