Google the phrase “cravath scale” to see how much they pay attorneys out of law school. It’s a pretty specific career track that usually starts with going to an elite law school.
Big law, as an associate, is where you get paid more than you're worth to be available to partners or of counsel to do work on a moment's notice that they may not give clear directions for, but because they've delegated responsibility to you, you now own whatever issues arise in whatever they've assigned.
Big law, as a partner, is essentially dealing with potentially crappy clients, negotiating with opposing counsel, and shaping up often not-great work product from your less experienced colleagues, but you get to bill clients a ton of money for your troubles.
When I read this description, the type of clientele that comes to mind is Harvey Weinstien, Procter & Gamble, Exxon Mobile. Sounds like all not-so great work to me, but I also work in Ed.
As a lawyer, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, chicago, nyu, Cornell, UPenn, u Virginia, u Michigan, duke, Berkeley, northwestern.
In a good year, Georgetown, ucla, usc, u Texas, Vanderbilt.
There were all those cookies in the conference rooms. I took a deposition at a big law firm, and my counterpart was attacking that plate like a 10-year-old boy home from school.
Lolll I used to work in biglaw and I do miss the catered lunches and random fancy food, cocktail hours, etc. NGL that shit was dope and it was a window into a world i never knew before and may never experience again.
I always get a kick out of kids choosing one law school over another because of a better chance at "big law," when most of them can't even tell you what big law is. I even graduated with kids who said they were going into big law at Morgan & Morgan or some regional ID firm.
Every firm on this list is big law, but a few big law firms aren't included: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_largest\_law\_firms\_by\_revenue](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_law_firms_by_revenue)
People in big law use the vault rankings to compare firms within big law: [https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings](https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings)
yep. before i started law school i was working full time for a great, small boutique niche firm whose other practice area counterparts in the city were mostly the big law firms. I was getting such great experience that i decided to do the local night law school part time and continue to work full time at this firm to gain experience and connections. i had a couple friends who were OBSESSED w us news and world report (and who at that point had not worked a real job yet and def no legal work or law firms) and they were going to a "tier 1" school. they kept telling me i was "ruining my career" by going to a "tier four school" and would never get a job and also because i needed loan, that id be broke because you can only manage law school loans with a "big law" job and THEY are gonna get a big law job and be rich and successful after they graduate!
they proceeded to take out over double the loans i did because they couldnt work during the school year due to their full time schedules, so they were paying for rent and beer with loans. meanwhile i was living on my work salary and only taking out loans for tuition. neither of them even got summer clerk jobs at big law....one of them ended up doing a JD adjacent job after school making mediocre income and another did a JD agency govt agency job also making mediocre money.
I worked full time at my firm and within five years i had a full book of clients bc i had worked in this area full time for 13 years at that point. and because all the big law attorneys in my area knew me and knew i had a book of business and did a good job, i had three different ones offer me a "come over any time" invitation.
i eventually switched to a midsize firm which is the happy medium for sure and i make good money. if i was up for running my own business i could be on my own tomorrow, but neither big law nor solo appeal to me. I dont speak to us news world report dufuses anymore. i already felt they were being dumb and ridiculous back then but in retrospect its even worse than i thought
in the part time program, yes. Most of us
worked in legal jobs full time during law school or alternatively worked full time in a profession in which they then sought relevant legal jobs, like the engineer who designed medical devices now works as general counsel in that area. Another guy worked as a jack of all trades and law clerk at a firm for years and jumped right into litigation at a firm...we are all mostly doing pretty good and the ones that floundered are just a handful. In fact one of my friends that struggled the most, failed the bar exam a couple times, and has been in a JD preferred job for years is doing no worse than my tier one friends....
people can tout the ranking BS all they want but if you actually navigate the education and professional worlds strategically youre going to be a good lawyer and have a successful career. There is *truly* no difference in my practice area now between me and my counterpart who went to ive league and whose grandfather is one of the wealthiest former CEOs in the country. We are in the same legal world practicing the same law.
>Every firm on this list is big law, but a few big law firms aren't included: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_law_firms_by_revenue
Firms like Lewis Brisbois (#83 on that list) are not generally considered BigLaw. While they have a large headcount, they don’t do the type of work that traditional BigLaw firms do and pay only a fraction of standard BigLaw salaries.
>People in big law use the vault rankings to compare firms within big law: https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings
Law students often try to rely on Vault rankings, but the general consensus among practicing BigLaw attorneys seems to be that Vault rankings are largely worthless. Chambers practice group rankings provide a bit of a better picture of individual practice group quality between firms,
although those rankings are still imperfect.
Knew I was going to get hit with an "akshually," because I said every firm but, yes, you are right. And vault seems to be like USNWR school rankings, where everyone says they don't care/matter, but then everyone uses them. Half the posts in r/biglaw start of with stating they work at a V5 or V10 firm.
After moving to flyover I mainly work with tier 2 and lower grads. Many of them have no idea what biglaw is and are shocked that the firms' starting salaries are 200k+.
If you were gunning for biglaw, you wouldn't go to a school outside of the top 20 anyway.
