Huge pay cut to go in-house Forum

[jrf12886]

I'm not going attack anyone' point of view, but just want to say that the notion that 200k is not enough to have a comfortable (not lavish) lifestyle seems laughable to me. And I say that as someone living in NYC on a government salary at the moment. Although I don't have kids, I make less than half that and live just fine.

[NYC2012]

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[Hutz_and_Goodman]

That's a constant problem for this board.

Sorry if I come across confrontational or quibbling.

But like holy shit.

No, I get it, I've just largely given up on pointing out that literally millions of people live on less than 100k in NYC, for example, often with families, just fine. I guess it's a hard concept to understand.

People compare themselves to others in their social class, not to the poorest. The poor in NYC don't compare themselves to the poor in Africa

The kids of parents making 200k combined in LA or SF will have shit opportunities going forward. You want your kids to do better than you, not the same or worse

Very sad that anyone would have such a stupid view. I know many, many people whose parents spent $500k+ just on their education and the kid has grown up to not even work, basically just wanting to smoke pot and live off the family money. $200k is plenty of income to give a child opportunities: it is false that more money is needed, and there are many other negatives to take into account (ex. what effect there is when a child barely sees their parent, or what effect there is when a parent is not happy with their job and/or life).

[ClubberLang]

That's a constant problem for this board.

Sorry if I come across confrontational or quibbling.

But like holy shit.

No, I get it, I've just largely given up on pointing out that literally millions of people live on less than 100k in NYC, for example, often with families, just fine. I guess it's a hard concept to understand.

People compare themselves to others in their social class, not to the poorest. The poor in NYC don't compare themselves to the poor in Africa

The kids of parents making 200k combined in LA or SF will have shit opportunities going forward. You want your kids to do better than you, not the same or worse

Very sad that anyone would have such a stupid view. I know many, many people whose parents spent $500k+ just on their education and the kid has grown up to not even work, basically just wanting to smoke pot and live off the family money. $200k is plenty of income to give a child opportunities: it is false that more money is needed, and there are many other negatives to take into account (ex. what effect there is when a child barely sees their parent, or what effect there is when a parent is not happy with their job and/or life).

Do you really not get this? Yes, 200k is plenty of income to give a child opportunities. In San Francisco, it is plenty of income to get a 2br apartment an hour away from work and send your kids to public school. With 500k income, you can get a 3br anywhere you want and still afford private school. Obviously the tradeoff is working long hours. The right decision is personal. One way that many families with high earners deal with the long hours problem is to have one parent stay at home. It's not for everyone, but it works.

[Anonymous User]

$200k is enough to raise a family in LA or SF if you live a very basic lifestyle. My firm has people who make this. They fall into two categories.

1. People who have supplemental income (beyond 200k) from spouse or are single. I can say that I live extremely comfortably on 200k and even own my own place.

2. People who support the entire family unit on 200k. I am sorry but this is not comfortable. The couple guys I know like this drive beater cars to work and are barely cash flow positive after housing and/or school payments.

If you make only 200k as sole income person of family you have three choices:

1. Give your kids an extremely shitty education in the city.
2. Move out of the city and give your kids a good education. I love people suggesting this option is somehow better than biglaw. You spend 2.5 hours commuting per day to your in house gig at that point. Even if in house is 9-5 (most are not), it is literally biglaw hours with commute.
3. Live in city and pay for private schools at 30k/ year. These people literally live like people making 50k a year. No eating out, no vacations, no even newish cars, crappy house. I really admire the sacrifices these people make.

Anyway, 200k is not a lot for a sole household income, and 90% of the in house jobs are located in SF or LA. If you can catch the rare gig in the burbs, that is the ideal.

[NYC2012]

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[Wipfelder]

$200k is enough to raise a family in LA or SF if you live a very basic lifestyle. My firm has people who make this. They fall into two categories.

1. People who have supplemental income (beyond 200k) from spouse or are single. I can say that I live extremely comfortably on 200k and even own my own place.

