Biglawyers. Are any of you happy? Was this job better than others you've had? Forum

[whysoseriousbiglaw]

mods feel free to delete this if i'm overstepping as a 0L but purely chiming in on the CS debacle,

as someone who was/is a CS major in undergrad and who's been through recruiting and had summer gigs, it's definitely not as rosy as you guys make it out to be.

the 100k entry jobs are pretty unicorn, generally reserved for the stanfy/princeton/top UG people that excel

for the big names like apple/google/facebook/microsoft/amazon/etc., you're looking at 35/hour or around 70k salary typically and these positions still take either connections or you to actually be really good.
mind you, you're competing with people from better schools and the lunatics who have been coding since they were like 12 or some shit

more common is working for some random firm like in insurance/etc. being an IT/QA/Dev grunt where you're getting paid anywhere between 10-20 an hour

coming out of a mid-tier UC think UCSD/UCD/UCSB/UCI which for you prestige whores are placed reasonably well on the USNWR rankings, i can think of less than 10 people in my class who placed into the big name firms

According to this the top 3 schools for computer science starting salary pay are Stanford (90k), Berkeley (82k) and MIT (82k) (and also Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, etc.). No where does it even mention Princeton, and a bunch of random schools are also listed. UCSD's also in the top (average of 70k).

http://www.ics.uci.edu/community/news/a ... cle?id=299

And its source: Payscale.com
lmfao @ UCBSB > Stanford = UCI

Tied at mid career salary - maybe that's true. Your career trajectory after a couple of years has a lot less to do with your school. For starting Stanford is at 90k while UCI is at 64k and UCSB is at 68k.

As another example, here's Berkeley's EECS information. Starting salary for a bachelor's degree for Class of 2014 is 104k.

https://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/departmen ... tics.shtml

[LA Spring]

It really depends on the cases/work you’re given. Good cases are motivating and enjoyable. Another upside is the camaraderie. Also, down the road age is not disqualifying as it was in modeling (where age is eventually problematic). While the competition in law is fierce, it’s much worse in other fields. Plus, the pay in law is excellent and steady.

[dabigchina]

,,,,

[jbagelboy]

Hell, if any of us were smart enough to make it through a CS major in undergrad, we prob would have rolled with that.

You are greatly exaggerating the difficulty of undergraduate computer science courses.

even my highschool AP compsci course is harder than my law school classes.

I've had a few law school exams that were objectively the hardest tests I've ever taken, if you combine knowledge, analytic competence, writing ability, and timing (obviously if we had a full day for any law exam it would be easy to flush out). More difficult than AP exams/courses or college exams (and one of my majors was mathematics, at a top private college). Other law exams have been simpler. The curve skews everything because a "difficult" or "easy" exam is tough or simple for everyone.

[jbagelboy]

And yes I've taken physics e&m, PDEs, real analysis, statistical theory, number theory, advanced econometrics, computer modeling courses, ect. If you're intuitive with algebraic, numeric and proof-driven concepts, it's not so daunting (although obviously there were some problems I could just never solve, but that's a different meaning of 'challenge'). I wasn't particularly good at math or any of the applications but I never thought it was so hard I couldn't have learned it.

I still think my 2L corporations or 3L antitrust exams, for example, were actually more demanding. And I studied harder for those law exams than any STEM or economics test or problem set.

[wiz]

mods feel free to delete this if i'm overstepping as a 0L but purely chiming in on the CS debacle,

as someone who was/is a CS major in undergrad and who's been through recruiting and had summer gigs, it's definitely not as rosy as you guys make it out to be.

the 100k entry jobs are pretty unicorn, generally reserved for the stanfy/princeton/top UG people that excel

for the big names like apple/google/facebook/microsoft/amazon/etc., you're looking at 35/hour or around 70k salary typically and these positions still take either connections or you to actually be really good.
mind you, you're competing with people from better schools and the lunatics who have been coding since they were like 12 or some shit

more common is working for some random firm like in insurance/etc. being an IT/QA/Dev grunt where you're getting paid anywhere between 10-20 an hour

coming out of a mid-tier UC think UCSD/UCD/UCSB/UCI which for you prestige whores are placed reasonably well on the USNWR rankings, i can think of less than 10 people in my class who placed into the big name firms

by and far the majority of people don't know what they're doing and are either still looking for full time work or are at some run of the mill place

furthermore, even after landing a decent gig, you still have to enjoy it.
the $35/hour entry salary isn't shit when you're in the bay area and you'll be hard pressed to find matching salaries in better cost of living places.