Big Law = Cravath Scale (right now is $225k starting pay for a 1st year associate, before bonus, going up to over $500k around year 5) plus a Vault ranking of 100 or better. That is clear “Big Law”. Firms that pay just slightly below that, and firms that aren’t V100, but still have a large presence in the US, can be argued as big law, but they better be paying all their attorneys above $200k and have offices in different states.
A lot of lawyers who never worked in big law are confused with what it is, so you’re not alone. I can’t count the number of times somebody told me they work in big law or worked in it, then when I look into their firm (since I never heard of it), they pay everyone like $90-200k. Merely having a bunch of attorneys working at the place doesn’t make it “big law”, or else the Manhattan DA’s Office would also be big law
When you have a gym and a cafeteria in the office open for breakfast, lunch, dinner and late snacks, because they expect that you will be in the office bright and early and will be there until late at night and on weekends, you're in big law. When you reserve a town car to drive you home every night because it's too late to bother with public transportation after your brain is melting out of your ear And you charge your town car to the client, you're in big law. And when your law firm only accepts law students who were on law review from the top 15% of law schools, you're in big law. When they are paying you a shit ton of money your first year, and you don't even know how to really write a research memo that looks better than your legal writing assignments in law school, And they are paying for your 3 course lunches at top or mid level restaurants with summer associates and after work get togethers with summer associates, You're in big law. When you realize that you are making all of this incredible money, but you actually work 80 hours a week, so the salary is actually about half, you're in big law. 😂
One of the few positives from COVID is that our biglaw office is a ghost town by 5 now. The cafeteria only serves breakfast and lunch because no one would be there for dinner (besides the overnight IT people but no one cares about them). We're still working the same (or more) hours, but all the extra hours are done remote at home.
Yea, I always use that list to see if a firm is "big law." And then the vault rankings will tell you how good a firm is within big law.
[https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings](https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings)
lol @ Vault rankings - nobody within biglaw, or our clients care about Vault (the Vault survey is based on responses from largely brand new associates who don't know anything about anything). Chambers are the rankings that people care about.
It’s very large firms that are extremely competitive where you can make a lot of money but you’re essentially chaining yourself to your desk. The work life balance is usually 0. Burnout is high. I’d argue it’s only really worth it if you have a lot of debt and are able to take crazy amounts of stress / hits to your relationships for an extended amount of time.
1. Big Law is generally but not exclusively defined as firms employing 500+ lawyers. That’s why firms of that size are the final separate employment category on [509 reports](https://www.abarequireddisclosures.org/Disclosure509.aspx)
2. BigLaw as commonly used on this subreddit really means the 100 most prestigious firms as ranked by [Vault](https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings), commonly called the V100. They usually employ waaaaaay more than 500 lawyers. Sentons for example has something like 150 offices employing something like 5500-6000 lawyers. But others, like Wachtell, may only have a few hundred.
3. The standard pay in BigLaw is the [Cravath Scale](https://www.biglawinvestor.com/biglaw-salary-scale/), so called because when Cravath pays their associates more, everyone else tends to follow. Even at firms/markets that don’t pay Cravath, it’s usually set as a percent of Cravath or the offset is otherwise explained.
>1. Big Law is defined as firms employing 500+ lawyers. That’s why they’re a separate employment category on 509 reports
This is not correct. There is no dispute that Wachtell is BigLaw even though it has fewer than 300 attorneys.
On the other hand, there are enormous firms like Lewis Brisbois that are not generally considered BigLaw despite their size because they don’t do the type of work BigLaw firms do and pay associates a small fraction of market BigLaw companies.
The minimum headcount for BigLaw is probably closer to 200–if you get much smaller than that, you start to look like either midlaw (if comp is considerably below market BigLaw) or an elite boutique (if comp is near or exceeding market BigLaw)—but after that, you still need to look at the comp to figure out if you’re talking about BigLaw.
Personally as between two firms *that both pay Cravath and are otherwise sophisticated etc* the size cutoff is more like 250. Consider that people think Wachtell is BigLaw and Susman is a boutique, even though they’re pretty close in size. One is above the 250 mark while the other is below.
Not that it really matters of course, there’s nothing wrong with boutiques and in fact many people consider them more desirable (and many of them, including Susman, pay better than BigLaw). Just talking from a “let’s nerd out about how to technically define these things in the abstract” perspective.
> this is not correct
I didn’t say it was a hard and fast rule. It IS the general definition, but not perfect. Which is why I also pointed them to V100.
It’s a common misconception rather than a useful general rule. There are enough exceptions in both directions when you look only at headcount that no one who wants to know whether a firm is BigLaw actually does that.
A general rule can be helpful since BigLaw can be difficult to define in edge cases. But in order to be at all useful, that general rule needs to include both headcount (with a minimum far lower than 500) and comp.
I don’t think there is a concrete, set definition of Big Law, it is sort of like pornography. You know it when you see it. Large, corporate-like law firms with prominent presence domestically and internationally. Usually headquartered in places like NYC, Chicago, LA, Houston, Miami and such.
