What does your daily work schedule look like?

[capitalttruth]

Hi there,

I was wondering what everyone's daily schedule looks like? What industry/sector are you in (private practice, sole practitioner, government, in house etc.) and what is your position (Articling Student, Associate, Senior Counsel, Partner etc.)? 

Has the pandemic changed what this daily schedule looks like? 

Edited February 1, 2022 by capitalttruth

[Judgelight]

You might want to ask in the more law specific sections, if you are looking for a specific answer. I'm a junior crown. Our schedules/days will vary depending on office and jurisdiction. 

At my previous office, I'd start work at 7. Prep for court/organize docket/organize files/contact other lawyers/etc. Start court at 9 and work till the court break. Work through the break. Resume court, work till the lunch break. Work through the lunch break. Resume court and work till 4:00 - ~5:00 (court closure). Then spend 1 - 2 hours preparing for tomorrow, or drafting written materials, answering emails, whatever needed to be done. Could I do more? Absolutely, but honestly I'm generally burnt out at this point and if shit gets missed, well... 

In my current role, my schedule is lighter (I am able to take my lunch break usually).

I do an additional 10 hours worth of extra work a week, on average, due to the pandemic. I'm required to multi-task while in court (work on out of court stuff, emails, etc while in court). That never happened pre-covid. I'm required to act as duty counsel (calling lawyers who forget to call in, conveying messages for the def bar, DBW, helping accused people with paperwork, calling accused people to give them NCDs, bail variations, etc). I'm required to do a lot of stuff that the court staff should be doing (reviewing court docs for errors, sending court docs to lawyers and self-reps, scheduling stuff, paperwork related stuff). I do a lot of stuff for other justice system members that I don't believe I should have to, but do anyways because its quicker for me to do it often (phone vics to get certain info, give vics certain docs, etc).

Crowns have had to pick-up a lock of slack during the pandemic. Quite honestly I'm ready to return to the old way of doing things.

OR maybe its just me and I'm a big whiner lol. If someone else from the criminal law world wants to chime in and tell me I'm crazy, I'm happy to get a reality check.

 

EDIT: Should mention, obviously when I am scheduled for a trial (once a week generally) I'm working a lot more.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Judgelight

[Healthygarden]

On 2/1/2022 at 7:50 PM, Judgelight said:

OR maybe its just me and I'm a big whiner lol.

You really don't sound like a big whiner, those extra admin and court responsibilities take a lot more time than people realize. Hope you get a break soon.

[OntheVerge]

I'm a solicitor in a small firm. My day is generally:

1. Arrive at office between 8/8:30 and check emails, voicemail, and the fax. 

2. Check the calendar for the day's client meetings and make sure the files have been reviewed or are on the agenda to be reviewed later.

3. Handle any issues that have arisen from the communications in point 1. Hope that it's things that can be handled in one phone call, not 10, plus emails.

4. Review files for upcoming meetings. Make necessary amendments. 

5. Draft documents for meetings later in the week/next week, if possible.

6. Talk to clients about their files.

7. Meetings, meetings, meetings. More meetings.

8. Field phone calls from clients or potential clients about their upcoming meetings, while going through points 1-7.

Lunch.

9. Repeat 1-8 until day is over, anywhere from 5:30 - 6:30 and occasionally later.

10. Spend a few minutes going over tomorrow's calendar and updating the to-do list before heading out the door.

[infoinfoinfo]

M&A associate in a top tier law firm. Usually start at 8:30 and finish at 22:30 on weekdays. 

Will generally work on weekends 10:00 to 17:00 (the absence of emails and calls make the weekend workdays shorter). 

Will be less when deal flow is less important (would usually have most of weekends and finish earlier on weekdays evenings). However, it can also be substantially more towards the end of a deal. 

... Yup. 

 

[leafs_law]

Litigation Partner

12 AM to 3 AM: Flurry of back and forth emails with burnt out articling student on issues that do not matter

3 AM to 6 AM: Wine and opioids to dull the nagging stress of how much money I make

6 AM to 7 AM: Further emails to articling student

7 AM to 8 AM: Threaten to fire articling student for not having answered my most recent emails

8 AM to 6 PM: Play Golf, drinks at the country club

6 PM to 8 PM: Assign all of my work to associate lawyers, due tomorrow morning

8 PM to 10 PM: Dinner at Alo with my wife, whomst I cannot stand

10 PM to 11 PM: Twenty-three emails to berate my assistant for not having finished the 7 dictations I sent her at 5:15 PM

11 PM to 12 AM: Mindfulness meditation and practising gratitude

 

[Jaggers]

Nice to see you again! Pretty bitter post for someone who hasn't been around in a while. Do we need to talk?

