Prosecutor vs Biglaw, which is more prestigious? Forum

[JoblessAndHopeless]

I was just curious which is regarded as carrying more prestige as well as more difficult to get: prosecutor vs high ranking biglaw firm?

More specifically:

AUSA (flyover or major districts like NYC, DC) vs biglaw associate in highest ranking Vault firm in big market (NYC, DC, LA, etc)

[Aergia]

Neither. Nobody is impressed by lawyers except lawyers.

[2013]

Neither. Nobody is impressed by lawyers except lawyers.

This. No one is impressed by most professions, though. Maybe doctors.

[TheProsecutor]

Becoming a prosecutor at SDNY/EDNY/EDVA/NDIL/NDCAL is probably harder than getting an associate offer at any high ranking firm except probably Wachtell or Williams and Connolly.

[nealric]

Ask yourself why you care about prestige? To a certain extent prestige can serve an important function. The prestige of Yale, for example, opens a lot of doors. But once you are talking about the job market the value of "prestige points" is less obvious. Being an AUSA is a certain career direction that will give you certain skills and earning potential. Being in Biglaw is a different direction. They may converge or they may not depending on the specifics of your practice within those organizations.

As other posters have said, nobody really cares (and most non-lawyer people do not understand) what type of lawyer you are. If being one or the other gives you an intrinsic sense of value, more power to you. But at the end of the day, most people should just take the job they'd rather do provided it meets their financial goals.

As far as which is "harder to get," I'd say they are hard in different ways. Certain prosecutor positions are much more difficult than others, just as certain biglaw positions are harder than others. On average, I think you will find that Biglaw has a greater portion of attorneys with T14 degrees, while prosecutor's office will have a greater portion of students who placed highly in their class. Being in one category is not necessarily more difficult than the other. Prosecutor's offices do not hire hordes of summer associates like biglaw does, which means any specific office position is probably harder to get than biglaw in general.

[objctnyrhnr]

Ausa in sdny is obviously the credited response.

[BulletTooth]

There's no right answer to this. There's a continuum prestige for Big Law (Wachtell, Williams & Connolloy, Cravath > Sidley, Latham, Gibson Dunn > DLA Piper, etc.) and the same goes for AUSA/prosecutor positions (AUSA SDNY being one of the most coveted with AUSA in fly-over districts being at the lower end of the continuum). That said, my sense is that your Big Law firms are going to have more people fresh out of t14 law schools while the AUSA/prosecutors will be more a bit more diverse with more seasoned attorneys (who might have quit Big Law).

[QContinuum]

I was just curious which is regarded as carrying more prestige as well as more difficult to get: prosecutor vs high ranking biglaw firm?

More specifically:

AUSA (flyover or major districts like NYC, DC) vs biglaw associate in highest ranking Vault firm in big market (NYC, DC, LA, etc)

As the other posters ITT have asked: What specifically do you care about? Lay prestige? Prestige as a proxy for earnings/earning potential? Prestige as a proxy for future career flexibility? What kind(s) of law do you want to practice?

Lay prestige is pretty much useless and you should make every effort to not let it influence your thinking in any way. The proverbial man on the street has never heard of any law firm, possibly excluding the local personal injury practice spamming the billboards and airwaves. The man on the street has no clue what an "AUSA" is. The man on the street most certainly has no idea what the differences are between a BigLaw firm and a non-BigLaw firm, let alone any distinctions between different BigLaw firms or offices. The man on the street might think being a "New York lawyer" sounds cool, but would not be able to make any informed distinctions between a Wachtell lawyer and an insurance defense lawyer, or a municipal prosecutor and a SDNY AUSA.

[Npret]

I was just curious which is regarded as carrying more prestige as well as more difficult to get: prosecutor vs high ranking biglaw firm?

