In terms of prestige, does the firm or the office location matter more? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I came from a public undergrad and law school, and I just accepted a litigation SA for a market-paying v100 firm in Florida (over a V20 offer in NYC). I am very happy with my choice: no state income tax, beaches, and good seafood will be enough to make up for whatever difference in prestige there may be.

Maybe other people would make a different choice, and that's fine, but it's silly to pretend there isn't a rationale for choosing location over firm rank.

[Anonymous User]

The original post suggested that associates living in New York City should feel silly making less post-taxes/cost of living because they live in New York, as compared to their colleagues in Texas. I'm saying that in and of itself is a silly take, because people want to live in New York because it's New York. I think the pay differential would have to be more than ~10% to make Texas attractive to people who want to live and practice in New York while they are young (*COVID notwithstanding).

This. And to add my own take, people who disagree with this tend to couch their defense of their secondary market (or their attack on NYC in particular) in terms of take-home pay and work-life balance. Not everyone needs a few extra thousand dollars a year to feel secure, and not everyone requires the same level of work-life balance. And those who can't understand that tend not realize that everyone who graduates law school is saddled with debt, and then descend into language like "If you don't think 10-15% is a lot you're a fucking idiot," like the tertiary market public school kid a few posts above.

I am struggling to make sense of these takes. Also, this thread is a shitshow. Regardless, there seem to be a few issues floating around:

1) The quality/sophistication of work. These seems like something more readily addressed by particular firm/practice group, since something as reductive as "NY involves more sophisticated work" is (practically) self-evidently false as a blanket statement that applies to all firms. And since it is, then, as noted, the discussion must get more specific.

2) One need not have debt to view millions of dollars as significant. I am trying to understand the perspective of posters (coincidentally anon, of course) who are poopooing a 10-15% pay bump based on taxes/CoL when that compounds over 20-30 years to a huge amount. It is fine to say that people who want to work in NY should work in NY, but anything beyond that subjective preference should probably be justified by something more specific and empirical than preftige when few in non-NY markets give a shit about NY at all, at which point the question reduces to subjective preference for what NY offers on a non-work level.

3) Selectivity/schools. It seems gross to disparage public schools. More broadly, why is anyone viewing NYC as particularly selective when you consider all of the firms that are HQed there? It seems like the relevant determination is still firm/practice group specific. Also, perhaps I am just a naive elite, but it is hard for me to take the claim that BL attorneys from non-T6s are somehow less competent, intelligent, or interesting than their T6 colleagues as anything more than ignorant, elitist tripe. If someone wants to challenge that, feel free to do so non-anonymously (since otherwise you are just an asshole).

This thread is only a shitshow because there is obviously some truth in the claim that not all firms and markets are equally respected and respectable, and many people appear to have made important decisions (or were left only with options) which now compel them to here defend and rationalize that which they hope others don’t generally pay attention to, namely, that rank and market (and the combination thereof) are not meaningless metrics, whether respecting schools or firm, and that they are in fact often used as proxies for talent and ability. The “debate” seems to be over how accurate those are. One side thinks they’re largely illusory (“Look, same money.”), while the other thinks they’re not (“lol V5 > 20k in the boonies.”). People are becoming defensive about the particular story they tell themselves.

[nixy]

This. And to add my own take, people who disagree with this tend to couch their defense of their secondary market (or their attack on NYC in particular) in terms of take-home pay and work-life balance. Not everyone needs a few extra thousand dollars a year to feel secure, and not everyone requires the same level of work-life balance. And those who can't understand that tend not realize that everyone who graduates law school is saddled with debt, and then descend into language like "If you don't think 10-15% is a lot you're a fucking idiot," like the tertiary market public school kid a few posts above.

I get that you're a troll and I'm feeding you, here's your cookie, now how about you stop using public school as an insult like a fucking asshole.

Not everyone who disagrees with you is a troll, and certainly not more so than the post it was responding to by someone who just finished taking some Kahn Academy personal finance class and feels comfortable calling anyone who doesn’t recognize the significance of a 10% pay rise a “fucking idiot.”

Totally non responsive to the actual point, good trolling.

Lol what point? All you did was complain about the pejorative reference to public schools. Who’s trolling now?

That was my point, that insulting someone for going to public school is stupid. If you want to argue about what the worst snobs might consider prestige, go for it. I just think if your argument had any legs you'd argue on merit rather than going with something asinine like "yah well you went to a PUBLIC school." It's such an asinine insult that you have to be trolling.

[aegor]

This thread is only a shitshow because there is obviously some truth in the claim that not all firms and markets are equally respected and respectable, and many people appear to have made important decisions (or were left only with options) which now compel them to here defend and rationalize that which they hope others don’t generally pay attention to, namely, that rank and market (and the combination thereof) are not meaningless metrics, whether respecting schools or firm, and that they are in fact often used as proxies for talent and ability.

