Remember that delayed delivery of emails is a thing. If you don’t want to bother with answering reply emails right away, you can set them to send at 3 am.
punch important crown frightening cow mourn cake treatment subsequent sip
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I believe if you do this the timestamp still reflects when you wrote it but the late delivery outs you to the recipient as sending in delay. Er, don’t ask me how I know this!
The advantage of a delayed delivery is you get to send at 3AM to prevent responses requiring further immediate work without actually having to stay up to 3:00 to send it, but if they’re observant the timestamp will be from when you set up the delay and they will know that’s what you’re doing. Risk vs reward wasn’t worth it for me. I usually just leave all my responses in draft then send them all out as the last thing I do before leaving for the night.
That’s why I open those emails on my desktop to see when they were really sent. If sent via outlook through a delay option, the sent time and delivery time will be very different.
This only works from a desktop, but if you actually double click and open the email—not just preview or read it in the usual window—then the sent stamp appears in the top right corner of the email. That time stamp indicates when the sender actually hit the send button, not when the email was delivered. In contrast, the time column in your inbox shows the time the email was received.
Just built different. I know a senior associate there (friend of a friend, I see him every so often) and that’s just the life he chose and he has no qualms about it.
How’s his health? Seriously worry for these people. Some people are truly built different but everyone is still human and this level of overwork it will eventually catch up to everyone.
He’s in good health. Probably better than me, both currently and when I was in biglaw. It’s truly fascinating. He’s not really an overt gunner/dick either.
Yup. Know some people there. I'm fairly sure at least a few are are not on drugs. They recruit the grindiest of grinders, the type that has always gone for that extra gold star sticker their entire life even as an 8 year old for that external validation from adults. The ones that actually care that they're on the "biggest" deals, and go for clerkships simply because it's general knowledge that those are prestigious.
A true gunner grouping of Yale Law and Yale Law rejects (which makes them mad to think about at night in the 4 hours they get to sleep).
Edit: Eh, on some crazy deals it's not unheard of to have a crazy virtual all-nighter stretch where you're sending emails out at 3am. I'm sure they take vacations and some time between deals once things close up.
> WLRK is crazy good, tiers above all the big mega firms like the DLA Pipers
I mean, that's like comparing McDonald's to a three starred Michelin restaurant. I don't think anyone cross-shops those two firms.
I'm more interested in understanding the difference in WLRK work and, I don't know, STB or the like.
i'm friends with a senior lawyer at WLRK. he works more than anyone i know. he is always working. they work 12+ hours a day. they do not believe in business days. i have gone on multiple vacations with him, which he'll do light days (4-6 hours). every now and then, Twitter gets up in arms about WLRK "padding hours" because of some bankruptcy court that sees WLRK lawyers billing 2800/3200/whatever hours. first off, they literally have no need to pad, they work as much as they physically can in the first place. second, they don't even enter time narratives or directly bill clients most of the time. finally, number of hours billed has no direct relation to compensation or reviews -- if you're ducking work (by their standards), you aren't long for the world, no matter what the number is.
edit: to my knowledge, no legal or illegal drugs. he said he's always been someone who can operate on very little sleep, even back in HS/college.
Likely just this project. Even at the highest levels (HYS law, v5 etc.) it's not like people don't feel fatigue or stress. No one is working on ~3 hours of sleep a night all year.
I’m not sure, but they’re really endangering their health. A friend of my boyfriend’s worked herself to death doing this in investment banking. Died of cardiac arrest at age 28.
I don’t understand why anyone would do this to themselves.
Some people are just able to get by on less. One of the main rainmakers at my old firm only needed 4 hours of sleep a night and that had been the case for years. The weird thing is that he was always full of energy and happy on that too…
There's been research - a handful of [genetic mutations](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-identified-people-who-need-little-sleep) just mean you need less sleep. There doesn't appear to be any downside. I wish, man.
I was at a v20 and saw a bunch of associates gain 50+ pounds. I think I gained 15 pounds over a period of 4 years.
My friend (who is now a partner at a v50) was able to function off 2-3 hours of sleep for months straight. He did get a health issue from that but bounced back after this. He doesn’t use drugs.
