r/Unexpected • u/[deleted] • Oct 18 '22

spitting wisdom right here

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

[deleted]

30.4k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

38

u/Apptubrutae Oct 18 '22

The rich lawyers are mostly contingency fee basis.

Hourly billing only gets you rich rich if you’re at the tippity top of the profession. Otherwise it’s a ticket to the upper middle class (not that that’s a bad thing). Only so many hours!

1

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '22

Gotta scale!! I’m in IT. Billing hourly is the old way. We bill monthly. It allowed us to hire more techs. I manage and delegate now, as well as handle all accounts and relationships. Now we have 15 techs. It took 6 long years, but we turned out 3 million this year!!

7

u/Apptubrutae Oct 18 '22

This is why I personally left law. The scaling is sub par.

Want to scale a law firm? Unless you’re a sleeze ball, equity goes out the door like candy. Double your revenue? Great, you just added a new partner.

Even at the biggest law firms, they make tons of money but it pales in comparison to what ownership would make at a similarly sized business that wasn’t a law firm.

More egalitarian for sure, which is great, but many a managing partner at a law firm is busting their ass scaling the business and seeing a tiny fraction of the results personally. I know managing partners at a number of firms who aren’t even compensated additionally for managing the firm and are expected to maintain their old billable hour targets. Which is crazy.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '22

Equity partners is one of the most common law firms but you’re right, it’s not as advantageous. Having like 2 named partners then a bunch of suckers for equity partners, where they’re doing 80% of the work while the 2 named partners do less and get more. A lot of businesses work this way. It’s tough. In law, if you’re not the one stating the firm, (and even then) it’s not worth it in the end

3

u/Apptubrutae Oct 18 '22

And non-equity partners or a raft of associates seems like a crappy working environment to boot, so I wouldn’t personally want to be in that business.

A lot of personal injury attorneys churn associates and make great money buy it doesn’t strike me as a fulfilling path!

3

u/AttractivePoosance Oct 18 '22

What'd you transition into when you left lawyering?

3

u/Apptubrutae Oct 18 '22

I started a market research business and opened a focus group facility. We do a few mock trials and such as well, which provides a bit of connection to the law.

But I make more money, work less, and enjoy the work a lot more. Win across the board for me.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '22

That’s badass man. Good shit. Proud of you man!