How do BigLaw partners spend all their money? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I went to a great public school in a rich NYC suburb (think Scarsdale, Greenwich, Darien, et cetera), and we used to laugh at the expense of the dumb rich kids nearby whose parents had to buy them special passage to good colleges via the private schools. The main targets were places like Dwight School or Choate, which have that kind of airheaded reputation; less true of places like Andover & Exeter that are known for being academically rigorous.

Anyways, it is funny (cosmically just) that partners end up with a ton of money but relatively little time in which to enjoy it. Are divorce rates and dysfunctional families actually more prevalent in BL?

[ZVBXRPL]

Income partner at a big firm. Between a mortgage on a 3-bedroom house in a HCOL area that cost nearly $2 million, various repairs/improvements to the house, and spending 60% of my paycheck on estimated taxes and mandatory profit-sharing contributions, it genuinely feels like I am living paycheck to paycheck some months.

My wife and I make about $175k between the two of us, have a kid, live in the NYC area, and still manage to save tens of thousands per year. I genuinely don't understand how people in your position can claim to live paycheck to paycheck. I grew up in a household with an income below $20k. That was paycheck to paycheck.

Great thread here. Make more spend more so not making more. That’s it. You are careful and wise partner may not be.

[ZVBXRPL]

Why not buy an annuity? You can afford a modest annuity that pays monthly. Sure the fees are high, but it solves your cash flow lumpiness issue. Better yet, why not self annuitize? I really find it hard to believe your portfolio allocation is cash flow efficient and optimal and this is a pretty solvable problem.

There are good lawyers who just aren't very good with money. I once had a biglaw partner confide in me that they had seven figures in their checking account because they were afraid of investing. Obviously, that person isn't living paycheck to paycheck, but literally left millions of dollars on the table - mostly out of financial ignorance.

You're writing some great posts in this thread. I think many people underappreciate how bad financial literacy is among lawyers (like anyone else). I'm fairly financially savvy for {reasons} and so I've gotten a reputation at my firm as someone to come to for financial advice re investing, tax strategy etc. You wouldn't believe the number of lawyers who just take their extra money and stick it in a checking account. No awareness of tax protection, trusts, basics of investing, retirement saving, etc. I've seen 7-figure checking accounts. No one ever taught them what to do with the money even though they're making plenty of it.

What do you suggest we do with money in our checking accounts?

[Anonymous User]

Why not buy an annuity? You can afford a modest annuity that pays monthly. Sure the fees are high, but it solves your cash flow lumpiness issue. Better yet, why not self annuitize? I really find it hard to believe your portfolio allocation is cash flow efficient and optimal and this is a pretty solvable problem.

There are good lawyers who just aren't very good with money. I once had a biglaw partner confide in me that they had seven figures in their checking account because they were afraid of investing. Obviously, that person isn't living paycheck to paycheck, but literally left millions of dollars on the table - mostly out of financial ignorance.

You're writing some great posts in this thread. I think many people underappreciate how bad financial literacy is among lawyers (like anyone else). I'm fairly financially savvy for {reasons} and so I've gotten a reputation at my firm as someone to come to for financial advice re investing, tax strategy etc. You wouldn't believe the number of lawyers who just take their extra money and stick it in a checking account. No awareness of tax protection, trusts, basics of investing, retirement saving, etc. I've seen 7-figure checking accounts. No one ever taught them what to do with the money even though they're making plenty of it.

What do you suggest we do with money in our checking accounts?

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Boglehe ... philosophy

Godspeed.

[Wanderingdrock]

Why not buy an annuity? You can afford a modest annuity that pays monthly. Sure the fees are high, but it solves your cash flow lumpiness issue. Better yet, why not self annuitize? I really find it hard to believe your portfolio allocation is cash flow efficient and optimal and this is a pretty solvable problem.

There are good lawyers who just aren't very good with money. I once had a biglaw partner confide in me that they had seven figures in their checking account because they were afraid of investing. Obviously, that person isn't living paycheck to paycheck, but literally left millions of dollars on the table - mostly out of financial ignorance.

You're writing some great posts in this thread. I think many people underappreciate how bad financial literacy is among lawyers (like anyone else). I'm fairly financially savvy for {reasons} and so I've gotten a reputation at my firm as someone to come to for financial advice re investing, tax strategy etc. You wouldn't believe the number of lawyers who just take their extra money and stick it in a checking account. No awareness of tax protection, trusts, basics of investing, retirement saving, etc. I've seen 7-figure checking accounts. No one ever taught them what to do with the money even though they're making plenty of it.