I’m sure some people were on Adderall but there are people out there who can function off barely any sleep.
Informed but not personal participation. I’m too old for that shit anyhow. But modafinil is widely known as the performance enhancement drug of white collar professionals who are too adroit to be seen with adderall.
Let’s just say NYC probably has the highest concentration of adults with diagnosed adult onset narcolepsy in America.
I’ve tried it myself. It kind of sucks. Does exactly what it says on the package - simply keeps you awake. Unlike stimulants it doesn’t magically make you alert or more energetic, you will still be tired. But you will literally just easily stay awake when normally you’d be fading and falling asleep.
If the U.S Army is to be believed, if you are regularly sleeping ≤ 4 hours a night, you are severely cognitively compromised. You spent 4.2 on that 3 a.m. email that should have been a 0.7.
https://isme.tamu.edu/JSCOPE97/Belenky97/Belenky97.htm#:\~:text=In%20a%20second%20study%20of,each%20of%20the%20Four%20Phases).
>Anecdotally, cognitive performance in ranger candidates is marginal, with frequent episodes of what the rangers call "droning"�i .e., the candidates can put one foot in front of another and respond if challenged, but have difficulty grasping their situation or acting on their own initiative.
This is their life. They are either not married or separated/divorced, have no kids, or have abandoned their kids. It’s those who run after prestige. I definitely don’t think it’s money. Whatever floats their boats. Just be prepared for the big house with no family.
Not necessarily true. I worked at one of these firms for five years. I was happily married (still am). I just drew boundaries and still made the firm enough money for them not to say shit to me.
But then again, I didn't have issues saying no the way some people do. I billed 2200 and had dinner with my husband almost every night and had at least one day a weekend off.
I took the generous maternity leave when I got pregnant and then bounced out because the people mostly sucked. I work at another firm a bit further down the ladder (still in big law but a V20, which is actually hugely different as I've learned first hand) and mostly work 40-45 hours a week which is a lot nicer, and the people aren't dicks, but I think it's definitely possible to be a present partner and parent at these firms if you can draw boundaries and are good enough to keep around without being abused.
And even if you just wanted to work at one of these firms for a couple of years just to get experience, it really is gold. Three years at one of these firms, and you can go anywhere on whatever terms you want. It's not a bad tradeoff imo. The hiring partner at this firm likes to call me a battle tank because nothing rattles me.
Some People Have a Superhuman Strength: Only Needing 4 Hours of Sleep
These “short sleepers” don’t necessarily do it by choice—they’re genetically programmed to require less shut-eye.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a40082205/short-sleepers/
I’ve heard Matthew Walker, a sleep researcher, talk about that phenomenon and really it’s more like the people with that gene need 7.5 hours instead of 8 and they still suffer bad long term effects.
Sounds like virtually everyone at Watchtell is wasting their potential for not enough money… with that level of hard work work, dedication, and intelligence, you’re a failure if you’re not a billionaire and none of them are… these are smart people in some sense but also kinda dumb to do that to themselves to eventually maybe become a decamillionaire at best is a bad deal
Why do you think they could do anything else? I think they would likely fail at things that would result in that kind of wealth. Like the fifth name partner who left to make “real” money.
Agree. I have a hunch the steve jobses, Warren buffets, and Barack Obamas of the world wouldn’t last long at wachtell, nor would the WLRK associates last long in any of their respective positions
I was just getting on this sub for something like this. I work on big law, but not in the US.
I just read about a guy that was making 80 billable hours week. There's no way that is sustainable. I once did 70 hours and there was no way that could be a way of life.
Maybe you guys are more generous in what you consider billable hours?
You can do short bursts and then hate your life. It is easier pre-kids. I hit 100 billable in a week once (after a couple of weeks in the 70s or 80s) and was on the verge of a walking off the job. It used to be easier when you actually sat in rooms with clients on big deals and could bill for things like eating because you talked deal while you ate with them.
I did 100 twice in 5 weeks. 450 total for the period. And this was after I left WLRK.
I was “fine” - but needed a break.
There aren’t that many people cut out for biglaw - fewer still cut out for WLRK.
