Biglaw Washout Forum

[LeDique]

In all seriousness, though, I think you would be just fine going to SMU, assuming you are at least top 25%. I know several people from SMU, Baylor, and Houston who found jobs in Dallas and Houston making at least $80k starting out--including me.

1) There's a 75% chance he won't be in the top 25%, and even top 25% is no guarantee of anything these days. I know plenty of people in the top 25% at SMU who struggled to find a job.

2) Not all jobs are created equal. I have a friend who works in a small firm for less than $80K and bills out an absurd amount of hours. Like 225 a month.

Yeah, at the same time, there are small firm attys like me who get paid not that much, but only bill ~125 hrs/mo. My job situation would not be tenable without PAYE tho.

[Dr. Review]

I don't think that TLS is T14 or bust, I think that TLS is positive outcome or bust. The fact is that positive outcomes and T14 attendance are directly proportional. Additionally, your LSAT score is the single most controllable factor in terms of increasing your likelihood of attaining that positive outcome. Most schools outside of the T14 give grads a 50/50 chance (or worse) of finding work of any kind as a lawyer, with more than half of that being the kind of work that does not pay enough to service your debt.

Most people on TLS will tell you that state flagships are worth attending for cheap, and that even many of those are only worth it for free or near free.

[Desert Fox]

It is just a rumor that not everyone in big law gets partner.

[fats provolone]

It is just a rumor that not everyone in big law gets partner.

every rumor has a colonel of truth, though

[Cogburn87]

Biglaw offers: high starting salary, consistent hiring schedules for new JDs, and generally solid exit options.

Do people really still believe this?

[Paul Campos]

That's a big assumption. I also think having the trust could be a grading disadvantage. Hard to care to the same extent.

It is, but I really think that it's possible to gauge your law school performance if you can actually be honest with yourself about your work ethic, etc. If you get a decent scholarship and did well in undergrad, you have the ability. After that, it's all about the work you put into it.

This isn't true.

First, with limited exceptions the abilities and work ethic of the law students at any particular school are going to be very similar.

Second, the ability to do well on conventional issue-spotting exams has little relationship to how much people study, once they're beyond a minimal threshold of work that 95% of 1Ls will do (see previous sentence). There's a lot more variation in how much people study after 1L, but that's because upper year grades don't matter nearly as much, and many people have figured out by that point that the marginal value of extra hours spent studying beyond a surprisingly low minimum for law school exams declines sharply.

[Desert Fox]

Biglaw offers: high starting salary, consistent hiring schedules for new JDs, and generally solid exit options.

Do people really still believe this?

for corp it is absolutely true. Even lit, most people who left my firm went to gov or a decent firm. Though one guy is NO JERB after like 6 months. Friends don't let friends be "general litigators."

[kalvano]

In all seriousness, though, I think you would be just fine going to SMU, assuming you are at least top 25%. I know several people from SMU, Baylor, and Houston who found jobs in Dallas and Houston making at least $80k starting out--including me.

1) There's a 75% chance he won't be in the top 25%, and even top 25% is no guarantee of anything these days. I know plenty of people in the top 25% at SMU who struggled to find a job.

2) Not all jobs are created equal. I have a friend who works in a small firm for less than $80K and bills out an absurd amount of hours. Like 225 a month.

Yeah, at the same time, there are small firm attys like me who get paid not that much, but only bill ~125 hrs/mo. My job situation would not be tenable without PAYE tho.

Absolutely, but the issue is that, after Biglaw (which is generally known as far as good firms, bad firms, etc.) it's a total toss-up. I bill less than my friend, make significantly more, am much happier with my job. My friend had a higher class rank than I did. Total luck that we each fell into the positions we did.

[Emma.]

It is just a rumor that not everyone in big law gets partner.

every rumor has a colonel of truth, though

[AReasonableMan]

That's a big assumption. I also think having the trust could be a grading disadvantage. Hard to care to the same extent.

It is, but I really think that it's possible to gauge your law school performance if you can actually be honest with yourself about your work ethic, etc. If you get a decent scholarship and did well in undergrad, you have the ability. After that, it's all about the work you put into it.

