What Are Differences Between The Plaintiff Side To A Defense Attorney
[00:00:00] How does being a first year associate at a plaintiff side compare to being first year at a biglaw? For example, what does a first-year salary at Robbins Geller look like and how does the intensity of the work compare to that that of a biglaw like Kirkland?
Robbins Geller is an awesome firm. They do a lot of antitrust, securities litigation and plaintiff's side.
So it's different. The work you do as a plaintiff's side attorney to defense attorney is different. The plaintiff goal is always to get to trial and get a verdict. That's ultimately verdict or settle. And then the defense goal is to poke holes in the argument. Poke holes. Delay. Settle for as little as possible.
So that they, have money to spend. Money, time, et cetera. And the plaintiff typically doesn't have as much money or time. Now, Robbins Geller is an exceptional firm. I'm not really doing anything with them saying anything negative about them, but the point is that the defense goal and the plaintiff's goals are always going to be different.
A firm like Kirkland has a lot of luxury. They'll have big clients with a lot of [00:01:00] money that are gonna do all sorts of memos. They're gonna do all sorts of motions. They're gonna try to settle their case first. They're gonna do all sorts of things that are going to make life difficult for the plaintiff's attorney and try to get the plaintiff's attorney to settle.
So the plaintiff's attorney, their goal is basically to take the easiest cases they can to pay the most money and get to the finish line. And the defense goal is to prevent them from ever getting to the finish line. These two sides are fighting. So if you go to a firm like Kirkland you're going to learn you're going to learn skills that are going to basically show you how to poke holes in arguments to delay, to do very in-depth work and try to basically stop someone like Robbins Geller from winning.
They're going to be invested. So plaintiff firms will typically may have more cases. Defense, you may be working on fewer cases. The companies can typically afford to hire a company like Kirkland can afford to have more in depth work done so you're going to get more exposure to memos and in depth thinking and discovery games and all sorts of [00:02:00] things. Then you may get at a firm like, Robbins Geller but you're generally plaintiff's work. And plaintiff's work is about proving causation. Defenses is doing anything they possibly can to defend against stuff.
I would say defense attorneys often work harder but it just depends on the firm you're at. And the salary of most plaintiff's firms is going to be a lot lower than the defense firm. The plaintiff's firms will typically pay less because there are reliant. Settlements coming in and more risk averse for hiring. A defense firm typically gets hourly rates and it's less crossovers.
Defense firms are going to get a lot more in depth thinking and so forth and more time and luxury to work on things. Whereas a plaintiff you're going to learn different skills in terms of how to get money out of people.
A plaintiff's firm can make a lot of money in the long run. I mean I've known plaintiff's attorneys. I knew one guy that was from I think I used to work for him from Vietnam and he got some case just, by chance I think made like $30 million or something.