More specifically:

AUSA (flyover or major districts like NYC, DC) vs biglaw associate in highest ranking Vault firm in big market (NYC, DC, LA, etc)

Why do you care?
Why is that question allowed to be anonymous? If you’re going to ask inane hypotheticals, at least don’t abuse the anon function.
I came back after I saw the unrelenting anon abuse was being policed, but I gues I was premature in making that conclusion.

[Beatmyshorts]

Prestige means different things to different people. Your question is less like asking: “which is more prestigious, HLS or YLS?” and more like asking “which is more prestigious, HLS or HBS?”

To folks interested in public service, there’s nothing more prestigious than an SDNY/DDC/EDVA AUSA gig, other than maybe high profile stuff at Main Justice. To folks who want to be at the heart of the biggest financial deals in the world, nothing is more prestigious than Wachtell. To folks who want litigation, W&C is the top of the top.

As a prosecutor, I’m not particularly impressed by a transactional attorney who has never set foot in a courtroom. I’m sure my classmates at Cravath think I’m rough around the edges and aren’t even a little impressed by me.

Prosecution, transactional, and litigation are all different career paths with different benchmarks, goals, lifestyle and earning potential. There’s no way to compare them without making a value judgment about how to weigh each of those factors.

[objctnyrhnr]

Yeah as a mod I didn’t catch it at first, but I have to agree with whoever said it that going anonymous then asking these types of silly hypothetical questions (but arguably fun to debate...maybe) is certainly not within the spirit of using anon.

Still I don’t infer any actual bad intent so I’m not taking any action here.

[objctnyrhnr]

Even though it wasn’t one of the options, I also think it might be worth pointing out that SCOTUS clerk trumps all and will be THE ideal stepping stone for the top private sector option, and an incredible resume stamp (but maybe not necessarily a sufficient one on its own without biglaw or something) for the most prestigious usaos.

[nealric]

Even though it wasn’t one of the options, I also think it might be worth pointing out that SCOTUS clerk trumps all and will be THE ideal stepping stone for the top private sector option, and an incredible resume stamp (but maybe not necessarily a sufficient one on its own without biglaw or something) for the most prestigious usaos.

Well, nothing beats actually BEING a SCOTUS justice. That's one even laypeople understand

[QContinuum]

Even though it wasn’t one of the options, I also think it might be worth pointing out that SCOTUS clerk trumps all and will be THE ideal stepping stone for the top private sector option, and an incredible resume stamp (but maybe not necessarily a sufficient one on its own without biglaw or something) for the most prestigious usaos.

Well, nothing beats actually BEING a SCOTUS justice. That's one even laypeople understand

Even then, only 43% of likely U.S. voters (this isn't even 43% of the general population! it's 43% of the voting population!) can name a single SCOTUS Justice. See https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3248 ... rt-justice

RBG was the most well-known at the time of the 2017 survey, while not a single respondent named poor Justice Breyer...

This really underlines (double underlines, triple underlines) the folly of chasing lay prestige as a lawyer. The lawyers who're actually famous are often not famous from practicing law - see Obama (President), Cruz (Senator) or Cohen ("fixer").

[Anonymous User]

Also: prestigious where? If you're an AUSA in Iowa City who is visiting NYC, I'm not sure how impressed folks will be. On the other hand, if you're an AUSA in Iowa City, you're going to be relatively hot stuff around town (to the somewhat limited extent that folks care about stuff like this)--whereas I don't think that anyone's going to care much when you visit Iowa City if you work for Wachtel. Who are you trying to impress and why?

In a semi-neutral sense, as someone who is neither (currently) in biglaw nor (currently) a prosecutor and who understands how difficult these jobs are to get, I'd be more impressed by an Iowa City AUSA than a NYC biglaw associate, even at W&C or Wachtell. It's probably the more difficult job to get and it's probably the more difficult job to do (and it says somewhat good things about your personal valuation of public service). But I'm not convinced I'm representative of even the broader elite legal community and I'm not convinced that it's the broader elite legal community about which you care.