This isn't true.

First, with limited exceptions the abilities and work ethic of the law students at any particular school are going to be very similar.

Second, the ability to do well on conventional issue-spotting exams has little relationship to how much people study, once they're beyond a minimal threshold of work that 95% of 1Ls will do (see previous sentence). There's a lot more variation in how much people study after 1L, but that's because upper year grades don't matter nearly as much, and many people have figured out by that point that the marginal value of extra hours spent studying beyond a surprisingly low minimum for law school exams declines sharply.

I defer to you and your experience.

[84651846190]

Biglaw offers: high starting salary, consistent hiring schedules for new JDs, and generally solid exit options.

You all keep saying this, but I don't think it means what you think it means.

[starry eyed]

Biglaw offers: high starting salary, consistent hiring schedules for new JDs, and generally solid exit options.

You all keep saying this, but I don't think it means what you think it means.

THIS right here I think you 0L s are a little bit misguided.

[starry eyed]

Biglaw offers: high starting salary, consistent hiring schedules for new JDs, and generally solid exit options.

You all keep saying this, but I don't think it means what you think it means.

Can you tell us a little more of what you mean?

[84651846190]

Biglaw offers: high starting salary, consistent hiring schedules for new JDs, and generally solid exit options.

You all keep saying this, but I don't think it means what you think it means.

Can you tell us a little more of what you mean?

There are no exit options that fall in your lap.

They are always highly dependent on interpersonal skills (which, very often in my experience, are inversely correlated with ability to grind in law school and get top grades).

They are extremely random and unpredictable, depending mostly on the market you work in, the industries that are booming and/or busting at the time, etc. If the kind of work you want to do is not in demand, you're out of luck. It doesn't matter what your credentials are. For example, some companies (at least when it comes to in-house lit hiring) only hire one attorney every 3-5 years.

Various "exit options" vary considerably from one another--much more so than firm jobs vary from each other. Some are absolutely horrible. Some are fucking awesome. A lot of what you end up with depends on luck.

It can take YEARS of searching to find a decent outcome, and by decent I mean 100k+ salary plus decent benefits.

You have to work your ass off to even become eligible for most "exit options." You have to develop a useful set of skills. Otherwise, no1currs about your fancy law degree, your honors or your biglaw firm's rep.

Many people try and fail to find a soft landing after biglaw.

[starry eyed]

To sum it up, you need to be a businessman as well as a lawyer to succeed

[nouseforaname123]

Biglaw offers: high starting salary, consistent hiring schedules for new JDs, and generally solid exit options.

You all keep saying this, but I don't think it means what you think it means.

Can you tell us a little more of what you mean?

There are no exit options that fall in your lap.

They are always highly dependent on interpersonal skills (which, very often in my experience, are inversely correlated with ability to grind in law school and get top grades).

They are extremely random and unpredictable, depending mostly on the market you work in, the industries that are booming and/or busting at the time, etc. If the kind of work you want to do is not in demand, you're out of luck. It doesn't matter what your credentials are. For example, some companies (at least when it comes to in-house lit hiring) only hire one attorney every 3-5 years.

Various "exit options" vary considerably from one another--much more so than firm jobs vary from each other. Some are absolutely horrible. Some are fucking awesome. A lot of what you end up with depends on luck.

It can take YEARS of searching to find a decent outcome, and by decent I mean 100k+ salary plus decent benefits.

You have to work your ass off to even become eligible for most "exit options." You have to develop a useful set of skills. Otherwise, no1currs about your fancy law degree, your honors or your biglaw firm's rep.

Many people try and fail to find a soft landing after biglaw.

NY? You've been doing this a lot longer than I have, but my observations have been different--particularly when it comes to the value of firm pedigree. In the past year alone I've seen a first year go in house for a 5% pay cut with a nationally-known publicly traded company, and two juniors go to different big name PE funds that ended up being significant pay raises for each associate.