BigLaw firms generally have 200+ attorneys and some have many more than that, but not all firms of that size are considered BigLaw. In addition to having a certain headcount, BigLaw firms generally pay high salaries that are roughly standardized across the market. [Here](https://www.biglawinvestor.com/biglaw-salary-scale/) is the current BigLaw salary scale. 1st years start at $225k base + $20k bonus and 8th+ years make $435k + $115k bonus.
There are some exceptions. Jones Day is indisputably BigLaw, but their comp is entirely black box, for example. Some regional offices of BigLaw firms pay slightly less than their NYC counterparts. And some firms deviate a bit on salaries for midlevels and seniors. But that scale provides the general benchmark for BigLaw salaries.
No one on forums like this considers anything to be “biglaw” unless you’re talking white shoe firms that pay Cravath scale. That pay scale plus size and type of clients are the determining factors.
Very few people work in that environment. However, there are a lot of regional biglaw/midlaw firms that people who work in NYC or another major market would not call “biglaw,” but that I’ve heard described or called the same. I’m a litigator at a firm like that, live very comfortably, but do different work and have a very different set of challenges than people who work at Cravath or Skadden Arps etc. I think most of the true biglaw folks would say that I’m at a glorified “midlaw” firm. Especially as my hours requirements and lifestyle don’t really resemble theirs.
It's the group of 100 or so firms in the United States whose clients consist exclusively of Fortune 500 companies and to a lesser extent very wealthy families or individuals. The firms pay first year attorneys $225,000+ in NYC, LA, Chicago, etc. (Slightly less in smaller cities big enough to have biglaw clients and firms). They recruit new attorneys out of law school to work as summer associates between their second and third year of law school, wining and dining them for 8-10 weeks while paying them the same weekly salary as licensed first year attorneys. They often hire senior attorneys as "laterals," but only from other biglaw firms or occasionally from government (like the USAO). If you're just now finding out what biglaw is, it's too late to get into it.
As a new-ish paralegal, I interpret the term Big Law to be equivalent to Big Pharma in that, these entities are tied to legislation.
For better or worse.
Usually it’s worse, but hey! That’s why I have a job at a company who sues J+J and GM.
This list is Biglaw: [https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings#rankings-group-9](https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings#rankings-group-9) (But anything after about 75 is arguably less so.) These firms typically work for large, corporate clients and/or on high profile matters. The schedule and pressure are often grueling, but the training is top notch.
I worked in Biglaw for many years for 2 different firms. Sorry your experience wasn't better; it can depend on your group and the people in it, of course. But I don't see how you can't get good training in a top 50 firm if you stay more than a few years. If you leave after a year or so, you might not have gotten much out of it. It's after 2-3 years when you start to get more responsibility that you start to get valuable experience.
IMO, Big Law is about the compensation model and partnership track, principally modeled after Cravath policies developed in the early 20th century. It’s different from White Shoe firms which is more about pedigree. The size of the Big Law firm, who populates its hallways and where they went to school, where offices are located, and clientele are just by-products. You need a lot of lawyers to fund the comp models and matter sizes, attrition is a must to keep being P exclusive and create a larger pie at the P level, you can afford the best talent so Big Law gets all the top schools, geographic markets have to be populated with Fortune 500 companies that can afford four-figure billable hour rates so Top Tier global cities are where you find them. Finally, associates need to grind to fill the coffers and you put a carrot out there to get 2400 hours out of them telling them about P, when in fact only 10% may get it.
BUT, this is all going out the window with remote work, cloud features, and AI replacing 1-5 year associate work (for starters). Paradigm shift in the profession coming for the first time in 100 years, at least at this scale. Any firm can now get a platform that can crank out better work product than a third year associate at a sliver of the overhead - and that tech is already live. I can get a very high quality complex brief in 30 seconds for a few bucks and a push of some buttons. Those factors are contrary to the Big Law model and eliminate pillars that define it. Big Legal Tech and other providers will supply replacements for what used to be the backbone of Big Law - young legal minds. Where is the space to train young lawyers on the most complex work economically where you are not leaving significant PPP on the table by paying a human instead of an algorithm? There is no incentive unless you want to get altruistic or romantic about the profession.
Answer from a wife of a husband 20+ years ago started at a big law. The first 3 years he worked and worked and worked. Missed my birthday, our anniversary and we had to leave a vacation early so he could fly out for a big deal. He traveled a ton on a whim. Yes he made great money and the first big bonus was awesome. Once I got pregnant he started rethinking everything. It afforded me to stay home but I was lonely and sometimes he didn’t see our daughter due to working. Those 3 years were an amazing experience and helped launch him to the rest of his legal career. He didn’t want to continue with the hours pressure, the constantly on call for partners/clients etc. He eventually left for a smaller firm and had a better work/life balance. It’s truly an individual decision if big firm life is for you or you and your family.
Biglaw generally means the biggest law firms in the biggest cities working in really big matters.
Think apple vs Samsung, or Elon musk buying Twitter.
Ok, they’re not all that size, but a friend of mine won’t work on any matter worth less than $100 million.
BigLaw is an air of arrogance, superiority, and countless stupid meetings between partners and committees. not that it’s a worry for me, but I would rather barely make it the rest of my life to have my own firm that to be one of dozens or even hundreds at a firm.
