gwlaw2012 wrote:Try to get some empthay and understanding of humanism before you go to law school.
You are right we should all sacrifice our views of the good life so we don't live better than the unfortunate people of Bangladesh and offend your bleeding-heart sensibilities. My view is live it up if you are able and, if not, do the best you can. Why should anyone feel it necessary to bend their views to your notion of good taste?gwlaw2012 wrote:APimpNamedSlickback wrote:i still don't understand why people felt the need to write these long-winded self-righteous screeds about the per capita income of bangladesh. like, holy shit, if am willing to work harder to make more money, and someone else would rather have a less stressful life with less money, i don't see an issue. if 80k makes you happy, fantastic! if that number is 8 million, also great! why the fuck do we care this much about others' subjective perceptions of an optimal lifestyle?
to. each. his (or her). own.
If you think just about anyone in Bangladesh wouldn't LOVE to go to school and work as a lawyer making $160k and that YOU are somehow working harder in life, you just don't get it.
Try to get some empthay and understanding of humanism before you go to law school.
Exactly.The most shocking thing ITT is how much people overestimate the price of living in NYC(Besides the ridiculous taxes). If you want to live in lower Manhattan then yeah it is expensive. But if you cant afford to live there then you dont.
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I certainly never said it was good taste but that is what people are getting on each other about here: their views about how much money would make them happy. I've been dirt poor in college and my family has been pretty well off for the last 15 years (not so much when I was young) and in my experience it doesn't really matter than much as long as you aren't worried about paying the bills but that might not be true for everyone.A&O wrote:If you want to lease a BMW and go money-crazy in NYC on $160,000, you can do that too. Just opt for a longer loan repayment program.
Of course, it would make stupid financial sense to do that. But hey, if you want to live up to your "good taste," then go ahead and do it.
I'm surprised people think living rich in a place like Houston is "good taste." It's even more ironic that Southern cities like Houston try to emulate New York City rich constantly. If there's anything worse than a New Yorker, it's people who desperately try to act like New Yorkers.
AreJay711 wrote:You are right we should all sacrifice our views of the good life so we don't live better than the unfortunate people of Bangladesh and offend your bleeding-heart sensibilities. My view is live it up if you are able and, if not, do the best you can. Why should anyone feel it necessary to bend their views to your notion of good taste?gwlaw2012 wrote:APimpNamedSlickback wrote:i still don't understand why people felt the need to write these long-winded self-righteous screeds about the per capita income of bangladesh. like, holy shit, if am willing to work harder to make more money, and someone else would rather have a less stressful life with less money, i don't see an issue. if 80k makes you happy, fantastic! if that number is 8 million, also great! why the fuck do we care this much about others' subjective perceptions of an optimal lifestyle?
to. each. his (or her). own.
If you think just about anyone in Bangladesh wouldn't LOVE to go to school and work as a lawyer making $160k and that YOU are somehow working harder in life, you just don't get it.
Try to get some empthay and understanding of humanism before you go to law school.
Yeah, of course it's subjective and people have different standards and such. In the grand scheme of things, I think biglaw lawyers are pretty rich. They might not be as rich as the ibankers they have to report to or the general counsel they receive work from, but in the grand scheme of the American populace, biglaw attorneys are rich in my opinion. Even in this economy, the job security, pay, and benefits are matched or exceed only by a handful of other professions, and they're usually even more difficult to get into.I've been dirt poor in college and my family has been pretty well off for the last 15 years (not so much when I was young) and in my experience it doesn't really matter than much as long as you aren't worried about paying the bills but that might not be true for everyone.
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!! You clearly have never ever been to Atlanta if you think a starting salary of 160K won't get a young single Black guy plenty of hot women! You've officially outed yourself as a Northeastern WASP with this post!!! But honestly, even for female ethnic groups with a higher average income than Blacks and latinos, 160K in Houston/Atlanta etc. is still more than enough to pull "models and bottles" as you say. I'm not sure why you brought up models and bottles though.A&O wrote:I'm just seeing this other silly post from BruceWayne:
Nope. If you wanted the highest probability of improving your income significantly, you chose the wrong profession altogether. I stick by this claim. You seem to use enough xoxo lingo, so you should know this too: If you want money, law is not the field. I'm sorry the economic crisis hasn't taught this to you. Many of my fellow law students would be happy to tell you the same thing.Again, if you don't think law school/working at a big firm is a good way to substantially improve your income, you've been living in NYC for way too long.