Sure, but that is not the issue. The issue is how comfortable some users seem to be making extremely broad generalizations not even of firms but of markets, to the extent that cities like Houston and other non-NYC cities being characterized as devoid of culture and largely dominated by suburban life (the contradiction apparently going unnoticed).

The “debate” seems to be over how accurate those are. One side thinks they’re largely illusory (“Look, same money.”), while the other thinks they’re not (“lol V5 > 20k in the boonies.”). People are becoming defensive about the particular story they tell themselves.

I think the generalization issue applies here as well. And is compounded by the questionable empirical assumptions that public schools--forgive me, I threw up in my mouth a bit at having to acknowledge their existence /s--could produce graduates comparable with drones at V100 NYC firms.

[nixy]

This thread is only a shitshow because there is obviously some truth in the claim that not all firms and markets are equally respected and respectable, and many people appear to have made important decisions (or were left only with options) which now compel them to here defend and rationalize that which they hope others don’t generally pay attention to, namely, that rank and market (and the combination thereof) are not meaningless metrics, whether respecting schools or firm, and that they are in fact often used as proxies for talent and ability.

The flip side of this is also true - people are also here defending/rationalizing that which they hope others don't generally pay attention to, that the concept of "prestige" is subjective and the differences they pin so much importance to don't actually matter to most people, nor do they result in happier lives.

[Anonymous User]

This. And to add my own take, people who disagree with this tend to couch their defense of their secondary market (or their attack on NYC in particular) in terms of take-home pay and work-life balance. Not everyone needs a few extra thousand dollars a year to feel secure, and not everyone requires the same level of work-life balance. And those who can't understand that tend not realize that everyone who graduates law school is saddled with debt, and then descend into language like "If you don't think 10-15% is a lot you're a fucking idiot," like the tertiary market public school kid a few posts above.

I get that you're a troll and I'm feeding you, here's your cookie, now how about you stop using public school as an insult like a fucking asshole.

Not everyone who disagrees with you is a troll, and certainly not more so than the post it was responding to by someone who just finished taking some Kahn Academy personal finance class and feels comfortable calling anyone who doesn’t recognize the significance of a 10% pay rise a “fucking idiot.”

Totally non responsive to the actual point, good trolling.

Lol what point? All you did was complain about the pejorative reference to public schools. Who’s trolling now?

That was my point, that insulting someone for going to public school is stupid. If you want to argue about what the worst snobs might consider prestige, go for it. I just think if your argument had any legs you'd argue on merit rather than going with something asinine like "yah well you went to a PUBLIC school." It's such an asinine insult that you have to be trolling.

I don’t think it was meant as an insult against public schools writ large; there are obviously good public schools. I think in the context of the explicit post to which it was responding, it was a jab to the effect of: the top schools are private, and the use of language and grammar in that comment wasn’t consonant with a student or graduate of a top school. Therefore, that person probably went to a public school. It would be interesting to see if it was accurate.

[Anonymous User]

This. And to add my own take, people who disagree with this tend to couch their defense of their secondary market (or their attack on NYC in particular) in terms of take-home pay and work-life balance. Not everyone needs a few extra thousand dollars a year to feel secure, and not everyone requires the same level of work-life balance. And those who can't understand that tend not realize that everyone who graduates law school is saddled with debt, and then descend into language like "If you don't think 10-15% is a lot you're a fucking idiot," like the tertiary market public school kid a few posts above.

I get that you're a troll and I'm feeding you, here's your cookie, now how about you stop using public school as an insult like a fucking asshole.

Not everyone who disagrees with you is a troll, and certainly not more so than the post it was responding to by someone who just finished taking some Kahn Academy personal finance class and feels comfortable calling anyone who doesn’t recognize the significance of a 10% pay rise a “fucking idiot.”

Totally non responsive to the actual point, good trolling.

Lol what point? All you did was complain about the pejorative reference to public schools. Who’s trolling now?

That was my point, that insulting someone for going to public school is stupid. If you want to argue about what the worst snobs might consider prestige, go for it. I just think if your argument had any legs you'd argue on merit rather than going with something asinine like "yah well you went to a PUBLIC school." It's such an asinine insult that you have to be trolling.

If it were completely asinine you wouldn’t have devoted your last 6 posts to it. Usually if it stings, there’s some truth to it — which is consistent with the general thread, namely that rank is not meaningless.

[aegor]

and the use of language and grammar in that comment wasn’t consonant with a student or graduate of a top school.

Please specify.

[Anonymous User]

and the use of language and grammar in that comment wasn’t consonant with a student or graduate of a top school.

Please specify.

Go look. It’s public.