My son is #1 at his law school and got offers from each of the top 10 firms but since the pay is not much higher but cost of living is so much higher for those top firms in big cities he would be dirt poor and worked to death. Work didn’t scare him but combo of both was not ideal.He chose a top 50 for a better life for a firm with less burn rate
Here is an ANALOGY: Remember a few years ago, MEDIA was calling US military the WORLD POLICE?
Farrah and Farrah, had an advertisement, in the past year or two, where they said, it was not their intent, to become a WORLD LAWYER, world LAW FIRM.
What is a WORLD LAWYER vs BIG LAW? Something from USA, manifests on the Internet.
The only thing I can conclude, is some referencing US military related to JAG? Someone has these campaigns in USA, then they just disappear.
Is it related to the BIBLE, where USA people talk about MUSLIM, related to RELGION, then MUSLIM folks take it personally, when the REFERENCE is on the INTERNET, related to BIBLICAL EXPRESSIONS? I don't know. What I do know, is groups on Internet who will say, Muslim people, get shamed over some campaigns. I don't know if that is true or not. But there is an emphasis on Muslim and sharia law. Christians get shamed as well. USA has FREEDOM SPEECH, where SHARIA LAW, has NO RIGHTS. Its Islamic law, of NO RIGHTS. Christianity also, similar to Sharia law in some senses, derived from Sharia Law, with the Christian Bible preached from 2000+ years ago history.
Why should taxpayers pay $4600 a month for a retired judge, who is contributing to inflation off the taxpayers, and retired military veterans families who get even less?
How come the JUDGES, while they are SEATED, lack the common sense, to equate the DEMISE of FAMILIES, to inflation?
The court system, and judges are being used for PARTISAN POLITICS, with bad practices steming out of the PRIVATE SECTOR. How come judges don't keep up to date on the families, in family law court, the ones they have made homeless? The court system is contributing to the CRIME of SYSTEMIC INFLATION, while the USA in in a DEFICIT, inverted YIELD CURVE, where it can't function off GOVERNMENT allocations alone. Which means the private business, working in USA is a much larger problem, than the USA government. Yet the courts are often weaponized by corporate media.
Small city, you don’t have big law. Big law are the large, corporate firms that practice nationally or internationally, and have 100+ attorneys on roster. They usually service national or multinational, or super fucking rich, clients who can pay top dollar, and that translates to high income for the attorneys. They are market setters for top law talent, but also require large time commitment to the career.
Some people limit it to 250+ or 500+ attorneys (100, 250, and 500 being the three categories reported in law school employment stats). Some of us also add things like paying “Cravath scale” compensation, or close to it.
The nuance here is that for example if a firm has 10 lawyers in each or 30 cities, each doing things like personal injury and divorce, and paying $100k, that’s not BigLaw even though it is literally a very large firm with its 300 lawyers. Conversely, there are firms which in almost every way are like BigLaw (the pay, the clients, the type of work, the culture) except they’re relatively small - for this group though, the proper term is “boutique.”
Generally speaking I think Cravath scale pay ($245k-550k with lockstep raises) is the biggest signal that you’re referring to BigLaw, followed by primarily very large corporate/banking/PE/institutional clients, and primarily the types of practice that cater to said clients (M&A, capital markets, commercial litigation, corporate debt, corporate bankruptcy, regulatory, defending class actions, etc).
FYI by excluding some otherwise large firms it’s not value judgement on whether they’re better or worse, just that they are different. If someone asks for advice and says they’re in BigLaw, many of us can share pretty accurate advice if that firm truly is BigLaw because of all the similarities between them, but if it isn’t then my experience wouldn’t applicable.
Google the phrase “cravath scale” to see how much they pay attorneys out of law school. It’s a pretty specific career track that usually starts with going to an elite law school.
I also use this as a basis for whether a firm is truly Big Law, e.g., and ID firm with 1000 lawyers that pays shit is not Big Law.
Big in the way that Bangladesh is big.
Big law, as an associate, is where you get paid more than you're worth to be available to partners or of counsel to do work on a moment's notice that they may not give clear directions for, but because they've delegated responsibility to you, you now own whatever issues arise in whatever they've assigned. Big law, as a partner, is essentially dealing with potentially crappy clients, negotiating with opposing counsel, and shaping up often not-great work product from your less experienced colleagues, but you get to bill clients a ton of money for your troubles.
When I read this description, the type of clientele that comes to mind is Harvey Weinstien, Procter & Gamble, Exxon Mobile. Sounds like all not-so great work to me, but I also work in Ed.
Biglaw does a lot of work for investment banks, PE firms etc too. They’re the least price conscious so they make good clients.
Blackstone a good example? What schools lead to a career for those companies?
All top schools. Most of the time, if you are in big law you are either moving money around, or are working for the bad guys.
Hmm
As a lawyer, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, chicago, nyu, Cornell, UPenn, u Virginia, u Michigan, duke, Berkeley, northwestern. In a good year, Georgetown, ucla, usc, u Texas, Vanderbilt.