What do you suggest we do with money in our checking accounts?

Depends in part on how much you have, what your risk tolerance is, and what your expenses are, but generally you should be considering first whether that money should have reached your checking account in the first place (are you maxing deductions), once it hit your checking account was there somewhere tax-advantaged you could have been putting it (IRAs, potentially 529s, etc.), and finally taxable investments.

[Anonymous User]

If you ever have kids in nyc, you'll learn that the competition to get into the "right" public school is intense. Unlike other major cities, or even the nyc suburbs, geographic proximity is not even close to a guarantee for kindergarten, which leads to cascading anxiety over getting into the right middle or high school. If you have the resources, it's easier to network (and pay) into the right private system so that you avoid the stress.

In turn, whether you go public or private, the schooling system here becomes a mini-gladiator showdown that is constantly fed every year by children of high net worth individuals from every industry, including law firm partners. It's not inconceivable to me that some of these people are spending hundreds of thousands per child just on education.

[Anonymous User]

Is the school competition as bad in LA/SF? I've never heard of good california private schools (besides Harvard-Westlake)

[Sackboy]

Is the school competition as bad in LA/SF? I've never heard of good california private schools (besides Harvard-Westlake)

Not Harvard-Westlake level but Head-Royce and Harker are considered good private schools in California with some pretty notable alumni. I'm sure there are others. I don't live in CA, but I have friends who have attended the three I've mentioned.

[Anonymous User]

Profile of the typical mid-level to senior San Francisco partners at my firm:

• Seem to live in beautifully appointed 2,000 - 3,500 square foot homes in Marin, Berkeley/Oakland Hills, or maybe in one of the quieter SF neighborhoods (Lake District, Twin Peaks area etc). A couple of more conservative partners live in mansions way out in the Far East Bay, like Alamo, Lafayette, Danville. The older partners maybe bought their homes for under $ 2M twenty years ago while the younger partners likely spent between $2 and $4M on their homes.

• Most partners drive Subarus, Priuses, Volvos, with flashier partners driving mid-level BMW/Mercedes/Tesla.

• A lot of the partners own second homes in Wine Country or Tahoe

• No rhyme or reason to which partners kids go to private school and which go to public school. Seems to be a matter of personal preference. Similarly, some partners kids go to Cal Poly SLO type schools and plenty of partners kids go to Stanford/Harvard etc

• The most obviously wealthy partners often have spouses that made it big in one of the tech booms

Anyways, they all seem less like rich people from succession or billions and more like rich people from a Nancy Meyers movie.

[Anonymous User]

Why not buy an annuity? You can afford a modest annuity that pays monthly. Sure the fees are high, but it solves your cash flow lumpiness issue. Better yet, why not self annuitize? I really find it hard to believe your portfolio allocation is cash flow efficient and optimal and this is a pretty solvable problem.

There are good lawyers who just aren't very good with money. I once had a biglaw partner confide in me that they had seven figures in their checking account because they were afraid of investing. Obviously, that person isn't living paycheck to paycheck, but literally left millions of dollars on the table - mostly out of financial ignorance.

You're writing some great posts in this thread. I think many people underappreciate how bad financial literacy is among lawyers (like anyone else). I'm fairly financially savvy for {reasons} and so I've gotten a reputation at my firm as someone to come to for financial advice re investing, tax strategy etc. You wouldn't believe the number of lawyers who just take their extra money and stick it in a checking account. No awareness of tax protection, trusts, basics of investing, retirement saving, etc. I've seen 7-figure checking accounts. No one ever taught them what to do with the money even though they're making plenty of it.

What do you suggest we do with money in our checking accounts?

Depends in part on how much you have, what your risk tolerance is, and what your expenses are, but generally you should be considering first whether that money should have reached your checking account in the first place (are you maxing deductions), once it hit your checking account was there somewhere tax-advantaged you could have been putting it (IRAs, potentially 529s, etc.), and finally taxable investments.

Suppose you are married and both spouses work in big law. What is the maximum amount they can contribute pre-tax (presumably into a 401k) and after-tax (presumably into a Roth IRA)?

I’m in this situation and ideally would like to be contributing something like $80k in these tax-advantages retirement vehicles. Is it possible to get there?

We also have a 529 college plan, but let’s leave that aside for now.

[Anonymous User]

Income partner at a big firm. Between a mortgage on a 3-bedroom house in a HCOL area that cost nearly $2 million, various repairs/improvements to the house, and spending 60% of my paycheck on estimated taxes and mandatory profit-sharing contributions, it genuinely feels like I am living paycheck to paycheck some months.

