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Ashlee | Your Big Law BFF

@yourbiglawbff

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M&A, PE & Attorney✨
Making big law & law school make sense✨
Mizzou | DePaul Law | Northwestern MBA Student [email protected]
Chicago 📍

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This life changing phrase I still think about every week.
Everyone starts on the 50. You move back ten yards for every thing that applies to you, and I kept moving until I was in the endzone. First generation college student, the neighborhood I came from, all of it.
The point was never that it’s fair. The point is the distance is real and you can still cover it and you have been covering it your whole life because you RUN FASTER!

#motivation #inspiration #firstgen #lawyer #lawstudents by @yourbiglawbff

This is what a day off looks like after billing 259 hours in a month. I know some of y’all are in the middle of a month like that right now, so let me say this with love: the work will be there tomorrow, and you are allowed to rest without earning it twice.

#dayinthelife #biglaw #lawyer #billablehours #corporate by @yourbiglawbff

A new deal just hit my desk. The first hour matters more than people think as it shows the partner or senior associate how you are assessing the deal and your overlook of how to move the deal forward.

#corporate #biglaw #transactionallaw #lawyers #dayinmylife by @yourbiglawbff

My co-presenter didn’t show up. I was standing in front of every attorney in my office with half a presentation and nobody next to me.

So I did the thing I do, which is make people laugh. For twenty minutes I gave a reasonably useful talk about the senior associate retreat and every few minutes checked whether anyone had seen him, whether he was okay, whether I should be worried. People laughed. And without planning it, a room full of lawyers got to see who I actually am.

I didn’t expect what came next. Attorneys from groups I’d never worked with asked me to help on pitches. People I’d never met asked me to coffee because they thought we had the same sense of humor. A partner in a completely different practice area handed me a deal.

None of that came from the presentation. It came from being myself in a room where people could see me. That’s the whole thing I wrote about. Committees, events, conferences, the hallway, the donuts. All of it is just a way to be in the room. What happens after is that people find out who you are.
Let people be excited at the thought of you. Full piece is free on my Substack. Link in bio.

#lawyer #careersuccess #careergoals #biglaw #corporate by @yourbiglawbff

After a 90 hour week, I don’t push through. I recover. A massage at home, a long bubble bath, a real date with my fiancée, and a steak I didn’t have to share. If your week took everything out of you, take this as your sign to put something back. You don’t have to earn rest twice.

#corporate #career #lawyersofinstagram #biglaw #lifestyle by @yourbiglawbff

This was a 17 hour billable day, and I want to be honest about it instead of pretending it doesn’t happen. Some days in this job are just like this, as the deal needs what it needs, and you find out what you’re made of somewhere around hour thirteen. I don’t romanticize days like this and I don’t resent them either. They’re part of what I signed up for, they’re not every day, and the career I’m building is worth the occasional day that takes everything. If you’re heading into a week that scares you a little, you can do hard things. I watched myself do one.

#dayinthelife #corporate #biglaw #careergoals #careersuccess by @yourbiglawbff

How I set up a brutal week because I stopped letting busy days happen to me:

1. Each night I leave my desk set up mid-task, document open, sticky note with my literal first move, so tomorrow me starts the day moving instead of deciding.

2. I tell my fiancée that this week is a monster. Thirty seconds of warning means the people I love never feel forgotten by my calendar.

3. I’m a big believer in eating the frog. So I do the thing I’m dreading first, while my tea is still hot. Dread was carrying half the weight of my day and now it’s gone by 8 AM.

4. Every decision that isn’t the actual work is already made — the outfit down to the earrings, the same breakfast, lunch already ordered. Decision energy is the scarcest thing I have on a hard day and I refuse to waste it.

5. I have to decide what my reward is going to be at the end of this week: steak dinner, massage, just something I love! A hard week with a finish line is a race. A hard week without one is just suffering.

#corporate #lawyerlife #lawyer #biglaw #careersuccess by @yourbiglawbff

My Saturday had a 6 AM shift and a 9 PM shift, and in between I had brunch with my fiancée, watched the W, went shopping, yelled at Shark Tank for two hours, and had a proper dinner date. I used to think weekend work meant the weekend was lost. Now I just give the work its hours and give my life the rest, and neither one apologizes to the other.

#lawyerlife #dayinthelife #biglaw #corporate #lifestyle by @yourbiglawbff

I’d been at my firm four years. I knew the catering staff by name. I knew the front desk and what their kids were up to. Then I lateraled, and on day one I didn’t know a soul.

It felt like middle school. The cafeteria, the tray, the part where you’d rather eat in the bathroom than stand there looking for a table. I was a fourth year with a reputation I’d spent years building, and none of it walked in the door with me.
Most people freeze. They close the office door and tell themselves they’ll get involved once they feel comfortable. Comfortable never shows up on its own.

I joined the hiring committee two weeks in. Helped start a committee whose whole job was connection. Asked people to coffee every week for two months. Said yes every time they asked me to present.

And somewhere around month three I realized nobody knowing me was the best thing about the move. You get to decide who knows you exist. You get to pick who you learn from. You get to walk in with the reputation you want, because the only history anyone has of you is what you show them.

The whole piece is free on my Substack. Link in bio.

#biglaw #lawyers #advice #career by @yourbiglawbff

Day in my life. I get a lot of questions about how I do class, work and personal well sometimes that looks like stacking the day full of one thing and working late on others.

#dayinthelife #lawyer #biglaw #lawyersofinstagram #corporate by @yourbiglawbff

A partner told me to take a deal to closing myself. It was a complex type of deal I had never done before, so I did it, and I’m still a little proud of myself about it. I had to learn the structure from the ground up while running it, and leading it start to finish showed me how much I can figure out when I trust myself.

Friends, when someone asks you to take the lead on something you’ve never done, take it. You know more than you think you do, and the only way to find out is to get in there and run it. Don’t be afraid to take opportunities that stretch you.

When’s the first time yall stretched yourself?

#lawyers #lawyersofinstagram #biglaw #corporate #careergrowth✨️ by @yourbiglawbff

GOING IN THE OFFICE CAN SAVE YOUR JOB! The part nobody tells juniors: when people have hundreds of real interactions with you, a mistake is one data point in a big picture. When nobody’s ever seen you, one bad day is the only story they have. The relationships you build in the hallway are the ones that carry — and protect — your career.

#lawyers #biglaw #lawyerslife #office #corporate by @yourbiglawbff