Anonymous User wrote:imchuckbass58 wrote:Anonymous User wrote:Anonymous User wrote:This thread is making me wonder what law offers that consulting does not. More boring work, in a stationary place? Seriously - If you don't like the thrill of litigation, and want to do corporate - what does that offer in terms of work/life which consulting does not?
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This is not really accurate.
So, first of all, consultants don't make less than lawyers, at least at a post-MBA/post-JD level. They start out about the same, and raises are much higher (15%-20% per year is pretty standard). Attrition is slightly higher, but it's mostly voluntary, and exit options tend to pay MUCH better than exit options from law firms. Sure, post-undergrad consultants make a lot less, but that's not the relevant comparison.
Consultants probably work an equal number of hours when you factor in travel, but the hours are much more regular. You will pretty much never pull and all nighter, and it's pretty rare you'll work past 10 or 11. In my two years in consulting I worked (by worked I mean more than 1 hour sending emails, etc) three weekends. This was as an analyst, so bottom of the totem pole. You can't say that for most lawyers.
Finally regarding travel, yes, it's wearing, but some people take it better than others. Some people actually enjoy it. Certain industries offices travel more than others, and if you really care that much you can pick an office/industry that travels significantly less than 50% of the time. But yes, travel is wearing. But so is pulling all-nighters turning merger agreements.
Not to mention in my opinion the work you do in consulting is more engaging, and you get tons of client exposure from day 1 (mixed blessing, but in my opinion positive).
I originally posted the above quote. This is exactly what I mean. I'm looking at firm jobs and going damn what the hell does law offer. What
does it offer? I can only see litigation giving people something other jobs don't. corporate law to me seems like you might as well be banking or consulting. Please give me some reasons to not be depressed about my future.
Former MBB analyst here. Consulting and law tend to attract different types of people.
[1] Many law students are risk averse. These people probably would not thrive in a high level consulting environment, where projects are often risky and ambiguous, and "success" is not easily defined. As an above poster mentioned, a lot of the exit options from consulting are into less "stable" roles -- people like to join start ups, start start ups, take on management / operational roles where it is less about pedigree and more about what you can accomplish. A lot of this is motivated by the disillusionment that people experience with consulting. Of course, you could transition into a vanilla corp dev / strategy role, but those are seen as less prestigious/interesting amongst MBB alumni precisely because of the type of people they are. If you bill a lot of hours and don't make major mistakes in biglaw, you will be just fine for a great number of years. Doing the same is not enough in consulting - you need to not only work hard, but work smart-- develop a reputation for brilliance and establish rapport with clients right off the bat (and some clients are openly hostile to junior consultants walking in, telling them what to do). Not everyone can do this, and it is stressful to have that expectation all the time
[2] If you want to be a good consultant, you have to enjoy working with numbers, excel, modeling. From what I've seen thus far from my classmates in law school, a lot of them do not fit this bill.
[3] The goal in consulting is not to develop particular expertise, but to diversify your experiences. A lot of people don't enjoy this model; they like to be seen as "experts" in some field and become a "go to" person for those types of questions as they develop in their career.
[4] (this was a huge factor for me) You are always giving semi-fake advice in consulting, usually to confirm an executive's already-made decision. The goal of every case for your firm is to generate a follow-up case. You almost never get to implement your solutions (which is sometimes good, because many of your solutions involve firing people). In corporate law, you are there because things actually need to get done on the legal side, and your work is directly being incorporated in deals, transactions, contracts, decisions. People are not going to pay firms by the hour to give airy advice that may or may not amount to anything tangible (they have in house counsel for that).
See this well written piece for a profound look into the downsides of consulting:
http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N18/dubai.html
[5] If you are more interested in business than law, why did you go to law school? If it's because you didn't think you could get a good analyst job based on your background, MBB probably would not have hired you regardless. MBB hires out of some law schools for associate-level positions, but generally only students with solid pre-LS work experience.