My wife and I make about $175k between the two of us, have a kid, live in the NYC area, and still manage to save tens of thousands per year. I genuinely don't understand how people in your position can claim to live paycheck to paycheck. I grew up in a household with an income below $20k. That was paycheck to paycheck.

Great thread here. Make more spend more so not making more. That’s it. You are careful and wise partner may not be.

I'm that anon. I think the disconnect here is I've always perceived "paycheck to paycheck" as an involuntary situation in which someone makes so little money that they literally can't put any in savings if they are to survive. Apparently people here think voluntarily blowing all your money away, even when you make millions, also qualifies as paycheck to paycheck. If that's the case, we should really use different terms for the two as they're not very comparable, and my sympathy levels are much higher for one group than the other. Surely people here can understand why the average American would seethe if they heard someone who makes millions annually say "I live paycheck to paycheck." Perhaps word it differently.

[Anonymous User]

Income partner at a big firm. Between a mortgage on a 3-bedroom house in a HCOL area that cost nearly $2 million, various repairs/improvements to the house, and spending 60% of my paycheck on estimated taxes and mandatory profit-sharing contributions, it genuinely feels like I am living paycheck to paycheck some months.

My wife and I make about $175k between the two of us, have a kid, live in the NYC area, and still manage to save tens of thousands per year. I genuinely don't understand how people in your position can claim to live paycheck to paycheck. I grew up in a household with an income below $20k. That was paycheck to paycheck.

Great thread here. Make more spend more so not making more. That’s it. You are careful and wise partner may not be.

I'm that anon. I think the disconnect here is I've always perceived "paycheck to paycheck" as an involuntary situation in which someone makes so little money that they literally can't put any in savings if they are to survive. Apparently people here think voluntarily blowing all your money away, even when you make millions, also qualifies as paycheck to paycheck. If that's the case, we should really use different terms for the two as they're not very comparable, and my sympathy levels are much higher for one group than the other. Surely people here can understand why the average American would seethe if they heard someone who makes millions annually say "I live paycheck to paycheck." Perhaps word it differently.

It's all relative. Typical poor family in US is very well off compared to an average family in Myanmar or Zimbabwe. But thats not the comparison you make. People always compare themselves to their peers and those on the next rung up or down. The kind of person who grinds away in school for seven years and then ten years in biglaw is chasing social status, so their expenses are going to rise proportionately to match their income. Its a race in the community -- you'll be competing with your peers for bigger houses, better schools etc. You'll likely have pressure from your spouse for this as well

Also most people who stick it out in biglaw don't come from wealthy backgrounds (otherwise they wouldn't be in biglaw). So none of you are special for coming from humble beginnings

[thisismytlsuername]

I think it's pretty telling w/r/t "lawyers have no idea how to manage finances" that every thread that is even tangentially money-related eventually devolves into "someone please tell me how to manage my finances".

[Jchance]

To sum up what has been said so far:
-expensive real estate, especially vacation home(s).
-spouse, including divorce(s).
-kids, especially private schools.

That is inversely compounded with their financial illiteracy of not knowing how to invest.

[Anonymous User]

Also most people who stick it out in biglaw don't come from wealthy backgrounds (otherwise they wouldn't be in biglaw). So none of you are special for coming from humble beginnings

I have no clue what you're talking about. If you were to poll the average big law partner on their background, I guarantee you that most came from at least pretty financially comfortable backgrounds (parent(s) with higher-salary white collar jobs, grew up in a nice house and went to nice schools, had the family support to get into and attend top universities and law schools, etc.). I doubt most grew up in poverty in the way that the $175k anon supposedly did. And why is it hard to believe that many people who stick it out in big law grew up wealthy? Wouldn't they have more incentive to stay in big law precisely because they are used to living a wealthier lifestyle?

You and others here can keep pretending that big law partners are living the struggle, but 99.9999% of the world is gonna know that's BS.

[Anonymous User]

Also most people who stick it out in biglaw don't come from wealthy backgrounds (otherwise they wouldn't be in biglaw). So none of you are special for coming from humble beginnings

I have no clue what you're talking about. If you were to poll the average big law partner on their background, I guarantee you that most came from at least pretty financially comfortable backgrounds (parent(s) with higher-salary white collar jobs, grew up in a nice house and went to nice schools, had the family support to get into and attend top universities and law schools, etc.). I doubt most grew up in poverty in the way that the $175k anon supposedly did. And why is it hard to believe that many people who stick it out in big law grew up wealthy? Wouldn't they have more incentive to stay in big law precisely because they are used to living a wealthier lifestyle?