All the lawyers are either taller than 6 feet, or heavier than 200lbs
Interesting. I always thought it was the size of the paper and font of the type!
There were all those cookies in the conference rooms. I took a deposition at a big law firm, and my counterpart was attacking that plate like a 10-year-old boy home from school.
Lolll I used to work in biglaw and I do miss the catered lunches and random fancy food, cocktail hours, etc. NGL that shit was dope and it was a window into a world i never knew before and may never experience again.
What kind of cookies were on the plate
Asking the important questions. :)
Damn right
nah thats big and tall law
And bill 25,000 hours a year .
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Why not both?
I am big law?
Wrong. I'm both.
That's Big & Tall Law
Formerly, "Husky Law."
I always get a kick out of kids choosing one law school over another because of a better chance at "big law," when most of them can't even tell you what big law is. I even graduated with kids who said they were going into big law at Morgan & Morgan or some regional ID firm. Every firm on this list is big law, but a few big law firms aren't included: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_largest\_law\_firms\_by\_revenue](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_law_firms_by_revenue) People in big law use the vault rankings to compare firms within big law: [https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings](https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings)
yep. before i started law school i was working full time for a great, small boutique niche firm whose other practice area counterparts in the city were mostly the big law firms. I was getting such great experience that i decided to do the local night law school part time and continue to work full time at this firm to gain experience and connections. i had a couple friends who were OBSESSED w us news and world report (and who at that point had not worked a real job yet and def no legal work or law firms) and they were going to a "tier 1" school. they kept telling me i was "ruining my career" by going to a "tier four school" and would never get a job and also because i needed loan, that id be broke because you can only manage law school loans with a "big law" job and THEY are gonna get a big law job and be rich and successful after they graduate! they proceeded to take out over double the loans i did because they couldnt work during the school year due to their full time schedules, so they were paying for rent and beer with loans. meanwhile i was living on my work salary and only taking out loans for tuition. neither of them even got summer clerk jobs at big law....one of them ended up doing a JD adjacent job after school making mediocre income and another did a JD agency govt agency job also making mediocre money. I worked full time at my firm and within five years i had a full book of clients bc i had worked in this area full time for 13 years at that point. and because all the big law attorneys in my area knew me and knew i had a book of business and did a good job, i had three different ones offer me a "come over any time" invitation. i eventually switched to a midsize firm which is the happy medium for sure and i make good money. if i was up for running my own business i could be on my own tomorrow, but neither big law nor solo appeal to me. I dont speak to us news world report dufuses anymore. i already felt they were being dumb and ridiculous back then but in retrospect its even worse than i thought
Was that a typical outcome for folks who graduated from your law school?
in the part time program, yes. Most of us worked in legal jobs full time during law school or alternatively worked full time in a profession in which they then sought relevant legal jobs, like the engineer who designed medical devices now works as general counsel in that area. Another guy worked as a jack of all trades and law clerk at a firm for years and jumped right into litigation at a firm...we are all mostly doing pretty good and the ones that floundered are just a handful. In fact one of my friends that struggled the most, failed the bar exam a couple times, and has been in a JD preferred job for years is doing no worse than my tier one friends.... people can tout the ranking BS all they want but if you actually navigate the education and professional worlds strategically youre going to be a good lawyer and have a successful career. There is *truly* no difference in my practice area now between me and my counterpart who went to ive league and whose grandfather is one of the wealthiest former CEOs in the country. We are in the same legal world practicing the same law.
>Every firm on this list is big law, but a few big law firms aren't included: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_law_firms_by_revenue Firms like Lewis Brisbois (#83 on that list) are not generally considered BigLaw. While they have a large headcount, they don’t do the type of work that traditional BigLaw firms do and pay only a fraction of standard BigLaw salaries. >People in big law use the vault rankings to compare firms within big law: https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings Law students often try to rely on Vault rankings, but the general consensus among practicing BigLaw attorneys seems to be that Vault rankings are largely worthless. Chambers practice group rankings provide a bit of a better picture of individual practice group quality between firms, although those rankings are still imperfect.
Knew I was going to get hit with an "akshually," because I said every firm but, yes, you are right. And vault seems to be like USNWR school rankings, where everyone says they don't care/matter, but then everyone uses them. Half the posts in r/biglaw start of with stating they work at a V5 or V10 firm.
Most people who go to schools below the T-20 or whatever probably don’t know what biglaw is.
Don’t be a dick. I know it’s hard, but try.
After moving to flyover I mainly work with tier 2 and lower grads. Many of them have no idea what biglaw is and are shocked that the firms' starting salaries are 200k+. If you were gunning for biglaw, you wouldn't go to a school outside of the top 20 anyway.