Now you're just exaggerating. First, living in NYC is not so vastly financially different from living in other markets. The picture you paint is cute, but inaccurate. Second, law students shouldn't be expecting models & bottles in any market out of a top law school, even when in big law.The fact that there right really let's you know how unbelievably expensive New York is--you're practically paying to breath when you live there.
Does law school make financial sense? Maybe. It depends on a person's circumstances. It still makes financial sense to do BigLaw in NYC with the loans and the taxes. All I'm saying is, don't expect models & bottles.
You seem to want models & bottles. Hate to break to you, but that ain't happening in either Houston or Atlanta. Well, you might find some plus-sized models in Houston if you're into that sort of thing.
OMG man we're getting off topic but really? Atlanta doesn't lend itself to the models and bottles lifestyle? I know that you are probably not familiar with the hip hop culture and video models, but Atlanta is THE CAPITAL of the country for video models. Atlanta and Houston are loaded with clubs! There are a ton of entertainment/music celebrities that frequent Atlanta in particular. The city is loaded with sexy ethnic video models. And you yourself mentioned LA--which is 57 percent cheaper than NYC.A&O wrote:First, even according to that income calculator, you're not "paying to breathe" in NYC, as you so eloquently and graphically wrote in your original post.
Second, the "models and bottles" comment was primarily humorous in purpose, but I was referring more to the lifestyle. Atlanta and Houston, as suburb-oriented cities, don't really lend themselves to the "models and bottles" lifestyle: Clubbing, dating models, getting bottle service every night, hanging with celebrities. Those cities tend to be NYC, Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas, etc. Even if biglaw attorneys did make that kind of money, models and bottles would be impossible simply because of the work demands of a big law lawyer.
Third, regarding your actual calculator, those are based on averages and educated estimates. Since I've lived in both markets, and since I had big firm offers from both markets, I actually did the math. There wasn't a huge difference. NYC is certainly more expensive, but not to the level you're painting.
Try actually living here before commenting on how much it actually costs to live here. It's one thing to do the math in the abstract, it's another thing to be street-smart and to have lived in both places, and hence have intimate knowledge of what it takes to live in different cities. I hope you understand the difference.
This is incorrect. There are plenty of lucrative professions outside if biglaw that are available to state school graduates: engineering, information technology, dentistry, psychiatry, and (as you mentioned) medicine. Consulting and investment banking opportunities are available at (though harder to obtain from) state universities as well. One of my closest friends, who attended UT-Austin, just nabbed a position at Goldman Sachs in NYC. Not bad at all.Outside of medicine, law is the only field where someone from a modest background who went to an average school can work hard and quickly have access to a six figure salary. These ibanking, consulting, private equity etc. positions that you are probably considering a better avenue to high salaries are essentially cut off to those who didn't figure out at 18 that they needed to go to Yale. Top MBA programs and these elite financial companies won't accept someone who hasn't had elite WE; which generally requires that you were hired straight out of undergrad--which means you needed to go to an elite school to be recruited.
Even if you're billing 2,000 or so hours at your plush secondary market firm, you're still working something like 2,500 hours. That's still 52 hours a week (10 hours a day if you try to do it all in 5-day weeks, or 8.5 hours a day if you work on Saturdays).Firms in other markets work you hard but not with as many hours as NYC does. Hey it's the city that never sleeps right?!
