Corporate lawyers complaining about bankers Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hi all, I apologize in advance if this is in the wrong section. I did SA for a vault firm this past summer and I kept on hearing senior associates complaining about how they hate working with bankers. I never Ended up Getting the experience of working with bankers and I just wondering why is it that corporate lawyers hate working with them?

[Pokemon]

Bankers have a big personality and lawyers have a big personality. And a lot of times when people like that get together, it can be explosive.

[Anonymous User]

are they specifically complaining about bankers or lawyers from banks?

I can understand bankers being difficult to handle. Investment bankers work extremely long hours with horrible work/life balance. It is not fun serving their demands.

Lawyers from banks are on the other hand pretty chill I recall (as a SA).

[LawIdiot86]

One of my professors brought in an investment banker who said that lawyers hate them because, on a deal, the investment banker produces a one page bill with one line for 4 or 6 million and the lawyer has to produce an itemized bill several hundred lines long for a little over one million, even though they both worked the same crazy hours on it.

[Anonymous User]

its more lawyers who hate bankers. bankers don't really hate lawyers, they just don't respect them, as they don't respect anyone in back office. lawyers work the same hours as bankers for a fraction of the money - so their hate is understandable. coupled with the fact that lawyers often see how dumb bankers really are and think, man if i would have just majoried in econ/finance/math rather than basket-weaving --> law school i could have been making that much dough now. i think thats where the issue is. if you look at some genius tech guy making millions there's no resentment b/c you know he's way smarter than you. but when you see some punk 28 year old just copy/paste on excel all day making 4x you do, it can build resentment.

[Anonymous User]

ehh bankers hate/don't respect lawyers and lawyers hate/don't respect bankers. As a generalization, bankers see lawyers as the people who think they are smarter than them and are always telling them what they can't do. Lots also hate being told they can't/shouldn't do something because they think a lawyer's job is to make sure they can do whatever they want. Lawyers, on the other hand, see the bankers as the "excel monkeys" who don't pay enough attention to detail or reason.

Also, people on TLS vastly overestimate how much the average bankers make. Yea the MDs and such make a ton more than law firm partners but the junior people are mostly MBAs making money in line with a junior/mid-level in NYC. Bonus eroded for them the same as it did for lawyers. People forget that 2nd years once made 200k+ in NYC after bonus.

[Borg]

ehh bankers hate/don't respect lawyers and lawyers hate/don't respect bankers. As a generalization, bankers see lawyers as the people who think they are smarter than them and are always telling them what they can't do. Lots also hate being told they can't/shouldn't do something because they think a lawyer's job is to make sure they can do whatever they want. Lawyers, on the other hand, see the bankers as the "excel monkeys" who don't pay enough attention to detail or reason.

Also, people on TLS vastly overestimate how much the average bankers make. Yea the MDs and such make a ton more than law firm partners but the junior people are mostly MBAs making money in line with a junior/mid-level in NYC. Bonus eroded for them the same as it did for lawyers. People forget that 2nd years once made 200k+ in NYC after bonus.

Agree with this second paragraph strongly. Banking is not nearly what it once was. I am going to be a banker instead of a lawyer because I prefer business to law, but I am doing it because it is a good step into something more interesting and not because I believe I will be compensated at a vastly better level. As a first year banker at a major bank, I'm just going to be making a little more than I would as a lawyer, and the increase from year to year isn't even close to as steep as it once was. My position is also much less secure. Also, if you get jealous of the bankers and want to switch remember that there are tons of ex-lawyers in banking. Find one who went to your law school and ask to have an informational interview to get the ball rolling.

[Anonymous User]

People who hate their job bitch about their job.

I once asked a partner at my firm (one of the big ones in NYC with institutional banking clients) about his relationship with clients. His blunt response: "My childrens' god parents are bankers at [major client]"

In general, banks are high-intensity businesses and as such can create for high intensity relationships with their law firm. Longer hours, tighter deadlines, higher stakes. So they might be less desirable as clients for that reason, but beyond that it's all going to be specific to individuals and personalities.

Also, people on TLS vastly overestimate how much the average bankers make. Yea the MDs and such make a ton more than law firm partners but the junior people are mostly MBAs making money in line with a junior/mid-level in NYC. Bonus eroded for them the same as it did for lawyers. People forget that 2nd years once made 200k+ in NYC after bonus.

Agree with this second paragraph strongly.

Also +1 to this. And not just on compensation - job security in banking has been dismal for years. Large layoffs continued there long after they subsided in the legal industry.

On top of that, as a corollary to "people who hate their jobs bitch about their job" people who earn a ton of money like to be vocal about it. Sure, some people at Goldman make a mint, but bonuses vary dramatically and not every bank is Goldman (whereas basically every major law firm in a major market has the same basic salary structure)

[Anonymous User]

Lawyers hate working for bankers because bankers have big egos and work more ridiculous hours than big law and like it.

That said, I think TLS overstates the animosity and also overstates the disparity in compensation. Compensation in law is quite flat while compensation in banking is not. Top bankers can haul in 10x what the top WLRK partner makes, but a run of the mill MD probably makes less than twice as much as a run of the mill partner (see AmLaw's article this week about non-equity partner compensation). And for substantially less job security--a partner dequitization at Cravath would be a huge scandal, but at GS some significant fraction of PMD's are culled every year.