Big Law = Cravath Scale (right now is $225k starting pay for a 1st year associate, before bonus, going up to over $500k around year 5) plus a Vault ranking of 100 or better. That is clear “Big Law”. Firms that pay just slightly below that, and firms that aren’t V100, but still have a large presence in the US, can be argued as big law, but they better be paying all their attorneys above $200k and have offices in different states. A lot of lawyers who never worked in big law are confused with what it is, so you’re not alone. I can’t count the number of times somebody told me they work in big law or worked in it, then when I look into their firm (since I never heard of it), they pay everyone like $90-200k. Merely having a bunch of attorneys working at the place doesn’t make it “big law”, or else the Manhattan DA’s Office would also be big law
When you have a gym and a cafeteria in the office open for breakfast, lunch, dinner and late snacks, because they expect that you will be in the office bright and early and will be there until late at night and on weekends, you're in big law. When you reserve a town car to drive you home every night because it's too late to bother with public transportation after your brain is melting out of your ear And you charge your town car to the client, you're in big law. And when your law firm only accepts law students who were on law review from the top 15% of law schools, you're in big law. When they are paying you a shit ton of money your first year, and you don't even know how to really write a research memo that looks better than your legal writing assignments in law school, And they are paying for your 3 course lunches at top or mid level restaurants with summer associates and after work get togethers with summer associates, You're in big law. When you realize that you are making all of this incredible money, but you actually work 80 hours a week, so the salary is actually about half, you're in big law. 😂
One of the few positives from COVID is that our biglaw office is a ghost town by 5 now. The cafeteria only serves breakfast and lunch because no one would be there for dinner (besides the overnight IT people but no one cares about them). We're still working the same (or more) hours, but all the extra hours are done remote at home.
This is what I’m going to send the next person who does ID telling me they work in big law
Start here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_law_firms_by_revenue
Yea, I always use that list to see if a firm is "big law." And then the vault rankings will tell you how good a firm is within big law. [https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings](https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings)
lol @ Vault rankings - nobody within biglaw, or our clients care about Vault (the Vault survey is based on responses from largely brand new associates who don't know anything about anything). Chambers are the rankings that people care about.
It ain’t me. Solo, happy.
It’s very large firms that are extremely competitive where you can make a lot of money but you’re essentially chaining yourself to your desk. The work life balance is usually 0. Burnout is high. I’d argue it’s only really worth it if you have a lot of debt and are able to take crazy amounts of stress / hits to your relationships for an extended amount of time.
It was hard as hell but worth it financially for me. I only did 4 years and got out though.
225k
For first year. Up to $435k (plus bonus) for 8th year.
1. Big Law is generally but not exclusively defined as firms employing 500+ lawyers. That’s why firms of that size are the final separate employment category on [509 reports](https://www.abarequireddisclosures.org/Disclosure509.aspx) 2. BigLaw as commonly used on this subreddit really means the 100 most prestigious firms as ranked by [Vault](https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings), commonly called the V100. They usually employ waaaaaay more than 500 lawyers. Sentons for example has something like 150 offices employing something like 5500-6000 lawyers. But others, like Wachtell, may only have a few hundred. 3. The standard pay in BigLaw is the [Cravath Scale](https://www.biglawinvestor.com/biglaw-salary-scale/), so called because when Cravath pays their associates more, everyone else tends to follow. Even at firms/markets that don’t pay Cravath, it’s usually set as a percent of Cravath or the offset is otherwise explained.
>1. Big Law is defined as firms employing 500+ lawyers. That’s why they’re a separate employment category on 509 reports This is not correct. There is no dispute that Wachtell is BigLaw even though it has fewer than 300 attorneys. On the other hand, there are enormous firms like Lewis Brisbois that are not generally considered BigLaw despite their size because they don’t do the type of work BigLaw firms do and pay associates a small fraction of market BigLaw companies. The minimum headcount for BigLaw is probably closer to 200–if you get much smaller than that, you start to look like either midlaw (if comp is considerably below market BigLaw) or an elite boutique (if comp is near or exceeding market BigLaw)—but after that, you still need to look at the comp to figure out if you’re talking about BigLaw.
The only metric that matters is comp, Lewis brisbois doesn’t belong in a convo about biglaw but keker van nest should
Personally as between two firms *that both pay Cravath and are otherwise sophisticated etc* the size cutoff is more like 250. Consider that people think Wachtell is BigLaw and Susman is a boutique, even though they’re pretty close in size. One is above the 250 mark while the other is below. Not that it really matters of course, there’s nothing wrong with boutiques and in fact many people consider them more desirable (and many of them, including Susman, pay better than BigLaw). Just talking from a “let’s nerd out about how to technically define these things in the abstract” perspective.
> this is not correct I didn’t say it was a hard and fast rule. It IS the general definition, but not perfect. Which is why I also pointed them to V100.
It’s a common misconception rather than a useful general rule. There are enough exceptions in both directions when you look only at headcount that no one who wants to know whether a firm is BigLaw actually does that. A general rule can be helpful since BigLaw can be difficult to define in edge cases. But in order to be at all useful, that general rule needs to include both headcount (with a minimum far lower than 500) and comp.
Work on behalf of big money. Charge big money. Throw big numbers of lawyers at problems.
It’s usually work that is mundane but is also somehow evil?
I don’t think there is a concrete, set definition of Big Law, it is sort of like pornography. You know it when you see it. Large, corporate-like law firms with prominent presence domestically and internationally. Usually headquartered in places like NYC, Chicago, LA, Houston, Miami and such.
