What are the Experiential Differences Between Working for a Large Firm and a Small Firm
[00:00:00] Can you explain a typical day in a big firm versus a small firm?
Okay. That's a good question. It really depends on the firm that you're in.
The biggest difference is going to be, in larger law firms, you will often be working in larger matters. And so if you're working on larger matters you'll tend to be working on more segmented types of work. And if you're in a smaller boutique firm, you'll typically be doing more of the matter that you're working on.
To give you an example, if you're in New York City, working in a large corporate law firm. You may be working only on one aspect of a transit transaction. In some corporate law firms, people that specialize in just a few paragraphs of a certain type of transaction. That's how big law firms work. More likely, writing memos and stuff and doing research as a first year. Even second or third year in a big law firm than if you were in a boutique firm where you'd be more likely actually going to court or being more involved.
And so, there tends to be a lot more responsibility in large law firms versus boutique firms. Large law firms [00:01:00] get large because they have much larger clients and work on larger matters that require more staffing and more people doing individual functions and boutique firms are boutiques because they tend to concentrate on one thing.
Threre are lots of boutiques that do patent law. There's lots of takes to do healthcare law, that you've government contracts and all sorts of special healthcare risks all sorts of specialized types of work. And those particular firms may do all aspects of a transaction, but that's the difference between a boutique firm.
Boutique firm, you're also more likely to get more contact with partners as a younger attorney and more involvement in different aspects with a case. And those are the main things that I would emphasize.