I don't mean to suggest that awesome in-house jobs are plentiful or easy to score, but I am left scratching my head when I see the narrative that it takes years to land a good in-house gig making six figures. Is this a regional thing? NY so saturated with biglaw alums that every in house posting gets flooded with applications?

[84651846190]

My comments apply to litigation. As I've said in many other threads, I don't know anything about corporate.

From what I've heard/read from NYC V5 biglaw people, corporate folks tend to have relatively good exit options compared to almost everyone else in biglaw. To be quite honest, though, I've never really understood why anyone set on corporate would go to law school anyway. Transactional work seems a lot more interesting/lucrative on the consulting/business side than the legal side, but whatever. It seems like a huge waste of intelligence given how difficult it is to get NYC V5.

[Tiago Splitter]

My comments apply to litigation. As I've said in many other threads, I don't know anything about corporate.

From what I've heard/read from NYC V5 biglaw people, corporate folks tend to have relatively good exit options compared to almost everyone else in biglaw. To be quite honest, though, I've never really understood why anyone set on corporate would go to law school anyway. Transactional work seems a lot more interesting/lucrative on the consulting/business side than the legal side, but whatever. It seems like a huge waste of intelligence given how difficult it is to get NYC V5.

For most of us it's much easier to do that than get consulting/IB or any other real job on the business side. For a lot of that stuff the ship sailed when you fucked around in high school and didn't go to a top college and/or didn't get good grades in college. But to get V5 you just gotta get a high LSAT score.

[Desert Fox]

My comments apply to litigation. As I've said in many other threads, I don't know anything about corporate.

From what I've heard/read from NYC V5 biglaw people, corporate folks tend to have relatively good exit options compared to almost everyone else in biglaw. To be quite honest, though, I've never really understood why anyone set on corporate would go to law school anyway. Transactional work seems a lot more interesting/lucrative on the consulting/business side than the legal side, but whatever. It seems like a huge waste of intelligence given how difficult it is to get NYC V5.

For most of us it's much easier to do that than get consulting/IB or any other real job on the business side. For a lot of that stuff the ship sailed when you fucked around in high school and didn't go to a top college and/or didn't get good grades in college. But to get V5 you just gotta get a high LSAT score.

but then you don't really get to do the business stuff anyway. You just write a contract you didn't negotiate, yeS?

[Tiago Splitter]

I don't know. I went to law school because I was sick of working. You'll have to ask someone who actually cares about this stuff.

[Paratrooper]

My comments apply to litigation. As I've said in many other threads, I don't know anything about corporate.

From what I've heard/read from NYC V5 biglaw people, corporate folks tend to have relatively good exit options compared to almost everyone else in biglaw. To be quite honest, though, I've never really understood why anyone set on corporate would go to law school anyway. Transactional work seems a lot more interesting/lucrative on the consulting/business side than the legal side, but whatever. It seems like a huge waste of intelligence given how difficult it is to get NYC V5.

I tend to agree with this assessment. Business side-more interseting decision making work, legal side-pretty depressing

[Paratrooper]

My comments apply to litigation. As I've said in many other threads, I don't know anything about corporate.

From what I've heard/read from NYC V5 biglaw people, corporate folks tend to have relatively good exit options compared to almost everyone else in biglaw. To be quite honest, though, I've never really understood why anyone set on corporate would go to law school anyway. Transactional work seems a lot more interesting/lucrative on the consulting/business side than the legal side, but whatever. It seems like a huge waste of intelligence given how difficult it is to get NYC V5.

For most of us it's much easier to do that than get consulting/IB or any other real job on the business side. For a lot of that stuff the ship sailed when you fucked around in high school and didn't go to a top college and/or didn't get good grades in college. But to get V5 you just gotta get a high LSAT score.

join the military as officer, mitigate that

[Tiago Splitter]

lol

[Mack.Hambleton]

I have a trust that currently earns 50k-75k a year in income

that explains a lot lmao

[starry eyed]

I have a trust that currently earns 50k-75k a year in income

that explains a lot lmao

so i was a little slow learning this troll phenomenon, but that was pretty funny