2. People who support the entire family unit on 200k. I am sorry but this is not comfortable. The couple guys I know like this drive beater cars to work and are barely cash flow positive after housing and/or school payments.

If you make only 200k as sole income person of family you have three choices:

1. Give your kids an extremely shitty education in the city.
2. Move out of the city and give your kids a good education. I love people suggesting this option is somehow better than biglaw. You spend 2.5 hours commuting per day to your in house gig at that point. Even if in house is 9-5 (most are not), it is literally biglaw hours with commute.
3. Live in city and pay for private schools at 30k/ year. These people literally live like people making 50k a year. No eating out, no vacations, no even newish cars, crappy house. I really admire the sacrifices these people make.

Anyway, 200k is not a lot for a sole household income, and 90% of the in house jobs are located in SF or LA. If you can catch the rare gig in the burbs, that is the ideal.

God dude. Stop.

[ClerkAdvisor]

Would you take a huge pay cut to go from big law to in-house?

I'm currently a 7th year associate at a vault-ranked law firm in California making $300,000 a year plus potential $100,000 bonus if I make my hours (I've received a bonus every single year of working). Since I've been there for so long, I can pretty much come and go as I please as long I'm billing. So hours are very flexible including working from home once or twice a week. Love my colleagues and I'm on partnership track. But I work pretty darn hard (come home by 8 pm most nights; and 2-3 times a week I work at night from 9 pm to 1 or 2 am; sometimes weekends but that's more rare).

I recently got an offer to go in-house at a tech company. Base is $200,000 plus 20% bonus, but no stock or other long term incentives, yet. So I'm looking at potentially a pay-cut of $150,000 give or take (I'm factoring in better benefits at in-house job plus 401k match). Supposedly hours at new in-house job is 9:30-5:30 and no nights or weekends. So more time to spend with my kids.

Would you take the in-house position if you were me? Need to make a decision soon and I'm conflicted.

Leave and don't look back. I left to go to well paid government as a 5th year, and I don't regret it in the least bit. I know too many people who were on the cusp of making partner as an 8th year, barely got passed over, and have struggled since. If the in house position is something that would leave you at least semi-professionally satisfied, then I would take it.

I'd add that, until you're outside of firm life and talking to people struggling to get out, you don't appreciate how hard it can be to land a well paying job in a desired location. This becomes particular true after 4-6 years at a firm as a litigator.

Don't listen to a bunch of law students and junior associates who don't know that the "struggle is real."

OP - feel free to PM me.

[Rahviveh]

$200k is enough to raise a family in LA or SF if you live a very basic lifestyle. My firm has people who make this. They fall into two categories.

1. People who have supplemental income (beyond 200k) from spouse or are single. I can say that I live extremely comfortably on 200k and even own my own place.

2. People who support the entire family unit on 200k. I am sorry but this is not comfortable. The couple guys I know like this drive beater cars to work and are barely cash flow positive after housing and/or school payments.

If you make only 200k as sole income person of family you have three choices:

1. Give your kids an extremely shitty education in the city.
2. Move out of the city and give your kids a good education. I love people suggesting this option is somehow better than biglaw. You spend 2.5 hours commuting per day to your in house gig at that point. Even if in house is 9-5 (most are not), it is literally biglaw hours with commute.
3. Live in city and pay for private schools at 30k/ year. These people literally live like people making 50k a year. No eating out, no vacations, no even newish cars, crappy house. I really admire the sacrifices these people make.

Anyway, 200k is not a lot for a sole household income, and 90% of the in house jobs are located in SF or LA. If you can catch the rare gig in the burbs, that is the ideal.

God dude. Stop.

Do you have anything of substance to contribute instead of bitchy comments? people who don't live in LA or Sf shouldn't comment

[sublime]

Median household income was 88k in SF and 56k in LA.

[Rahviveh]

Median household income was 88k in SF and 56k in LA.

Completely meaningless, includes people in housing projects and on welfare

[Wipfelder]

$200k is enough to raise a family in LA or SF if you live a very basic lifestyle. My firm has people who make this. They fall into two categories.