the work, like i imagine big-law, is entirely dependent on your preferences but i personally hated it.
i was lucky enough to land one of the big names for a summer in seattle but i ultimately ended up passing on it to study for the lsat because i really couldn't see myself as a perpetual codemonkey.

there's other jobs that are more fun in tech like business analysts and project managers but most of the recruiting at the non-top tier schools is done purely for the code monkey jobs that are more mechanical in nature.
and remember that even for the pure engineering/devwork jobs at the top firms there's ridiculous competition especially among the non-targets

It's pretty hard to get a comp package at MSFT/AAPL/GOOG/FB for less than 100k.

L59 (bottom of the totem pole) at Microsoft is already 100-108k base + 50-100k stock (vesting over 4-5 years) + 10-15k sign on bonus + 10-20k performance bonus. If you work in SV, it's even higher because of COL.

[dabigchina]

.....

[candidlatke]

stuff about salaries

It's pretty hard to get a comp package at MSFT/AAPL/GOOG/FB for less than 100k.

L59 (bottom of the totem pole) at Microsoft is already 100-108k base + 50-100k stock (vesting over 4-5 years) + 10-15k sign on bonus + 10-20k performance bonus. If you work in SV, it's even higher because of COL.

where are you getting these figures from?
quick google for http://www.jobs-salary.com/microsoft-so ... salary.htm
shows at 75k without any mention of stock options/bonuses

and generally SV/washington salaries are similar

i can't speak to the FT positions that confidently (take this with a grain of salt) because i forwent that path but unless things have changed drastically, SA salaries are prorated based off of first year salaries akin to big law

$35/hour -> 70k~ starting is the de facto standard for SV/washington for the reputable firms with oddballs like quallcolm/vmware as the DPW's of the tech companies

and yeah like i said if you go to a top tier you're going to be starting off a lot higher mostly because the firms are bidding for you and they want you to pick them over others.
stanford? yea you're gonna get stock options
berkeley? yeah probably unless you utterly screw the pooch

but as you go down the list, the firms have fewer and fewer openings and instead now you're trying to bid for the firms.
at this point they can afford you to just offer the skeleton package because that's the best you're gonna get

ug means jack shit to mid-career salaries cos for the most part, you're going to be headhunted/recruited based off your skills/experience/projects you've been on
after you've been around, you're going to be able to leverage/negotiate salaries based off of prior salaries but the nature of tech makes this discussion more dependent on the languages/skills/experience you've gained

if you wanna link funny statistics, i got one here too.
http://www.oir.uci.edu/files/surveys/Se ... esults.pdf
scroll down to page 3
reread row B a couple of times

[Johann]

you can make 75k working for Epic Healthcare software with no computer coding experience and just some basic logic/math skills. That's in cheap COL wisconsin. you are obviously wrong hence why you left coding for law like only an idiot would do.

[wiz]

stuff about salaries

It's pretty hard to get a comp package at MSFT/AAPL/GOOG/FB for less than 100k.

L59 (bottom of the totem pole) at Microsoft is already 100-108k base + 50-100k stock (vesting over 4-5 years) + 10-15k sign on bonus + 10-20k performance bonus. If you work in SV, it's even higher because of COL.

where are you getting these figures from?
quick google for http://www.jobs-salary.com/microsoft-so ... salary.htm
shows at 75k without any mention of stock options/bonuses

and generally SV/washington salaries are similar

i can't speak to the FT positions that confidently (take this with a grain of salt) because i forwent that path but unless things have changed drastically, SA salaries are prorated based off of first year salaries akin to big law

