Lauren, the standard problems are what Dr. Monahan himself referred to: there's just no way of knowing how many people answering the survey are lying to themselves or making rationalizations to convince themselves they're happier than they really are. Or, conversely, how many are self-dramatizing and describing themselves as less happy than they really are. I believe Dr. Monahan also said that the differences were statistically significant--perhaps not between government and public interest, but certainly between those two and firm work.

Molissa, that's probably true. I've heard things about the culture of prosecutor's offices, at least in big cities, that are not unlike large law firms. However, there's a sense of righteousness that prosecutors seem to have, of being on a mission, that may contribute to their job satisfaction. But that can create a different problem if the righteousness becomes self-righteousness.

-- AnjaliBhat - 05 Mar 2009

I'd thought for a while that government lawyering was the way to go, since I want to be a litigator for a while before getting into reform activities. The idea of prosecutorial discretion appealed to me most; while I may not agree with criminal sentencing in this country, at least I could add and drop charges as the evidence and the individual criminal warranted. The more I learn, however, the more I suspect that "big law" work and DA/USA work might not be that different. I have never worked in a prosecutorial capacity, but it seems like government bureaucracy and political pressures (to get convictions, to over-charge, to be "tough on fill-in-the-blank") might combine to create a similar culture of fear as we see in big firms, as others have mentioned. If not fear, then it would at least create the sense that, unlike Robinson, you have little to no control over your workload or your clientele.

-- MolissaFarber - 05 Mar 2009

Boutique Firms

M&A

Pro Bono and biglaw

- If I was going to work for a big firm right now, I'd probably want it to be Simpson Thacher. In ThoughtsOnCommunity, Gavin suggested that big firms can be their own community. If this is the case, I think it probably looks like this. What a creative program! Also, they are helping to pay for my spring break trip to do legal work down in New Orleans, so I'm grateful for that. What do you guys think about this, though—is sponsoring a service trip for law students just a ruse, or the sign of a legitimate commitment to pro bono?

-- XinpingZhu - 24 Feb 2009

-- WalkerNewell - 24 Feb 2009

Government

Associate at McKee? Nelson: "As an associate at a private firm, I have been able to participate in some pro bono international human rights work. However, pro bono work at large law firms is something that is intended to be ancillary to the money-making cases. That's why typically only 50 hours of pro bono work may be dedicated to an associate's annual billable hours requirement, which ranges from 2000 - 2200 minimum billable hours. So, even with a good amount of pro bono work, large firm practice really isn't regarded as a legal career in public service."

It seemed there were a few outliers, though: "Crowell & Moring has an amazing pro bono program under which I was able to spend incredible amount of time representing an indigent criminal defendant, being a part of a fair election awareness campaign and filing taxes for indigent DC residents. Crowell & Moring also enabled me to tutor a middle school student every Tuesday for an hour who otherwise will not have resources to afford such tutoring"

Anjali, I went to that "Life After Law School" talk. I'm not sure which standard problems of self-report you are referring to; Dr. Monahan received over 80% return on his surveys and used a standard survey that has been normalized over millions of individuals. In terms of government lawyers being the most satisfied, I think that the differences in satisfaction scores were so close that they were probably not statistically significant. Also, since these surveys were taken 20 years after law school, it's hard to extrapolate whether a government job right out of law school would also achieve very high satisfaction scores.

I think that there are certainly pros and cons of government work which have been touched on by Andrew and Pete. The bureaucracy and the inability to select your cases would be quite frustrating. Better hours and quality of life are certainly important benefits, especially a few years out of school when a majority of people have families. I think that the most important question is whether the type of work you are actually given is personally stimulating, and that seems to be an idiosyncratic question.

-- LaurenRosenberg - 01 Mar 2009