You and others here can keep pretending that big law partners are living the struggle, but 99.9999% of the world is gonna know that's BS.

Don't think anyone says biglaw partners are struggling, just that it's all relative and for most of these people when their income goes up their expenses go up too. People reach a new comfort level and get used to it.

This doesn't apply to everyone. If you have a good perspective on life and avoid the golden handcuffs it's not hard to drop out of the rat race. But people who grind in biglaw often don't have this opportunity

Edit: to your other comment I was more talking about our peers not the current partner class. Lots of people in biglaw come from immigrant backgrounds that don't have generational wealth. Maybe not a ton that come from straight poverty, but in any case biglaw is a huge upgrade for these people. I don't know anyone who comes from a wealthy background that is tryin to grind for partner. They don't need it

[The Lsat Airbender]

Suppose you are married and both spouses work in big law. What is the maximum amount they can contribute pre-tax (presumably into a 401k) and after-tax (presumably into a Roth IRA)?

I’m in this situation and ideally would like to be contributing something like $80k in these tax-advantages retirement vehicles. Is it possible to get there?

We also have a 529 college plan, but let’s leave that aside for now.

Depends on whether you have access to the "mega-backdoor Roth," which will depend on your firm's 401(k) rules.

The limits for 2022 are:

$20,500 pre-tax (401(k); anyone in a biglaw tax bracket should prefer pre-tax to post-tax so this space is the priority)
$6000 post-tax ("backdoor Roth" - contribute to an IRA and then immediately convert it to Roth)
$41,000 post-tax (voluntary post-tax 401(k) contributions; only worthwhile if you're allowed to immediately convert them to Roth i.e. the "mega backdoor")

That's per-person, so $135,000 total for a married couple.

I'm that anon. I think the disconnect here is I've always perceived "paycheck to paycheck" as an involuntary situation in which someone makes so little money that they literally can't put any in savings if they are to survive. Apparently people here think voluntarily blowing all your money away, even when you make millions, also qualifies as paycheck to paycheck. If that's the case, we should really use different terms for the two as they're not very comparable, and my sympathy levels are much higher for one group than the other. Surely people here can understand why the average American would seethe if they heard someone who makes millions annually say "I live paycheck to paycheck." Perhaps word it differently.

This is an object lesson in denotation vs. connotation. Paycheck-to-paycheck denotes that you have no liquid savings and your earnings are barely sufficient to cover your expenses. It connotes poverty, because 1) we give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they aren't spending their money on stupid shit and 2) truly wealthy people don't rely on "paychecks" for income. But it's perfectly possible to use the term in good faith in situations where that connotation does not gel. It's like how high-income people can still be "broke" by dint of having more liabilities than assets.

Imagine an American worker who makes well above the local median income (say, $70k/year in Ohio) but also has child-support obligations and also just bought a lifted pickup on a 23% APR five-year note. At the end of the month, there's barely enough in his checking account to pay bills and make the minimum payment on CC debt. Do you think it's fair to characterize that situation as paycheck to paycheck? It seems like a bog-standard example to me.

The plasticity of terms like this (see also "middle class") is why they're so popular with politicians. You can speak to many different demographics simultaneously, making each of them think you're talking about their exact situation.

[TigerIsBack]

Clearly no one here lives in Scarsdale or has heard of Horace Greeley.

I'm the original poster who made the comment about partners spending money on private school. I grew up in NYC area and went to a public school. I'm not saying that good public schools don't exist; I'm saying that, in my experience, the majority of partners kids go to private school. I obviously don't have any concrete numbers to back this up, but it's my perception from speaking to partners who are in the midst of applications for schools. Many of them are applying to special montessori pre-schools that charge $40k/year.

It's definitely at least partially a geographic thing where private schools are more common in northeast vs. rest of the country. I never knew there were boarding schools outside of Exeter and Andover until I got to undergrad where a significant amount of my classmates went to boarding school and dorm living was nothing new to them.

There's also probably some level of bias in the anecdata because I'm guessing people spending $50k+ on private schools are more likely to bring that up over drinks than someone sending their kids to a public school. I do agree though that if I were to guess, more than half of the equity partners in my firm send their kids to an expensive private school.