1. People who have supplemental income (beyond 200k) from spouse or are single. I can say that I live extremely comfortably on 200k and even own my own place.

2. People who support the entire family unit on 200k. I am sorry but this is not comfortable. The couple guys I know like this drive beater cars to work and are barely cash flow positive after housing and/or school payments.

If you make only 200k as sole income person of family you have three choices:

1. Give your kids an extremely shitty education in the city.
2. Move out of the city and give your kids a good education. I love people suggesting this option is somehow better than biglaw. You spend 2.5 hours commuting per day to your in house gig at that point. Even if in house is 9-5 (most are not), it is literally biglaw hours with commute.
3. Live in city and pay for private schools at 30k/ year. These people literally live like people making 50k a year. No eating out, no vacations, no even newish cars, crappy house. I really admire the sacrifices these people make.

Anyway, 200k is not a lot for a sole household income, and 90% of the in house jobs are located in SF or LA. If you can catch the rare gig in the burbs, that is the ideal.

God dude. Stop.

Do you have anything of substance to contribute instead of bitchy comments? people who don't live in LA or Sf shouldn't comment

Even if your statement is exactly true, your still equating private school, owning a home and owning a car as "barely making it".....we all get that 200k is less than 400k, but let's take a chill pill and keep some perspective.

[sublime]

Median household income was 88k in SF and 56k in LA.

Completely meaningless, includes people in housing projects and on welfare

Are well over 50 percent in each living in poverty? I just don't get not going to public schools as a benchmark for impoverishment.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

Damn, between this thread and the Asian one, y'all are some privileged mofos seriously lacking in perspective.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks all for a lively discussion. I've decided to take the in-house gig and will be giving my notice soon. While it was definitely a tough decision, I think career-wise, it makes sense for me to make the move now. Here are some of the factors I considered, in case anyone is interested.

1) We can live comfortably off of a $200,000/year salary (my husband stays at home with our children). My husband and I don't have any student loan debts. Each month, we spend around $5,000-$6,000, which includes our mortgage (we bought at a very good time and not in an expensive area), car insurance, my child's preschool expense and his various extracurricular activities, eating out, etc. Using the most conservative figure, I will probably bring home at least $10,000 a month after taxes, health insurance premium, maxing out 401K. So we'll still have $4,000/month in savings, not including the $40,000 bonus I'll get a year. Sure, I won't be saving $100,000 a year, but that's a price I'm willing to pay to spend more time with my family.

2) The in-house gig will be better for my career in the long-term, me think. I am in a sweet spot at my firm and seriously love everyone here and would pick this firm again if I had to do it all over again (it was between my firm or Skadden and a few other similar ranked firms and I chose the lesser-ranked firm. No regret). But it's still a law firm, and even if I were to make a partner (again, if), I'll eventually have to bring in business to survive and I hate networking, so not sure how I'll be able to do that. And I've seen partners struggling to survive after failing to bring in business. I'm a litigator so there aren't that many in-house positions available for me. I agree with ClerkAdvisor that it's hard to land a well-paying in-house gig as a litigator, so this is an opportunity that's hard for me to pass up.

3) I want to try something new. I'm tired of discovery, fighting with opposing counsel about deficient discovery responses/production/privilege log, etc. I'm bored of preparing and taking/defending depositions, not that excited about spending 100 hour a week during trial, and definitely don't care for the post-trial motion crap.

4) Every single person I've spoken with who has left biglaw to go in house has not regretted it one bit. That speaks volume to me. And yes, they all took a paycut initially. But some have even said that eventually, their in-house salary caught up with their big law salary, so I'm hopeful. And who knows, if I end up struggling financially, I'm sure it's easier for me to lateral to another in-house gig (with lucrative stock option) than if I were to stay at my firm.

Anyway, I'll definitely report back in a few months after I work in-house to let yall know how it's going, if I regret it, if I'm struggling financially, etc., in case others on here are interested or contemplating making the same move.

[sublime]

Congrats and good luck!

