no wonder chics wana marry doctors

Newsflash: Ibanking is no longer the route to go if you want license to print money.

At which point to you mention the enormous layoffs and salary freezes currently going on in the world of biglaw? Job security in biglaw is a myth, not to mention the straight fact that 1 in 40 new associates actually makes partner. The rest get burned out or so disenchanted with the mundane work that they leave voluntarily (this stat doesn't take into account the abnormal layoffs of our current market).

yea if you want a license to print money, be a doctor.

It's bad everywhere. My dad is an administrator at a hospital around the Detroit area and he told me that they actually stopped hiring doctors! They are even thinking about firing doctors. Something unheard of! Obviously its not as bad in other parts of the country, but it does show how nasty some parts of the country are getting.

I've just heard that biglaw layoffs are no where as bad as the financial mess that is going on. All in all, the legal profession is more tolerent of recessions than MOST other fields.

True, the problem with our economy is that everything is connected, to an extent, to just one thing- Credit.

yank the credit, you're yanking the very base of our existence.

We can all thank our rigged centralized banking system for that.

It's just so crazy... The "federal" reserve really isn't federal at all, it's actually a private bank (try looking it up in the New York phone book, it's not in the government section, but the private section). Man, our ancestors really got sucked into that one...

Not so sure about "easy hours" -- depends on your specialty, that's for sure.

So if the federal reserve was 100% under the guise of the federal government, do you really think it would do its job any better?

Irrelevant, it has nothing to do with how well it "does its job."

Do a little research into the Federal Reserve and its history. You'll actually find out it hasn't been around all that long...

Thomas Jefferson once declared, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

Did Jefferson have a crystal ball when he spoke these words? A private bank has taken control over our nation's money supply (created in 1913, interesting enough not too long before the first stock market crash), and you're witnessing the horror right before your eyes...

During a recession or depression, money doesn't disappear, it's simply shifted. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In our case, it's going to be the eventual destruction of the middle class.

1. Pyramid Scheming
2. Stripping
3. Prostitution
4. Gold digging
5. Treasure hunting


EDIT: 6. Tenor Professor.

They make just under $100,000, teach 3 days a week and get summers off! However, I've never met a tenor professor under the age of 60...

I don't think it is accurate to call the Federal Reserve anything close to a "private bank". Remember, without the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Reserve would not have been created and the federal government weilds significant power over the Federal Reserve through appointing the Board of Governors.

However, agreed, the Federal Reserve and its monopoly control over the money supply caused the Great Depression. We would be better off if the government, which includes the Federal Reserve, did not control the money supply, and if our currency was based on something better than government fiat.

7. Baritone Professor

Hospital computer tech- 40-50 hours a week can net you 120k. Add an RN to that and you can be up at 180k.

The road to becoming a tenured professor at a major school is incredibly arduous, probably comparable to making partner at a BigLaw firm. Most associate/assistant professors spend 7+ years making 40-70k teaching at least 3 classes per quarter/semester, advising numerous graduate and undergraduate students (lots of thesis editing), while having enormous publication and research requirements; 80 hour weeks are normal. Also, the summers aren't really time off like they are for students. That time is spent researching and writing to meet publication quotas. There are also many, many PhDs working similar schedules, as adjunct professors or lecturers for 30k with little hope for advancement.

That said, the schedule is relatively flexible despite long hours, and most professors are doing work that they are truly passionate about; the same can probably not be said of most lawyers. Not to mention most PhD students fund their education with fellowships or teaching/research assistantships and don't have the same kind of debt that most law and med students have.

8. Alto Professor?

Why is this on the Personal Statements board?

All industries are suffering, and Biglaw is probably suffering less than most, but people like to make a big deal out of it (as someone said lawyers are professional complainers). Of course, setbacks like this are also a bigger deal when you already had law schools churning out twice as many grads as the market could sustain when the economy was "good" from all the bubbles...

As far as attrition goes, I think most people who go into biglaw plan on collecting a large paycheck for a few years and then checking out to something more laid back (and supposedly using their biglaw exit options in the process). Firms plan for this and benefit from it. It's all understood and expected. So, I don't think it's necessarily that people burn out, they just make a choice, usually ahead of time before even starting, that they don't want that lifestyle for very long.

9. Soprano Professor? LOL

Lawyers are the clerks of our society. They are involved at all levels of government, help with various causes domestically and abroad, help with deals and suits. Society might make it, but it doesn't work very well without lawyers. This perhaps gives them license to complain a little bit.

great question

I felt the same way about the supposed Bank of America

I'm well aware of the current struggles of biglaw. However, there are still some biglaw firms that even in this economy are prospering (see: Fulbright and Jaworski, a BigTex firm here in the market in which I' like to work). Of course things are rough nationwide, but if you think the issues faced by biglaw are anywhere NEAR the problems in the IB world, you really haven't been reading the news.

But yeah, I think I addressed the retention issue. It's a problem, but then again the same issue exists in IB, entrepreneurship, and a number of other career paths mentioned in this post.