[Anonymous User]

To echo what a lot of people have said, in NYC, partners (and senior associates) spend A LOT of money on schools. For example - I live in a good school district, but our zoned school is actually not great, so then you have to enter a lottery to try and get a seat in one of the higher-performing schools, which is clearly difficult and a gamble. If you don't get in, you can either send your kid to a crummy school (not the preferred option if you have some extra money) or send them to private school. There are parochial schools where you can get a good education for like $8k a year, but a lot of people don't want to send their kids to Catholic school for a variety of reasons, so then you turn to the private schools, which are easily $40k-60k a year. Middle school is its own bizarre shit show in NYC that I still don't fully understand because I didn't grow up here and my kids are still elementary age. Also in the pandemic, a lot of people I know put their kids in private school so that they would stay in in-person learning, but then lost their slot in whatever good public school they had finagled their way into so were back in the lottery and paying private school tuition while they rolled the dice. I know a single partner who lives in the 5 boroughs (by which I mean Manhattan or a few parts of Brooklyn) that sends his kid to public school, and that's just because one of his kids tested into Stuyvesant, and the ones who didn't are staying at their absurdly expensive private school all the way through. So, yeah, you can EASILY spend over $100k on private schools.

[papermateflair]

Others have said this, but divorce is expensive. I know a partner who recently lateralled to another firm because they wanted to get paid more since they lost a lot of savings due to their divorce (not sure if that's actually true or not!). Getting divorced and buying a boat are probably the worst financial decisions a partner can make The only thing worse is two divorced and two boats.

I knew a partner once who had four kids in private school ($45k tuition), belonged to two country clubs, had a spouse who didn't work for money, etc. You can see how even someone who is making $1M a year pre-tax can end up in a situation where they don't actually have that much money in savings. I'm sure there's a lot of other child expenses for rich kids that add up (horseback riding lessons and showjumping outfits, class trips to Europe, travel lacrosse...I don't really know what rich children do, but I imagine it's more expensive than the $80/season my parents spent on my rec soccer fees!). The bigger the home, the more it costs to maintain (these types of partners aren't mowing their own grass!), furnish, etc. At the end of the day I don't have a ton of sympathy for partners who somehow have next to no savings, but I certainly understand how they got there.

[Anonymous User]

Others have said this, but divorce is expensive. I know a partner who recently lateralled to another firm because they wanted to get paid more since they lost a lot of savings due to their divorce (not sure if that's actually true or not!). Getting divorced and buying a boat are probably the worst financial decisions a partner can make The only thing worse is two divorced and two boats.

I knew a partner once who had four kids in private school ($45k tuition), belonged to two country clubs, had a spouse who didn't work for money, etc. You can see how even someone who is making $1M a year pre-tax can end up in a situation where they don't actually have that much money in savings. I'm sure there's a lot of other child expenses for rich kids that add up (horseback riding lessons and showjumping outfits, class trips to Europe, travel lacrosse...I don't really know what rich children do, but I imagine it's more expensive than the $80/season my parents spent on my rec soccer fees!). The bigger the home, the more it costs to maintain (these types of partners aren't mowing their own grass!), furnish, etc. At the end of the day I don't have a ton of sympathy for partners who somehow have next to no savings, but I certainly understand how they got there.

Haha another consideration for sure - kid's extracurriculars. I also grew up with $50-$80 season fees to play football/basketball/soccer.

However, piano/cello/ballet/horses are serious $$$. Piano lessons can be $100/hour, and I wouldn't even consider that one of the more "esoteric" extracurricular activities. Even sports such as tennis/golf can get really expensive once you add in private coaching/summer camps. I knew a guy in high school whose parents spent $250k in tennis coaching for him through his 4 years. He ended up playing at Stanford on a scholarship, so it all worked out in the end but obviously it doesn't always go that way.

[Wanderingdrock]

Why not buy an annuity? You can afford a modest annuity that pays monthly. Sure the fees are high, but it solves your cash flow lumpiness issue. Better yet, why not self annuitize? I really find it hard to believe your portfolio allocation is cash flow efficient and optimal and this is a pretty solvable problem.

There are good lawyers who just aren't very good with money. I once had a biglaw partner confide in me that they had seven figures in their checking account because they were afraid of investing. Obviously, that person isn't living paycheck to paycheck, but literally left millions of dollars on the table - mostly out of financial ignorance.

You're writing some great posts in this thread. I think many people underappreciate how bad financial literacy is among lawyers (like anyone else). I'm fairly financially savvy for {reasons} and so I've gotten a reputation at my firm as someone to come to for financial advice re investing, tax strategy etc. You wouldn't believe the number of lawyers who just take their extra money and stick it in a checking account. No awareness of tax protection, trusts, basics of investing, retirement saving, etc. I've seen 7-figure checking accounts. No one ever taught them what to do with the money even though they're making plenty of it.