[NYC2012]

.

[Hikikomorist]

Congrats and good luck!

[lavarman84]

1) We can live comfortably off of a $200,000/year salary (my husband stays at home with our children). My husband and I don't have any student loan debts. Each month, we spend around $5,000-$6,000, which includes our mortgage (we bought at a very good time and not in an expensive area), car insurance, my child's preschool expense and his various extracurricular activities, eating out, etc. Using the most conservative figure, I will probably bring home at least $10,000 a month after taxes, health insurance premium, maxing out 401K. So we'll still have $4,000/month in savings, not including the $40,000 bonus I'll get a year. Sure, I won't be saving $100,000 a year, but that's a price I'm willing to pay to spend more time with my family.

SOME1 PLZ TEACH ME HOW TO BUDGET

Or just how to find an area where it's not $2500 a month for rent and also not a 2 hour commute

You could try not spending $2000 a month on blow and hookers.

[Tiny Rick!]

OP, you don't need this bort - you'll make the right decision for yourself. If you've lasted seven years, you'll make it a few more to see whether you make partner. And you'll have the same in-house opportunities whether you leave now or in a few years.

The advice people are giving you comport with their own preferences. I would absolutely take the in-house job but that's because I would never make it seven years.

Pick whichever option works best for your life. You'll be more than fine either way.

[webcammie]

I am quite certain that I will make partner if I stay. And I've been told that by a number of partners, not just one. But I ultimately want to go in-house and I think making the leap to in-house as a partner is much harder than as an associate. Partners are much more expensive and companies don't have that many "director" or "chief" or "general counsel" positions available for partners. Associates can go in as senior counsel and then get promoted within. I've seen quite a few number of partners who could not generate business, wanted to go in-house, but ended up just leaving for a different firm because s/he couldn't get an in-house gig.

And lucky for me, even though I make big-law salary, I don't spend like one. We live in a modest home and generally save around $100K a year (at least in the past few years).

This discussion is very informative though. But I'm working today and my kids want to go play. More reason for me to leave biglaw.

The partner track thing is really tough. For a bit of anecdata, we had a senior associate who *everybody* thought would be made partner. The partners in our office loved him, he was an amazing attorney, and we were all told he would be the guy.

Didn't make partner.

Do you know what happened? That's quite shocking to me.

[Johann]

I know like a 7th year at a highly leveraged firm and his view is along the lines of fuck it I may as well stick around for two more years and see if he is offered a partnership worth over 100 mil over like 30 years. I don't think it's unreasonable

wouldnt take 100M and signing the rest of my life away working for the end result of being buried with 50M in assets or whatever and my kids / spouse hating me. i dont think its unreasonable but i think its ignorant about the purpose of the work as a means to end of a good life unless his goal is pure money.

[RaceJudicata]

Congrats and good luck! If it's possible, definitely fill us in on how the decision pans out.

[whysooseriousbiglaw]

I know like a 7th year at a highly leveraged firm and his view is along the lines of fuck it I may as well stick around for two more years and see if he is offered a partnership worth over 100 mil over like 30 years. I don't think it's unreasonable

wouldnt take 100M and signing the rest of my life away working for the end result of being buried with 50M in assets or whatever and my kids / spouse hating me. i dont think its unreasonable but i think its ignorant about the purpose of the work as a means to end of a good life unless his goal is pure money.

Weird part is a lot of partners end up with only like 5 to 10 mill in savings.......which is shit given their salaries.

Time is more valuable than money IMO. I'd rather go in house and make 200k and work 9 to 5 than sign the rest of my life away to working biglaw. Unless you're a rainmaker partners still work shit hours for life.

[dixiecupdrinking]

That's a constant problem for this board.

Sorry if I come across confrontational or quibbling.

But like holy shit.

No, I get it, I've just largely given up on pointing out that literally millions of people live on less than 100k in NYC, for example, often with families, just fine. I guess it's a hard concept to understand.

It's not hard, this board just attracts some of the most entitled, out of touch people on the planet.