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You're talking about UT-Austin like it's an average state school. That's one of the elite public universities; for people attending your average state or private university those jobs aren't happening. Dentistry and psychiatry don't count as they're a form of medicine. Engineering and IT require specialized majors and really don't compare to medicine and law salary wise. Not to mention people are outsourcing IT and engineering jobs like crazy.A&O wrote:This is incorrect. There are plenty of lucrative professions outside if biglaw that are available to state school graduates: engineering, information technology, dentistry, psychiatry, and (as you mentioned) medicine. Consulting and investment banking opportunities are available at (though harder to obtain from) state universities as well. One of my closest friends, who attended UT-Austin, just nabbed a position at Goldman Sachs in NYC. Not bad at all.Outside of medicine, law is the only field where someone from a modest background who went to an average school can work hard and quickly have access to a six figure salary. These ibanking, consulting, private equity etc. positions that you are probably considering a better avenue to high salaries are essentially cut off to those who didn't figure out at 18 that they needed to go to Yale. Top MBA programs and these elite financial companies won't accept someone who hasn't had elite WE; which generally requires that you were hired straight out of undergrad--which means you needed to go to an elite school to be recruited.
If you're a liberal arts major from a state school, yes, law is pretty much one of your only options for the possibility of making a huge sum of money. But, as I've been trying to state repeatedly in this thread, going to law school for just this reason is terrible. I know too many dissatisfied big firm attorneys, both in NYC and in secondary markets, who hate their lives because they went for that reason.
And keep in mind, I said that it's their only option for the possibility of making a huge sum of money. One shouldn't expect a big firm job. You will suffer through this yourself when you eventually interview, and you end up offer-less because no one can stand your personality. In the boom years, you might have survived, though.
You're going wild with the strawmans here. By the way, what are you a 2L? It's hilarious to me how people in there 2nd year of law school (or even third) start talking like they've been working at a law firm for years and somehow are in another league than a 1L. Then again that's part of the culture of TLS. Anyway I never said that working at a big firm in Houston is the equivalent to being a "lifestyle" firm--why do you like strawmans so much? But in comparison to somewhere like Sullivan or Kirkland NYC (let alone a firm like Cravath) it's a hell of a lot better.Even if you're billing 2,000 or so hours at your plush secondary market firm, you're still working something like 2,500 hours. That's still 52 hours a week (10 hours a day if you try to do it all in 5-day weeks, or 8.5 hours a day if you work on Saturdays).
But then again, you're a 1L. I would expect you to think that working at a big firm in Houston is the equivalent of working at a lifestyle firm. I eagerly await the day a firm, if any, bursts your happy little bubble.
It might be an elite state school, but it's not terribly difficult to get into, at all.You're talking about UT-Austin like it's an average state school. That's one of the elite public universities; for people attending your average state or private university those jobs aren't happening. Dentistry and psychiatry don't count as they're a form of medicine. Engineering and IT require specialized majors and really don't compare to medicine and law salary wise. Not to mention people are outsourcing IT and engineering jobs like crazy.
I never said Cravath, Kirkland, or Sullivan were better in terms of hours. You seemed to imply that you can somehow have time for life outside of biglaw like at a big firm in Houston. That's incorrect. Biglaw hours are bad anywhere, they're just worse in a place like NYC.You're going wild with the strawmans here. By the way, what are you a 2L? Anyway I never said that working at a big firm in Houston is the equivalent to being a "lifestyle" firm--why do you like strawmans so much? But in comparison to somewhere like Sullivan or Kirkland NYC (let alone a firm like Cravath) it's a hell of a lot better.
Shoot, 9 hours a day for 6 days a week might not leave a lot of free time but it is far from soul crushing and it is actually pretty good for the type of money lawyers make.A&O wrote:I never said Cravath, Kirkland, or Sullivan were better in terms of hours. You seemed to imply that you can somehow have time for life outside of biglaw like at a big firm in Houston. That's incorrect. Biglaw hours are bad anywhere, they're just worse in a place like NYC.You're going wild with the strawmans here. By the way, what are you a 2L? Anyway I never said that working at a big firm in Houston is the equivalent to being a "lifestyle" firm--why do you like strawmans so much? But in comparison to somewhere like Sullivan or Kirkland NYC (let alone a firm like Cravath) it's a hell of a lot better.
PS: I'm a 3L.