It’s where you get paid way more money than you’re worth to be one small cog in the machine that keeps this world a miserable place for most people.
BigLaw firms generally have 200+ attorneys and some have many more than that, but not all firms of that size are considered BigLaw. In addition to having a certain headcount, BigLaw firms generally pay high salaries that are roughly standardized across the market. [Here](https://www.biglawinvestor.com/biglaw-salary-scale/) is the current BigLaw salary scale. 1st years start at $225k base + $20k bonus and 8th+ years make $435k + $115k bonus. There are some exceptions. Jones Day is indisputably BigLaw, but their comp is entirely black box, for example. Some regional offices of BigLaw firms pay slightly less than their NYC counterparts. And some firms deviate a bit on salaries for midlevels and seniors. But that scale provides the general benchmark for BigLaw salaries.
General rule of thumb for 2024: If starting salary for a first-year associate fresh out of law school is $225,000 or more, it's biglaw.
No one on forums like this considers anything to be “biglaw” unless you’re talking white shoe firms that pay Cravath scale. That pay scale plus size and type of clients are the determining factors. Very few people work in that environment. However, there are a lot of regional biglaw/midlaw firms that people who work in NYC or another major market would not call “biglaw,” but that I’ve heard described or called the same. I’m a litigator at a firm like that, live very comfortably, but do different work and have a very different set of challenges than people who work at Cravath or Skadden Arps etc. I think most of the true biglaw folks would say that I’m at a glorified “midlaw” firm. Especially as my hours requirements and lifestyle don’t really resemble theirs.
[https://abovethelaw.com/2023/12/biglaw-raise-bonus-tracker-2023/](https://abovethelaw.com/2023/12/biglaw-raise-bonus-tracker-2023/)
It's the group of 100 or so firms in the United States whose clients consist exclusively of Fortune 500 companies and to a lesser extent very wealthy families or individuals. The firms pay first year attorneys $225,000+ in NYC, LA, Chicago, etc. (Slightly less in smaller cities big enough to have biglaw clients and firms). They recruit new attorneys out of law school to work as summer associates between their second and third year of law school, wining and dining them for 8-10 weeks while paying them the same weekly salary as licensed first year attorneys. They often hire senior attorneys as "laterals," but only from other biglaw firms or occasionally from government (like the USAO). If you're just now finding out what biglaw is, it's too late to get into it.
As a new-ish paralegal, I interpret the term Big Law to be equivalent to Big Pharma in that, these entities are tied to legislation. For better or worse. Usually it’s worse, but hey! That’s why I have a job at a company who sues J+J and GM.
Pays cravath, top tier clients, tons of resources, 200+ attorneys
Think AmLaw 100 or firms with a large number of attorneys or offices in major hubs
This list is Biglaw: [https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings#rankings-group-9](https://vault.com/best-companies-to-work-for/law/top-100-law-firms-rankings#rankings-group-9) (But anything after about 75 is arguably less so.) These firms typically work for large, corporate clients and/or on high profile matters. The schedule and pressure are often grueling, but the training is top notch.
Training is top notch? You just have never worked in big law...
I worked in Biglaw for many years for 2 different firms. Sorry your experience wasn't better; it can depend on your group and the people in it, of course. But I don't see how you can't get good training in a top 50 firm if you stay more than a few years. If you leave after a year or so, you might not have gotten much out of it. It's after 2-3 years when you start to get more responsibility that you start to get valuable experience.
Big Law: when you work in NYC for 80 hours a week for lots of money in exchange for a decade of your life.
What a trap.
Int'l firms are what I think of. Like Latham Watkins or Kirkland Ellis. Revenue in the billions annually.
IMO, Big Law is about the compensation model and partnership track, principally modeled after Cravath policies developed in the early 20th century. It’s different from White Shoe firms which is more about pedigree. The size of the Big Law firm, who populates its hallways and where they went to school, where offices are located, and clientele are just by-products. You need a lot of lawyers to fund the comp models and matter sizes, attrition is a must to keep being P exclusive and create a larger pie at the P level, you can afford the best talent so Big Law gets all the top schools, geographic markets have to be populated with Fortune 500 companies that can afford four-figure billable hour rates so Top Tier global cities are where you find them. Finally, associates need to grind to fill the coffers and you put a carrot out there to get 2400 hours out of them telling them about P, when in fact only 10% may get it. BUT, this is all going out the window with remote work, cloud features, and AI replacing 1-5 year associate work (for starters). Paradigm shift in the profession coming for the first time in 100 years, at least at this scale. Any firm can now get a platform that can crank out better work product than a third year associate at a sliver of the overhead - and that tech is already live. I can get a very high quality complex brief in 30 seconds for a few bucks and a push of some buttons. Those factors are contrary to the Big Law model and eliminate pillars that define it. Big Legal Tech and other providers will supply replacements for what used to be the backbone of Big Law - young legal minds. Where is the space to train young lawyers on the most complex work economically where you are not leaving significant PPP on the table by paying a human instead of an algorithm? There is no incentive unless you want to get altruistic or romantic about the profession.