What do you suggest we do with money in our checking accounts?

Depends in part on how much you have, what your risk tolerance is, and what your expenses are, but generally you should be considering first whether that money should have reached your checking account in the first place (are you maxing deductions), once it hit your checking account was there somewhere tax-advantaged you could have been putting it (IRAs, potentially 529s, etc.), and finally taxable investments.

Suppose you are married and both spouses work in big law. What is the maximum amount they can contribute pre-tax (presumably into a 401k) and after-tax (presumably into a Roth IRA)?

I’m in this situation and ideally would like to be contributing something like $80k in these tax-advantages retirement vehicles. Is it possible to get there?

We also have a 529 college plan, but let’s leave that aside for now.

Lsatairbender got you up above.

[Anonymous User]

Is the school competition as bad in LA/SF? I've never heard of good california private schools (besides Harvard-Westlake)

Anonymous because I am a partner in one of these markets (and lived in the other one for several years). They are very different.

In LA, there are really not good public schools until you get pretty far into the suburbs, so a ton of wealthy people send their kids to private school. These include the high-end Catholic schools (Loyola, Marymount, Notre Dame), very academically rigorous prep schools (Harvard-Westlake, Polytechnic, potentially a couple of others), and prep schools that are less elite but still quite good (Campbell Hall, Buckley, Brentwood, Archer, etc.). You can find good public schools in the San Gabriel Valley, the South Bay, and some of the wealthy parts of the SFV/101 corridor leading into Ventura County, but those are not remotely convenient to the places where firms are located.

In the Bay Area, there are some very good public schools, particularly in Silicon Valley (Gunn, Palo Alto, Lynbrook, Monta Vista, Homestead, Mission San Jose, etc.). You will pay a fortune to live in those school districts, but you can definitely send your kids to public school if you are so inclined.

[Anonymous User]

To echo what a lot of people have said, in NYC, partners (and senior associates) spend A LOT of money on schools. For example - I live in a good school district, but our zoned school is actually not great, so then you have to enter a lottery to try and get a seat in one of the higher-performing schools, which is clearly difficult and a gamble. If you don't get in, you can either send your kid to a crummy school (not the preferred option if you have some extra money) or send them to private school. There are parochial schools where you can get a good education for like $8k a year, but a lot of people don't want to send their kids to Catholic school for a variety of reasons, so then you turn to the private schools, which are easily $40k-60k a year. Middle school is its own bizarre shit show in NYC that I still don't fully understand because I didn't grow up here and my kids are still elementary age. Also in the pandemic, a lot of people I know put their kids in private school so that they would stay in in-person learning, but then lost their slot in whatever good public school they had finagled their way into so were back in the lottery and paying private school tuition while they rolled the dice. I know a single partner who lives in the 5 boroughs (by which I mean Manhattan or a few parts of Brooklyn) that sends his kid to public school, and that's just because one of his kids tested into Stuyvesant, and the ones who didn't are staying at their absurdly expensive private school all the way through. So, yeah, you can EASILY spend over $100k on private schools.

On the topic of NYC private schools, I'm curious what it takes to get into these stupidly expensive private schools (e.g., Dalton, Trinity, Horace Mann, Brearley, Collegiate, etc.). I heard it's all about your "social capital" for preschool/elementary/maybe even middle school? A bit less so for high school, since I guess Trinity wants to look good by recruiting a few scholarship whiz kids from the Bronx. I'm assuming partners at top firms have some sway or donation potential to help their toddlers get in and many seem to be on parent associations/boards of trustees. But what about associates? SO and I (both going into BigLaw) will probably be having a kid after graduation and we live in an area that has trash public schools lol, so thinking a few years down the line. We're both from public school systems all the way through college. The whole process seems to be more of a ***show the more I research about it - apparently you want rec letters from influential trustees...or the Dalai Lama?? (https://nypost.com/2018/02/10/parents-w ... e-schools/)

[Anonymous User]

I love living in NYC, but the longer I spend here the more it seems completely antithetical to family life.

To me, buying into a good school district within ~1 hour’s commute of the city seems like the only sensible pathway — particularly as the industry moves toward a 3/2 hybrid working system. Even armed with vast sums of money, I can’t see why someone would voluntarily put themselves and their kids through the soul-sucking social-striving rat race (for private K12 school admissions) alluded to in the post above.