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BruceWayne wrote:You're talking about UT-Austin like it's an average state school. That's one of the elite public universities; for people attending your average state or private university those jobs aren't happening. Dentistry and psychiatry don't count as they're a form of medicine. Engineering and IT require specialized majors and really don't compare to medicine and law salary wise. Not to mention people are outsourcing IT and engineering jobs like crazy.A&O wrote:This is incorrect. There are plenty of lucrative professions outside if biglaw that are available to state school graduates: engineering, information technology, dentistry, psychiatry, and (as you mentioned) medicine. Consulting and investment banking opportunities are available at (though harder to obtain from) state universities as well. One of my closest friends, who attended UT-Austin, just nabbed a position at Goldman Sachs in NYC. Not bad at all.Outside of medicine, law is the only field where someone from a modest background who went to an average school can work hard and quickly have access to a six figure salary. These ibanking, consulting, private equity etc. positions that you are probably considering a better avenue to high salaries are essentially cut off to those who didn't figure out at 18 that they needed to go to Yale. Top MBA programs and these elite financial companies won't accept someone who hasn't had elite WE; which generally requires that you were hired straight out of undergrad--which means you needed to go to an elite school to be recruited.
If you're a liberal arts major from a state school, yes, law is pretty much one of your only options for the possibility of making a huge sum of money. But, as I've been trying to state repeatedly in this thread, going to law school for just this reason is terrible. I know too many dissatisfied big firm attorneys, both in NYC and in secondary markets, who hate their lives because they went for that reason.
And keep in mind, I said that it's their only option for the possibility of making a huge sum of money. One shouldn't expect a big firm job. You will suffer through this yourself when you eventually interview, and you end up offer-less because no one can stand your personality. In the boom years, you might have survived, though.
You're going wild with the strawmans here. By the way, what are you a 2L? It's hilarious to me how people in there 2nd year of law school (or even third) start talking like they've been working at a law firm for years and somehow are in another league than a 1L. Then again that's part of the culture of TLS. Anyway I never said that working at a big firm in Houston is the equivalent to being a "lifestyle" firm--why do you like strawmans so much? But in comparison to somewhere like Sullivan or Kirkland NYC (let alone a firm like Cravath) it's a hell of a lot better.Even if you're billing 2,000 or so hours at your plush secondary market firm, you're still working something like 2,500 hours. That's still 52 hours a week (10 hours a day if you try to do it all in 5-day weeks, or 8.5 hours a day if you work on Saturdays).
But then again, you're a 1L. I would expect you to think that working at a big firm in Houston is the equivalent of working at a lifestyle firm. I eagerly await the day a firm, if any, bursts your happy little bubble.
I think I should know how expensive it is since i live there. 160,000 a year is plenty of money. I live comfortably on 50,000 salary not to mention that there is at least 70% of residents who make less than 50,000 a year.BruceWayne wrote:Either you have a fundamental misunderstanding of "entitlement" or you've been living in NYC for too long. Outside of certain parts of California there is nowhere else in the country where you would be making that much money and working that much--yet taking home such a small percentage. You're essentially paying to say that you are living in NYC when you choose to live there. Ask your average blue collar American if they would choose to have a salary of 160K drop all the way to 40K just so they could say they're "cool" and live in NYC. I know you don't realize this but most people work their entire lives to make 160K, ask them how they feel about losing 80 percent of that just so they can say they live in NYC.A&O wrote:This is a weird sense of entitlement. If you want models and bottles, you chose the wrong profession (and you're targeting the wrong market too).Why the hell would you work your ass off at a top law school to end up working 70+ hours a week so that you can live "comfortably"?
Oh... I don't know... to be a lawyer????
Again, if you went into law school expecting to substantially improve your income, you did the math wrong.
And I agree, I think $160,000 in NYC, even after taxes and loans, is a huge chunk of change.
Again, if you don't think law school/working at a big firm is a good way to substantially improve your income, you've been living in NYC for way too long. You're out of touch with what a 160K salary should be able to buy you because your idea of what things should cost is based on a NYC cost standard. NYC and California are about the only places in the nation where that kind of salary doesn't substantially improve your income.