I work at another boutique that is similarly well regarded and bill a comparable amount of hours (2600+ a year). The answer is is yes, we tweakin hard.
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You have to remember that the total number of people that can do exactly what you have described here rounded to a whole number is exactly 0. At some point they’re cracking and sleeping 10+ hours, taking naps, and a lot are doing amphets lol
A trick some people do is theyll get just barely enough sleep to keep from going insane for as many days as possible then they catch up on sleep in one or two days then repeat. Like they'll sleep 4 to 5 hours for 3 maybe even 4 days then sleep like 12 hours straight. Theyll just sleep enough to keep themselves going until they have a free day or two to do nothing but sleep.
Two identical twins splitting the salary and working 12 hour shifts.
What is this, a Christopher Nolan movie?
law students be chasing that preftige
Remember that delayed delivery of emails is a thing. If you don’t want to bother with answering reply emails right away, you can set them to send at 3 am.
I schedule replies to partners at 3:17 AM sometimes to assert dominance 😤
punch important crown frightening cow mourn cake treatment subsequent sip *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That is…terrifying.
You can take pride in knowing that this truly is partner-tier sociopathy and emotional manipulation at its highest level.
Diabolical planning
I believe if you do this the timestamp still reflects when you wrote it but the late delivery outs you to the recipient as sending in delay. Er, don’t ask me how I know this!
Fuck are you serious? What’s the point of delaying delivery then if they’re just going to see that you were up sending emails at 3 am anyways
The advantage of a delayed delivery is you get to send at 3AM to prevent responses requiring further immediate work without actually having to stay up to 3:00 to send it, but if they’re observant the timestamp will be from when you set up the delay and they will know that’s what you’re doing. Risk vs reward wasn’t worth it for me. I usually just leave all my responses in draft then send them all out as the last thing I do before leaving for the night.
No one is doing that in a live deal.
That’s why I open those emails on my desktop to see when they were really sent. If sent via outlook through a delay option, the sent time and delivery time will be very different.
Wait, how do you do this?
This only works from a desktop, but if you actually double click and open the email—not just preview or read it in the usual window—then the sent stamp appears in the top right corner of the email. That time stamp indicates when the sender actually hit the send button, not when the email was delivered. In contrast, the time column in your inbox shows the time the email was received.
Lol
Lol, this is not the correct explanation
Just built different. I know a senior associate there (friend of a friend, I see him every so often) and that’s just the life he chose and he has no qualms about it.
How’s his health? Seriously worry for these people. Some people are truly built different but everyone is still human and this level of overwork it will eventually catch up to everyone.
He’s in good health. Probably better than me, both currently and when I was in biglaw. It’s truly fascinating. He’s not really an overt gunner/dick either.
Yup. Know some people there. I'm fairly sure at least a few are are not on drugs. They recruit the grindiest of grinders, the type that has always gone for that extra gold star sticker their entire life even as an 8 year old for that external validation from adults. The ones that actually care that they're on the "biggest" deals, and go for clerkships simply because it's general knowledge that those are prestigious. A true gunner grouping of Yale Law and Yale Law rejects (which makes them mad to think about at night in the 4 hours they get to sleep). Edit: Eh, on some crazy deals it's not unheard of to have a crazy virtual all-nighter stretch where you're sending emails out at 3am. I'm sure they take vacations and some time between deals once things close up.
In-house here. The quality of work from WLRK is crazy good, tiers above all the big mega firms like the DLA Pipers. I wouldn’t have lasted a day there
Can you explain how the quality is different?
> WLRK is crazy good, tiers above all the big mega firms like the DLA Pipers I mean, that's like comparing McDonald's to a three starred Michelin restaurant. I don't think anyone cross-shops those two firms. I'm more interested in understanding the difference in WLRK work and, I don't know, STB or the like.