$35/hour -> 70k~ starting is the de facto standard for SV/washington for the reputable firms with oddballs like quallcolm/vmware as the DPW's of the tech companies

and yeah like i said if you go to a top tier you're going to be starting off a lot higher mostly because the firms are bidding for you and they want you to pick them over others.
stanford? yea you're gonna get stock options
berkeley? yeah probably unless you utterly screw the pooch

but as you go down the list, the firms have fewer and fewer openings and instead now you're trying to bid for the firms.
at this point they can afford you to just offer the skeleton package because that's the best you're gonna get

ug means jack shit to mid-career salaries cos for the most part, you're going to be headhunted/recruited based off your skills/experience/projects you've been on
after you've been around, you're going to be able to leverage/negotiate salaries based off of prior salaries but the nature of tech makes this discussion more dependent on the languages/skills/experience you've gained

if you wanna link funny statistics, i got one here too.
http://www.oir.uci.edu/files/surveys/Se ... esults.pdf
scroll down to page 3
reread row B a couple of times

Dude, that salary is from 2003 (shortly after the tech bubble burst). Back when biglaw was at 130k.

I'm getting these figures from personal knowledge. You're right that stock can be variable, but your 70k figure is way low for the Microsoft/Apple/Google/Facebook tier. And you're getting seriously hosed if you don't get stock from one of those companies (I've never heard of it happening). They're like the V5 of tech companies. Why would they pay 70k?

[wiz]

you can make 75k working for Epic Healthcare software with no computer coding experience and just some basic logic/math skills. That's in cheap COL wisconsin. you are obviously wrong hence why you left coding for law like only an idiot would do.

[candidlatke]

Dude, that salary is from 2003 (shortly after the tech bubble burst). Back when biglaw was at 130k.

I'm getting these figures from personal knowledge. You're right that stock can be variable, but your 70k figure is way low for the Microsoft/Apple/Google/Facebook tier. And you're getting seriously hosed if you don't get stock from one of those companies (I've never heard of it happening). They're like the V5 of tech companies. Why would they pay 70k?

oh shit you're right, sorry it's been a long day and i was lazy in googling.

as i mentioned earlier, i don't have quite as much knowledge about ft compensation but about the pay rate, i'm pretty sure that the base pay is also variable depending on pedigree kinda like how targets and non-targets in IB are paid differently

and openings/opportunities are entirely dependent here as well


bottom line i was trying to get at was:

the figures that everyone likes to tout are generally best case scenarios from target schools.
if you come from a school with heavy tech recruiting like berkeley/stanford/princeton/harvard/cmu/flagship state schools/etc. then sure the opportunities to make it big in tech are there.

but for those who don't come from a target school, it's a very uphill battle that may or may not be feasible so it's not fair to say "oh yeah you should have just did cs and made 6 figures easy out of ug"

[Cogburn87]

Hell, if any of us were smart enough to make it through a CS major in undergrad, we prob would have rolled with that.

You are greatly exaggerating the difficulty of undergraduate computer science courses.

even my highschool AP compsci course is harder than my law school classes.

Great. But your statement was more or less "no one who goes to law school would be smart enough to handle comp sci classes," which is pretty dumb.

[AReasonableMan]

Hell, if any of us were smart enough to make it through a CS major in undergrad, we prob would have rolled with that.

You are greatly exaggerating the difficulty of undergraduate computer science courses.

even my highschool AP compsci course is harder than my law school classes.

Great. But your statement was more or less "no one who goes to law school would be smart enough to handle comp sci classes," which is pretty dumb.

Law isn't really comparable, because in most of the sciences, if you understand what you're doing then you're marketable. Because law is predicated on fairly simple logic, knowing what you're doing isn't necessarily sufficient. It may be easy to pull median anywhere, but it's not easy to pull A's at a top law school.

[Anonymous User]

99 percent of people are not happy and hate their job. Biglaw isn't perfect but it is one of the few jobs that actually requires intellectual thought. Is it perfect? No. But guess what I hang out with friends who get paid 30k for worse hours and hate their job. These friends have to worry about money constantly. I never do.

Bottom line: Biglaw may suck in its own ways but try find friends outside Biglaw and your law school class, 99 percent of them would switch spots with you in a heartbeat.

[orangecup]

I'm getting these figures from personal knowledge. You're right that stock can be variable, but your 70k figure is way low for the Microsoft/Apple/Google/Facebook tier. And you're getting seriously hosed if you don't get stock from one of those companies (I've never heard of it happening). They're like the V5 of tech companies. Why would they pay 70k?