[abl]

Even though it wasn’t one of the options, I also think it might be worth pointing out that SCOTUS clerk trumps all and will be THE ideal stepping stone for the top private sector option, and an incredible resume stamp (but maybe not necessarily a sufficient one on its own without biglaw or something) for the most prestigious usaos.

Well, nothing beats actually BEING a SCOTUS justice. That's one even laypeople understand

Even then, only 43% of likely U.S. voters (this isn't even 43% of the general population! it's 43% of the voting population!) can name a single SCOTUS Justice. See https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3248 ... rt-justice

RBG was the most well-known at the time of the 2017 survey, while not a single respondent named poor Justice Breyer...

This really underlines (double underlines, triple underlines) the folly of chasing lay prestige as a lawyer. The lawyers who're actually famous are often not famous from practicing law - see Obama (President), Cruz (Senator) or Cohen ("fixer").

You're mixing up questions. SCOTUS justices aren't superstars--at least not to the extent of, say, Presidents--but that doesn't mean that the position isn't universally prestigious. I am sure that the percentage of the country that is impressed by the position dwarfs the percentage of the country who can name a SCOTUS Justice. You use senator as an example. I think we can all agree that being a U.S. Senator is an impressive position -- and yet a huge (and disheartening) percentage of U.S. citizens cannot name either of their home-state senators. https://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/ ... ors-114867.

[encore1101]

If you're looking for prestige and difficult job to get, be a firefighter.

[QContinuum]

If you're looking for prestige and difficult job to get, be a firefighter.

TITCR. A firefighter, or a soldier. You'll get respect and admiration wherever you go, and discounts to boot. Contrast this to being a lawyer: No one will ever thank you for your service when you reveal you're a prosecutor or a BigLawyer.

[Aptitude]

Neither. Nobody is impressed by lawyers except lawyers.

If you're looking for prestige and difficult job to get, be a firefighter.

So true. Scientist gets high praise too. Though "scientist" and "engineer" titles have become diluted by tech companies that throw that title onto anyone in any role.



https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccar ... f5ddf01926

[QContinuum]

You're mixing up questions. SCOTUS justices aren't superstars--at least not to the extent of, say, Presidents--but that doesn't mean that the position isn't universally prestigious. I am sure that the percentage of the country that is impressed by the position dwarfs the percentage of the country who can name a SCOTUS Justice. You use senator as an example. I think we can all agree that being a U.S. Senator is an impressive position -- and yet a huge (and disheartening) percentage of U.S. citizens cannot name either of their home-state senators. https://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/ ... ors-114867.

I don't think I'm mixing up questions at all. I was pointing out the limits of lay prestige even for SCOTUS Justices, who're at the pinnacle of the legal prestige ladder in the U.S. (and arguably even internationally). If even the 9 lawyers at the top of their profession are largely unrecognized by laypeople, that raises a very powerful point about the (lack of) lay prestige of the legal profession generally.

In many other fields, if you're at the top of your profession, laypeople will know your name. Athletics? LeBron James. Science? Stephen Hawking. Business? Warren Buffett. Coffee? Howard Schultz. Tech? Mark Zuckerberg. Gourmet cooking? David Chang.

And law? There's Johnnie Cochran. And Gloria Allred. They're pretty much the exceptions that prove the rule. Probably the only law firm well-known to the public is Wolfram & Hart, which doesn't actually exist. And even their celebrity only goes so far... Everyone knows Hawking's university, Buffett's company, James' team. No one knows Cochran's law firm.

[encore1101]

Neither. Nobody is impressed by lawyers except lawyers.

If you're looking for prestige and difficult job to get, be a firefighter.

So true. Scientist gets high praise too. Though "scientist" and "engineer" titles have become diluted by tech companies that throw that title onto anyone in any role.



https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccar ... f5ddf01926

But we're juris doctors, so we're on top of the list
lol jk