[Kimura]

9 hours ago, infoinfoinfo said:

M&A associate in a top tier law firm. Usually start at 8:30 and finish at 22:30 on weekdays. 

Will generally work on weekends 10:00 to 17:00 (the absence of emails and calls make the weekend workdays shorter). 

Will be less when deal flow is less important (would usually have most of weekends and finish earlier on weekdays evenings). However, it can also be substantially more towards the end of a deal. 

... Yup. 

 

You must have no issues hitting your billable targets!

[leafs_law]

12 minutes ago, Jaggers said:

Nice to see you again! Pretty bitter post for someone who hasn't been around in a while. Do we need to talk?

Haha, mere chance brings me back. A firm was actually silly enough to make me a partner and I had to review my expenses to determine how much to pay myself out of my professional corporation and, in doing so, I came across my monthly Patreon donation! I am hoping to make it more of a habit to stick around here.

[KOMODO]

9 hours ago, leafs_law said:

...

8 PM to 10 PM: Dinner at Alo with my wife, whomst I cannot stand

....

 

I literally spit-laughed at this, picturing a partner I know 😂

[SlytherinLLP]

10 hours ago, leafs_law said:

Litigation Partner

12 AM to 3 AM: Flurry of back and forth emails with burnt out articling student on issues that do not matter

I feel personally attacked by this. 💔

[infoinfoinfo]

10 hours ago, Kimura said:

You must have no issues hitting your billable targets!

In fact I think that's the most frustrating part. No, I don't have issues hitting the target, but with that schedule I only end up at around 2000, since the more senior you get, the more you're expected to take part in business development, junior mentoring, prepare training for the firm in your niche area, etc. Very time consuming, yet has no impact on the pay check (as opposed to billable hours which will build your bonus up).

[bocuma]

26 minutes ago, infoinfoinfo said:

the more senior you get, the more you're expected to take part in business development, junior mentoring, prepare training for the firm in your niche area, etc. Very time consuming, yet has no impact on the pay check (as opposed to billable hours which will build your bonus up).

So, you're saying that the hours actually get worse over your career? I was always envisioning the opposite, as you start to get more experienced in your practice problems become easier/less time consuming to solve, letting you bill more with less hours. I suppose part of this is down to whether you want to be a partner or not (partners being responsible for business development AND practice)?

[infoinfoinfo]

11 minutes ago, bocuma said:

So, you're saying that the hours actually get worse over your career? I was always envisioning the opposite, as you start to get more experienced in your practice problems become easier/less time consuming to solve, letting you bill more with less hours. I suppose part of this is down to whether you want to be a partner or not (partners being responsible for business development AND practice)?

Well at the very least you have much more non-billable to do as you progress. It's even worse at partnership level (you have to do the billing, etc.), but my understanding is that target is usually lower when you get there. In any case, partners still need to get the work done for their clients regardless of that and most of them end up working more than associates (they do 10x the pay, though). As for your statement re: Bill more with less hours - you always bill what you actually work.

You're correct though, that's true for the "partnership track". But not all firms have an alternative path. 

[Jaggers]

Some forum lore - when Leafs was an articling student, I was his client and we went to a mediation together. And now he's a PARTNOR!

[Rashabon]

The hours as you get more senior are also more difficult. I'm sympathetic to my juniors, but their 12 hour day is grinding out simple documents and collating signatures and doing diligence review and whatever else. My 12 hour day is managing multiple files and reviewing the work of a dozen people.

Eventually you get senior enough that you have trusted people to delegate to to run with things. Unfortunately I'm that person on most of my files.

[beyondsection17]

I work in insurance defence litigation. I'm sort of on the cusp between junior and mid-level. I have my own caseload of files and I junior for a few others on larger files. 

Someone wise once told me "litigators are like firefighters; they're either out fighting fires, or they're back at the office playing cards" and I have found that to be extremely true. My office is not large, we do trials and arbitrations quite regularly, and we're in-house so we don't bill our time. I've found that when I'm gearing up for a trial or arb or otherwise am very busy I'll work insane hours -7am to ~1am ish, working through weekends, etc. The other half (or more) of the time it's pretty 9-5 or less. There's really not much in between. Litigation is a bit of a roller coaster that way.  I am granted a lot of vacation time because of the busy periods in my job, and because I'm in-house and I don't bill, there's no penalty associated with actually taking that vacation time. I've somehow landed in pretty much my ideal job, and I don't intend to leave any time soon.

I know many people who have more of a solicitor practice (or in the case of labour & employment lawyers, a bit of a hybrid litigation / advisory practice) and they seem to have a more steady workload. 

Edited February 20, 2022 by beyondsection17