Pretty much this. They had out stock options to people like candy.A lot of non-technical jobs at MSFT pay over 70k and provide stock options, 401k, etc. There are so many people in my friend's group who went to an unknown UG with a liberal arts degree and landed support jobs getting packages around there or above.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a year and a half in at a standard big law firm, transactional, and absolutely miserable. My hours are objectively bad compared to my 9-5 friends, but not bad by big law standards.

The real issue with transactional big law is the work. It's mind-numbing paper pushing and, most importantly, doesn't get better. You're not "putting in your dues" on the way to a better position. Even the most senior partners are pushing paper with client management responsibility. By the time work gets to a transactional lawyer the business people have ironed out what actually matters.

If you have other prospects don't go, although litigation seems marginally better.

Switch to tax my friend

If only it were that easy. Funny you should say that because I liked my tax classes the most but was already headed to a firm with a small tax group not taking a first year. At this point I'm confident law just isn't a good fit, though. I never had that risk-averse personality and don't see myself working for someone else the rest of my career. Now it's all about banking off this high salary as long as possible.

[Johann]

I'm getting these figures from personal knowledge. You're right that stock can be variable, but your 70k figure is way low for the Microsoft/Apple/Google/Facebook tier. And you're getting seriously hosed if you don't get stock from one of those companies (I've never heard of it happening). They're like the V5 of tech companies. Why would they pay 70k?

Pretty much this. They had out stock options to people like candy.A lot of non-technical jobs at MSFT pay over 70k and provide stock options, 401k, etc. There are so many people in my friend's group who went to an unknown UG with a liberal arts degree and landed support jobs getting packages around there or above.

my buddy works in basic HR support at Google with just an undergrad degree. Paid for his wifes 200k law school debt with his stock like it was nothing. he graduated in 2004. if i set the over under at money he had made from stock in the last 10 years at 750k, id take the over.

[Anonymous User]

Accounting doesn't get enough attention in these posts. Why is it always CS? I did public accounting for a few years followed by a couple years in inhouse corporate finance before massively fucking up from a professional standpoint and going to law school. Most of my college friends that stayed on that track had a PT MBA paid for and now make what a junior big law associate does for 9-5 and no weekends. And their jobs are both more interesting and actually add real value beyond pushing paperwork in a transactional big law group. And their upside is higher if they want to chase upper management. And the entry level jobs in this field are easy to get out of even an average college.

To the people that think having good coworkers makes big law tolerable, how much are you actually billing? There is a tiny fraction of the socializing being done in big law in my experience compared with my prior career due to the constant unrelenting pressure of bill bill bill. A minute not billing is another minute you have to spend in that office churning out paperwork to build someone else's business. It makes for a terrible work environment.

[orangecup]

I'm getting these figures from personal knowledge. You're right that stock can be variable, but your 70k figure is way low for the Microsoft/Apple/Google/Facebook tier. And you're getting seriously hosed if you don't get stock from one of those companies (I've never heard of it happening). They're like the V5 of tech companies. Why would they pay 70k?

Pretty much this. They had out stock options to people like candy.A lot of non-technical jobs at MSFT pay over 70k and provide stock options, 401k, etc. There are so many people in my friend's group who went to an unknown UG with a liberal arts degree and landed support jobs getting packages around there or above.

my buddy works in basic HR support at Google with just an undergrad degree. Paid for his wifes 200k law school debt with his stock like it was nothing. he graduated in 2004. if i set the over under at money he had made from stock in the last 10 years at 750k, id take the over.

Sounds about right. And to think I was considering computer science when entering law school. Now I have 180k in debt and get to work in big law slavery.

I see so many of my friends from UG bringing in all that cash without debt working at Google, FB, MSFT, etc.

[whats an updog]

Most entry level programming gigs definitely do not start at 100k

there are perks that make it better than any blue collar job. For one, you're indoors in a comfortable office with an endless supply of water.

lol'd

[Dafaq]

Other than “yes” on happiness, not much to add other than I don’t know anyone who seems routinely dissatisfied. Tuition debt payments are manageable; debt will be paid off soon enough. I know a Trust fund baby who dropped out of law school and is having a great time with his world traveling fun-loving trophy wife. I also know a couple lawyers who wished their band had hit it big ― I imagine that would have been preferable to working in the law.