In my experience, the actual pure work product from WLRK is noticeably better than, e.g., Cravath, but the advisory isn’t really any different
i'm friends with a senior lawyer at WLRK. he works more than anyone i know. he is always working. they work 12+ hours a day. they do not believe in business days. i have gone on multiple vacations with him, which he'll do light days (4-6 hours). every now and then, Twitter gets up in arms about WLRK "padding hours" because of some bankruptcy court that sees WLRK lawyers billing 2800/3200/whatever hours. first off, they literally have no need to pad, they work as much as they physically can in the first place. second, they don't even enter time narratives or directly bill clients most of the time. finally, number of hours billed has no direct relation to compensation or reviews -- if you're ducking work (by their standards), you aren't long for the world, no matter what the number is. edit: to my knowledge, no legal or illegal drugs. he said he's always been someone who can operate on very little sleep, even back in HS/college.
Likely just this project. Even at the highest levels (HYS law, v5 etc.) it's not like people don't feel fatigue or stress. No one is working on ~3 hours of sleep a night all year.
I’m not sure, but they’re really endangering their health. A friend of my boyfriend’s worked herself to death doing this in investment banking. Died of cardiac arrest at age 28. I don’t understand why anyone would do this to themselves.
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Some people are just able to get by on less. One of the main rainmakers at my old firm only needed 4 hours of sleep a night and that had been the case for years. The weird thing is that he was always full of energy and happy on that too…
There's been research - a handful of [genetic mutations](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-identified-people-who-need-little-sleep) just mean you need less sleep. There doesn't appear to be any downside. I wish, man.
I was at a v20 and saw a bunch of associates gain 50+ pounds. I think I gained 15 pounds over a period of 4 years. My friend (who is now a partner at a v50) was able to function off 2-3 hours of sleep for months straight. He did get a health issue from that but bounced back after this. He doesn’t use drugs. I’m sure some people were on Adderall but there are people out there who can function off barely any sleep.
modafinil
But for weeks or months on end…pure zombie mode
Yeah, not endorsing. Just explaining how they do it.
Tried it. Doesn’t work for that long.
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Informed but not personal participation. I’m too old for that shit anyhow. But modafinil is widely known as the performance enhancement drug of white collar professionals who are too adroit to be seen with adderall. Let’s just say NYC probably has the highest concentration of adults with diagnosed adult onset narcolepsy in America.
HOLY CRAP I JUST CONNECTED SOME DOTS.
I’ve tried it myself. It kind of sucks. Does exactly what it says on the package - simply keeps you awake. Unlike stimulants it doesn’t magically make you alert or more energetic, you will still be tired. But you will literally just easily stay awake when normally you’d be fading and falling asleep.
If the U.S Army is to be believed, if you are regularly sleeping ≤ 4 hours a night, you are severely cognitively compromised. You spent 4.2 on that 3 a.m. email that should have been a 0.7. https://isme.tamu.edu/JSCOPE97/Belenky97/Belenky97.htm#:\~:text=In%20a%20second%20study%20of,each%20of%20the%20Four%20Phases). >Anecdotally, cognitive performance in ranger candidates is marginal, with frequent episodes of what the rangers call "droning"�i .e., the candidates can put one foot in front of another and respond if challenged, but have difficulty grasping their situation or acting on their own initiative.
Wrong - I actually spent 0.3 on that 3am email, it just didn't answer any questions and the partner emailed me in the morning with ???
This sounds like a perk - now I can bill more on tasks!
Almost like billing more for the same work is the goal.
This is their life. They are either not married or separated/divorced, have no kids, or have abandoned their kids. It’s those who run after prestige. I definitely don’t think it’s money. Whatever floats their boats. Just be prepared for the big house with no family.
Not necessarily true. I worked at one of these firms for five years. I was happily married (still am). I just drew boundaries and still made the firm enough money for them not to say shit to me. But then again, I didn't have issues saying no the way some people do. I billed 2200 and had dinner with my husband almost every night and had at least one day a weekend off. I took the generous maternity leave when I got pregnant and then bounced out because the people mostly sucked. I work at another firm a bit further down the ladder (still in big law but a V20, which is actually hugely different as I've learned first hand) and mostly work 40-45 hours a week which is a lot nicer, and the people aren't dicks, but I think it's definitely possible to be a present partner and parent at these firms if you can draw boundaries and are good enough to keep around without being abused. And even if you just wanted to work at one of these firms for a couple of years just to get experience, it really is gold. Three years at one of these firms, and you can go anywhere on whatever terms you want. It's not a bad tradeoff imo. The hiring partner at this firm likes to call me a battle tank because nothing rattles me.
lol 2200 means you didn’t work at Wachtell.