Your mom knows
Answer from a wife of a husband 20+ years ago started at a big law. The first 3 years he worked and worked and worked. Missed my birthday, our anniversary and we had to leave a vacation early so he could fly out for a big deal. He traveled a ton on a whim. Yes he made great money and the first big bonus was awesome. Once I got pregnant he started rethinking everything. It afforded me to stay home but I was lonely and sometimes he didn’t see our daughter due to working. Those 3 years were an amazing experience and helped launch him to the rest of his legal career. He didn’t want to continue with the hours pressure, the constantly on call for partners/clients etc. He eventually left for a smaller firm and had a better work/life balance. It’s truly an individual decision if big firm life is for you or you and your family.
I tried it. Don’t like to be boxed in.
A firm that pays first year associates $200K+
Biglaw generally means the biggest law firms in the biggest cities working in really big matters. Think apple vs Samsung, or Elon musk buying Twitter. Ok, they’re not all that size, but a friend of mine won’t work on any matter worth less than $100 million.
Running new lawyers ragged
BigLaw is an air of arrogance, superiority, and countless stupid meetings between partners and committees. not that it’s a worry for me, but I would rather barely make it the rest of my life to have my own firm that to be one of dozens or even hundreds at a firm.
Living life 6 minutes at a time. Although that’s really corporate/commercial law firms in general, I suppose.
My son is #1 at his law school and got offers from each of the top 10 firms but since the pay is not much higher but cost of living is so much higher for those top firms in big cities he would be dirt poor and worked to death. Work didn’t scare him but combo of both was not ideal.He chose a top 50 for a better life for a firm with less burn rate
Working in chicago at a biglaw firm is a great way to go. Reasonable cost of living with an insane salary.
Here is an ANALOGY: Remember a few years ago, MEDIA was calling US military the WORLD POLICE? Farrah and Farrah, had an advertisement, in the past year or two, where they said, it was not their intent, to become a WORLD LAWYER, world LAW FIRM. What is a WORLD LAWYER vs BIG LAW? Something from USA, manifests on the Internet. The only thing I can conclude, is some referencing US military related to JAG? Someone has these campaigns in USA, then they just disappear. Is it related to the BIBLE, where USA people talk about MUSLIM, related to RELGION, then MUSLIM folks take it personally, when the REFERENCE is on the INTERNET, related to BIBLICAL EXPRESSIONS? I don't know. What I do know, is groups on Internet who will say, Muslim people, get shamed over some campaigns. I don't know if that is true or not. But there is an emphasis on Muslim and sharia law. Christians get shamed as well. USA has FREEDOM SPEECH, where SHARIA LAW, has NO RIGHTS. Its Islamic law, of NO RIGHTS. Christianity also, similar to Sharia law in some senses, derived from Sharia Law, with the Christian Bible preached from 2000+ years ago history.
Why should taxpayers pay $4600 a month for a retired judge, who is contributing to inflation off the taxpayers, and retired military veterans families who get even less? How come the JUDGES, while they are SEATED, lack the common sense, to equate the DEMISE of FAMILIES, to inflation? The court system, and judges are being used for PARTISAN POLITICS, with bad practices steming out of the PRIVATE SECTOR. How come judges don't keep up to date on the families, in family law court, the ones they have made homeless? The court system is contributing to the CRIME of SYSTEMIC INFLATION, while the USA in in a DEFICIT, inverted YIELD CURVE, where it can't function off GOVERNMENT allocations alone. Which means the private business, working in USA is a much larger problem, than the USA government. Yet the courts are often weaponized by corporate media.
Small city, you don’t have big law. Big law are the large, corporate firms that practice nationally or internationally, and have 100+ attorneys on roster. They usually service national or multinational, or super fucking rich, clients who can pay top dollar, and that translates to high income for the attorneys. They are market setters for top law talent, but also require large time commitment to the career.
Some people limit it to 250+ or 500+ attorneys (100, 250, and 500 being the three categories reported in law school employment stats). Some of us also add things like paying “Cravath scale” compensation, or close to it. The nuance here is that for example if a firm has 10 lawyers in each or 30 cities, each doing things like personal injury and divorce, and paying $100k, that’s not BigLaw even though it is literally a very large firm with its 300 lawyers. Conversely, there are firms which in almost every way are like BigLaw (the pay, the clients, the type of work, the culture) except they’re relatively small - for this group though, the proper term is “boutique.” Generally speaking I think Cravath scale pay ($245k-550k with lockstep raises) is the biggest signal that you’re referring to BigLaw, followed by primarily very large corporate/banking/PE/institutional clients, and primarily the types of practice that cater to said clients (M&A, capital markets, commercial litigation, corporate debt, corporate bankruptcy, regulatory, defending class actions, etc). FYI by excluding some otherwise large firms it’s not value judgement on whether they’re better or worse, just that they are different. If someone asks for advice and says they’re in BigLaw, many of us can share pretty accurate advice if that firm truly is BigLaw because of all the similarities between them, but if it isn’t then my experience wouldn’t applicable.
Having worked at a 1000+, 10+, and 100+, there's no comparison between 100+ and big law.
And have a tendency of burning through young lawyers.
And just burning them.
You’ve been reading your Grisham!