I'm beginning to understand why so many people on here think going to law school is a terrible idea for making good money--even when they can go to a school like Yale. It's because many of them are thinking about doing it in the context of working in NYC. The fact that there right really let's you know how unbelievably expensive New York is--you're practically paying to breath when you live there.
Lol.. TBF, you seem pretty dumb yourself when you say stuff like this.APimpNamedSlickback wrote:
you missed my point. also, you seem dumb.
also, i am already in law school. ok i think i am just going to talk to you like a child. tsk tsk, jumping to conclusions is NOT very lawyerly!
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Banking positions are NOT a ticket to success. With those positions you become slave to sales, and not everyone with a degree in business is made for sales. Actually most people do not posses qualifications needed to be a sales person. Those positions are all about how many clients you have; you need to find your own clients, and continue bringing business to bank to stay successful, and continue to have your job. They are demanding and do not pay as much as big law. Not even close.A&O wrote:This is incorrect. There are plenty of lucrative professions outside if biglaw that are available to state school graduates: engineering, information technology, dentistry, psychiatry, and (as you mentioned) medicine. Consulting and investment banking opportunities are available at (though harder to obtain from) state universities as well. One of my closest friends, who attended UT-Austin, just nabbed a position at Goldman Sachs in NYC. Not bad at all.Outside of medicine, law is the only field where someone from a modest background who went to an average school can work hard and quickly have access to a six figure salary. These ibanking, consulting, private equity etc. positions that you are probably considering a better avenue to high salaries are essentially cut off to those who didn't figure out at 18 that they needed to go to Yale. Top MBA programs and these elite financial companies won't accept someone who hasn't had elite WE; which generally requires that you were hired straight out of undergrad--which means you needed to go to an elite school to be recruited.
If you're a liberal arts major from a state school, yes, law is pretty much one of your only options for the possibility of making a huge sum of money. But, as I've been trying to state repeatedly in this thread, going to law school for just this reason is terrible. I know too many dissatisfied big firm attorneys, both in NYC and in secondary markets, who hate their lives because they went for that reason.
And keep in mind, I said that it's their only option for the possibility of making a huge sum of money. One shouldn't expect a big firm job. You will suffer through this yourself when you eventually interview, and you end up offer-less because no one can stand your personality. In the boom years, you might have survived, though.
No one enjoys doing legal work. And you certainly have no idea if you will as you have not done the job yet. I did go to law school to substantially improve my income and my income has been substantially improved.A&O wrote:Oh... I don't know... to be a lawyer???? You enjoy being an attorney? You enjoy doing legal work?I don't think that is a weird sense of entitlement. Law school is a very large investment of time and money. If you are not substantially improving your income than law school was a poor investment. I feel the same way about working 70 hours a week: if I am not earning a six figure salary, then what the hell am I doing working that much?
Again, if you went into law school expecting to substantially improve your income, you did the math wrong.
And I agree, I think $160,000 in NYC, even after taxes and loans, is a huge chunk of change.
Look, voyager:No one enjoys doing legal work.
So this means that if you go to law school to substantially improve your income, your income should be substantially improved?I did go to law school to substantially improve my income and my income has been substantially improved.
If the person's goal was to earn more money, then yes, that person is probably an idiot. If the person's goal was to do legal work, then no. It's shocking, yet telling, that you view this purely in terms of dollars and cents.If YOU dropped 200K + 3 years of lost wages in order to earn the same amount of money you are an idiot.
If you consider $160,000 "just getting by," then I honestly don't think law school is for you. I'd instead suggest getting into another field, such as plastic surgery, being DeSean Jackson, or inheritance receipt.lolschool2011 wrote: Hear me out Proletariat/Patriot (you deserve that for f-bomb drop).... we've established that 160k post-tax is about 100k/year... lets say 8k/month. Even if I was slightly exaggerating what a "nice" (again, a relative idea) 1br would run in NYC, 8k/month really isn't that much dough.
After a 3k apartment, 1k student loan payment, lets say you enjoy having a car w/insurance, parking, utilities, cable, food, enterainment, dry cleaning, and an attempt to aproximate the semblance of "saving" something per month, etc, etc.... 160k seems, at least to me, just getting by in a city like NYC.
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