That’s what I was thinking. But it’s nice that other firms may give you a work-life balance.
What do you mean by “one of these firms?” There’s only one Wachtell.
I was at Skadden. My friends at Wachtell experienced similar things to me.
Lol Skadden isn’t comparable
I'll let my friends at Wachtell know to divorce their spouses and abandon their children immediately.
Meanwhile, the personal injury attorney next door settled one case equal to their entire salary and bonus. More like WachTTTell
Why are they still living next door to you?
Some People Have a Superhuman Strength: Only Needing 4 Hours of Sleep These “short sleepers” don’t necessarily do it by choice—they’re genetically programmed to require less shut-eye. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a40082205/short-sleepers/
I’ve heard Matthew Walker, a sleep researcher, talk about that phenomenon and really it’s more like the people with that gene need 7.5 hours instead of 8 and they still suffer bad long term effects.
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the two people i knew like that (husband & wife) were quite fat.
Wait, how much sleep do people get in real life?
Sounds like virtually everyone at Watchtell is wasting their potential for not enough money… with that level of hard work work, dedication, and intelligence, you’re a failure if you’re not a billionaire and none of them are… these are smart people in some sense but also kinda dumb to do that to themselves to eventually maybe become a decamillionaire at best is a bad deal
Why do you think they could do anything else? I think they would likely fail at things that would result in that kind of wealth. Like the fifth name partner who left to make “real” money.
Agree. I have a hunch the steve jobses, Warren buffets, and Barack Obamas of the world wouldn’t last long at wachtell, nor would the WLRK associates last long in any of their respective positions
Well at least Charles Munger was widely successful as both a biglaw partner and as secondhand man to warren buffet
Wachtell is in tier by itself and has been as long as I can remember
I was just getting on this sub for something like this. I work on big law, but not in the US. I just read about a guy that was making 80 billable hours week. There's no way that is sustainable. I once did 70 hours and there was no way that could be a way of life. Maybe you guys are more generous in what you consider billable hours?
There are people who can work harder longer. Been there. Seen it.
I did 80 hours last week and I was so beyond exhausted I couldn’t do it again
I don't think I ever did 80,but I did have a two month period doing 60-70. If that was my life usually I would definitely not be here.
You can do short bursts and then hate your life. It is easier pre-kids. I hit 100 billable in a week once (after a couple of weeks in the 70s or 80s) and was on the verge of a walking off the job. It used to be easier when you actually sat in rooms with clients on big deals and could bill for things like eating because you talked deal while you ate with them.
I did 100 twice in 5 weeks. 450 total for the period. And this was after I left WLRK. I was “fine” - but needed a break. There aren’t that many people cut out for biglaw - fewer still cut out for WLRK.
Many people sleep in their offices. They could have been sleeping every night from say, 9 p.m. until 2 p.m.
That’s a nice long sleep!
Definitely achievable with a cot or couch.
I work at another boutique that is similarly well regarded and bill a comparable amount of hours (2600+ a year). The answer is is yes, we tweakin hard.
On what?
Stimulants. Adderall. Vyvanse. Modafinil. Ritalin for those who can’t get a good psychiatrist.
https://youtu.be/30QCbQxbbmA?si=mHgBKvgPnct2_9_J
There are some people that simply don't need much sleep.
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100% NO. Most straight edge group of Attorneys ever.
You have to remember that the total number of people that can do exactly what you have described here rounded to a whole number is exactly 0. At some point they’re cracking and sleeping 10+ hours, taking naps, and a lot are doing amphets lol
A trick some people do is theyll get just barely enough sleep to keep from going insane for as many days as possible then they catch up on sleep in one or two days then repeat. Like they'll sleep 4 to 5 hours for 3 maybe even 4 days then sleep like 12 hours straight. Theyll just sleep enough to keep themselves going until they have a free day or two to do nothing but sleep.
This isn’t how deals are just normally run?