[Anonymous User]

Accounting doesn't get enough attention in these posts. Why is it always CS? I did public accounting for a few years followed by a couple years in inhouse corporate finance before massively fucking up from a professional standpoint and going to law school. Most of my college friends that stayed on that track had a PT MBA paid for and now make what a junior big law associate does for 9-5 and no weekends. And their jobs are both more interesting and actually add real value beyond pushing paperwork in a transactional big law group. And their upside is higher if they want to chase upper management. And the entry level jobs in this field are easy to get out of even an average college.

To the people that think having good coworkers makes big law tolerable, how much are you actually billing? There is a tiny fraction of the socializing being done in big law in my experience compared with my prior career due to the constant unrelenting pressure of bill bill bill. A minute not billing is another minute you have to spend in that office churning out paperwork to build someone else's business. It makes for a terrible work environment.

I was a "rockstar" big4 manager. Four year promotion, leadership conferences, the whole shebang. I can honestly say your evaluation is way too rosy. They don't hand out 130k internal finance jobs like candy like you seem to suggest. Fuck, I was only making 90k base and the firm was desperate to retain me. I could have exited to maybe 110, tops. The best part is after you exit to industry you more or less stop getting raises.

Sure, if you make it to manager you have a pretty decent shot at it, but making it to manager means working biglaw hours while getting paid 60k a year in NY/SF, less elsewhere.

Also, ljl at accounting work being interesting at any level. Fucking partners at my firm were still reviewing tax returns (and this was a major market big4). The work is not interesting for these people.

[Johann]

Accounting doesn't get enough attention in these posts. Why is it always CS? I did public accounting for a few years followed by a couple years in inhouse corporate finance before massively fucking up from a professional standpoint and going to law school. Most of my college friends that stayed on that track had a PT MBA paid for and now make what a junior big law associate does for 9-5 and no weekends. And their jobs are both more interesting and actually add real value beyond pushing paperwork in a transactional big law group. And their upside is higher if they want to chase upper management. And the entry level jobs in this field are easy to get out of even an average college.

To the people that think having good coworkers makes big law tolerable, how much are you actually billing? There is a tiny fraction of the socializing being done in big law in my experience compared with my prior career due to the constant unrelenting pressure of bill bill bill. A minute not billing is another minute you have to spend in that office churning out paperwork to build someone else's business. It makes for a terrible work environment.

I was a "rockstar" big4 manager. Four year promotion, leadership conferences, the whole shebang. I can honestly say your evaluation is way too rosy. They don't hand out 130k internal finance jobs like candy like you seem to suggest. Fuck, I was only making 90k base and the firm was desperate to retain me. I could have exited to maybe 110, tops. The best part is after you exit to industry you more or less stop getting raises.

Sure, if you make it to manager you have a pretty decent shot at it, but making it to manager means working biglaw hours while getting paid 60k a year in NY/SF, less elsewhere.

Also, ljl at accounting work being interesting at any level. Fucking partners at my firm were still reviewing tax returns (and this was a major market big4). The work is not interesting for these people.

yeah accounting has 2 routes imo. there are people that use a Macc and CPA to leverage their skills into strategy roles very quickly and there are people who stay doing accounting work. ive got friends on both sides and have talked to many/networked with many people on the strategy side. the strategy side (which the first poster seems to be referring to) is awesome. 6 figure pay, and 45 hour weeks for the most part for big companies or more like 35 hour week for a nice 70k paycheck in cheap COL towns. accounting is terrible though. it is law lite. they put in absurd hours and are also in the service industry getting fucked for less pay.

but yes Macc + part time MBA is a winning combination and allows you to do lots of cool things.

[Cogburn87]

99 percent of people are not happy and hate their job. Biglaw isn't perfect but it is one of the few jobs that actually requires intellectual thought. Is it perfect? No. But guess what I hang out with friends who get paid 30k for worse hours and hate their job. These friends have to worry about money constantly. I never do.

Bottom line: Biglaw may suck in its own ways but try find friends outside Biglaw and your law school class, 99 percent of them would switch spots with you in a heartbeat.

This is a really dumb rationalization. You deserve unhappiness.