[Anonymous User]

I don’t think it was meant as an insult against public schools writ large; there are obviously good public schools. I think in the context of the explicit post to which it was responding, it was a jab to the effect of: the top schools are private, and the use of language and grammar in that comment wasn’t consonant with a student or graduate of a top school. Therefore, that person probably went to a public school. It would be interesting to see if it was accurate.

Not that you'll have any reason to believe me, but I'm the person that comment replied to and I'm definitely a student at a top school with good grades/good scholarship/etc. I still think anyone who values prestige over a 10% bump in pay is a fucking idiot other than maybe at some extreme margins.

[Anonymous User]

I don’t think it was meant as an insult against public schools writ large; there are obviously good public schools. I think in the context of the explicit post to which it was responding, it was a jab to the effect of: the top schools are private, and the use of language and grammar in that comment wasn’t consonant with a student or graduate of a top school. Therefore, that person probably went to a public school. It would be interesting to see if it was accurate.

Not that you'll have any reason to believe me, but I'm the person that comment replied to and I'm definitely a student at a top school with good grades/good scholarship/etc. I still think anyone who values prestige over a 10% bump in pay is a fucking idiot other than maybe at some extreme margins.

You continue to prove the point. Please stop.

[aegor]

Go look. It’s public.

That is not what I asked. I asked for someone to actually stand up for and explain what they were saying anonymously.

What specifically about that comment compared to others revealed the poster as a non-top-law-school student?

[Anonymous User]

Go look. It’s public.

That is not what I asked. I asked for someone to actually stand up for and explain what they were saying anonymously.

What specifically about that comment compared to others revealed the poster as a non-top-law-school student?

Apparently he just posted again. Judge for yourself.

[aegor]

Apparently he just posted again. Judge for yourself.

Not what I asked. Is this illiterate dumbfuck day? Is no one capable of backing up their bullshit with specifics? God help the anons if the mods take action here.

[Anonymous User]

Go look. It’s public.

That is not what I asked. I asked for someone to actually stand up for and explain what they were saying anonymously.

What specifically about that comment compared to others revealed the poster as a non-top-law-school student?

Apparently he just posted again. Judge for yourself.

What exactly is wrong with my post? It seems like you're just mad about being called an idiot.

[Anonymous User]

Apparently he just posted again. Judge for yourself.

Not what I asked. Is this illiterate dumbfuck day? Is no one capable of backing up their bullshit with specifics? God help the anons if the mods take action here.

Lol are you actually raging at people who aren’t responding to your non-question by calling them illiterate? Holy god

[nixy]

They value money over "prestige" so they are per se a non-top-law-school student. Or maybe it's just that they used the words "fucking idiot"? /clutches pearls

This is the most idiotic thread.

[Anonymous User]

Go look. It’s public.

That is not what I asked. I asked for someone to actually stand up for and explain what they were saying anonymously.

What specifically about that comment compared to others revealed the poster as a non-top-law-school student?

Apparently he just posted again. Judge for yourself.

What exactly is wrong with my post? It seems like you're just mad about being called an idiot.

Boy am I glad I bought PowerScore. I don’t think I could sit through this for three years.

[aegor]

Apparently he just posted again. Judge for yourself.

Not what I asked. Is this illiterate dumbfuck day? Is no one capable of backing up their bullshit with specifics? God help the anons if the mods take action here.

Lol are you actually raging at people who aren’t responding to your non-question by calling them illiterate? Holy god

My question asked for specifics. Are you saying that you are incapable of understanding that simple request and how an appeal to self-evidence is not an answer? Come into the light, brave anon, and provide some accountability to your purported literacy.

[Anonymous User]

Apparently he just posted again. Judge for yourself.

Not what I asked. Is this illiterate dumbfuck day? Is no one capable of backing up their bullshit with specifics? God help the anons if the mods take action here.

Lol are you actually raging at people who aren’t responding to your non-question by calling them illiterate? Holy god

My question asked for specifics. Are you saying that you are incapable of understanding that simple request and how an appeal to self-evidence is not an answer? Come into the light, brave anon, and provide some accountability to your purported literacy.

My goodness, you really are struggling to compose these, aren't you? Just give it a rest. Trust me, our paths will not cross.

[Anonymous User]

.

[ExpOriental]

We have a new top contender for "worst TLS thread of all time," folks

If the OP was a deftly executed troll, as I suspect it was, congratulations! Big win here!

[Anonymous User]

bump!

[publius365]

We have a new top contender for "worst TLS thread of all time," folks

If the OP was a deftly executed troll, as I suspect it was, congratulations! Big win here!

This really is TLS at its finest.

[mardash]

If you’ve got a pickle spear and a tomato in your hot dog, just know you’re not prestigious. You are neither esteemed nor esteemable.