hi there! i’m a recovering ladder-climber living in new york city and trying to live my best life despite anxiety-fueled cuticle destruction and a tendency to dive into rabbit holes head first. i recently jumped off of the high-paying biglaw conveyor belt to pursue writing and more creative endeavors.
as an immigrant and the first lawyer in my family, i was surprised by so many things throughout life, my education, and legal career. i'm here to demystify the things i do know about (e.g., the ivy league, what being a lawyer is like) and contemplate the things i don't know about (e.g., how to be alive). i’ll also share my journey leaving the safety and stability of biglaw. enjoy!!
Cece Xia, 😔💔You here for a Great purpose... but Not this. You have drive and will. It's the Smokescreen you must see through. Deception in this world is in several layers. Deception hides behind False Labels & agenda campaigns.Your Not here to be a Lawyer Nor a Elected Lawyer..You have a greater purpose in this World.
It really only matters if 1. You want to go to a big law firm in a metro area. 2. You let it matter. 3. If you are at the wrong fit for you. (Harvard, Stanford etc are top tier schools but if they aren’t a personal fit then you likely won’t be successful.) Every single law school is named after someone for a reason. It means that at least one person that went there didn’t let their school define them and their greatness shined regardless. After your first job your networking and performance is your vehicle at that point more so that what paper you have framed However thank you for the video. Good content
You pay Federal tax, NYS tax, if you work in other cities (Yonkers), you pay that tax, then living in NYC (any of the 5 boroughs) you pay those taxes as well, I did it up until 6 years ago making $17.50 an hour; not much left for anything else, but when you apply for a loan, credit card, anything to do with credit, they go by your GROSS, not what you bring home ...... ✌️🙏
Everyone who achieves the high lsat scores says the same thing lmao that it’s basically not worth it. Or at least they seem miserable. Just my observation.
Girl you gotta utilize those deductions well. And shop around for the best healthcare. Find out about tax loopholes holes. You can take home way more than that.
So this questions is for lawyers or law students: how is your life? Do you have a job like ? Do you feel like you have to keep working? Is there something that you are not able to live because you took on this debt? how long do you think it will take to pay off your loan? or if you already finished paying it off, how long did it take you? Is there anybody out there that is struggling paying back their loans? or finding themselve living a life they dont desire?
Hi Cece, as a past Delotte tax lawyer I’m baffled by the high proportion of BILLABLE hours vs hours spent at the office. We would get max average 5 billable hours in an 8 hour working day, and in order to make 8 billable hours (without feeling that it would be unfair to charge the client all of the time), we‘d have to do around 11 hours in total at the office. There are always so many things that need to be done that are not billable, such as writing a service proposal, negotiating it, giving input corns colleague’s proposal, switching from on client to another (I’d mostly work on 5 to 6 different mandates every day). Who‘d do all that stuff if you’d work 11 billable hrs out of 11? I feel we did it wrong Hi Cece, As a former Deloitte tax lawyer, I'm concerned about the high proportion of billable hours compared to the actual hours spent at the office. In an 8-hour working day, we would only manage to bill 5 hours on average. To reach 8 billable hours, which seems fair to the client, we would have to stay at the office for around 11 hours. There are many non-billable tasks that need to be done, such as writing service proposals, negotiating, providing input on colleagues' proposals, and transitioning between clients (I usually worked on 5 to 6 different mandates every day). If we were to work 11 billable hours out of 11, who would handle all these tasks? I believe we approached this the wrong way. Hey Cece, having worked as a tax lawyer at Deloitte in the past, I've been thinking a lot about the balance between billable hours and time spent in the office. It's puzzling to see that we could only manage around 5 billable hours in an 8-hour workday. To reach 8 billable hours, which seems fair to the client, it required us to be at the office for around 11 hours. This doesn't even account for the non-billable tasks like drafting service proposals, negotiating, providing input to colleagues' proposals, and managing multiple client mandates throughout the day. It's hard to imagine fitting all of that into an 11-hour workday, especially when most of us were juggling 5 to 6 different mandates daily. It feels like we might have been doing something wrong.
there is no one-size-fits-all solution unrelenting environment establish your own boundaries and mental sanity if you don't employ any strategy, then your big law experience will be solely due to luck ...who are conscientious, good at asking for clarification I should have foreseen that this first-year associate might drop the ball and built that into my timeline. This can run rampant in big law crawl into bed immediately a reenactment of.... it's what we signed up for takes an emotional toll on her THE VALUE OF THE PROPOSITION OF BIG LAW IS RESPONSIVENESS AND SPEED. cLIENTS PAY THE RATE THEY DO BC TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE and desperately need a break only change out of my PJs at 5 my husband is also swamped today overnight pimple patches I've just been staffed onto a project, which means that I have been rooted to my desk since 8 kick off call the rule of thumb for how much to work every day is aim for 10 hours of recorded work ...before wrapping up work the team was also a standout the sandwich is covered by my lunch stipend due diligence memos some days I would switch it up a little bad at delegating and project managing
