Who do you think is the richest practicing lawyer in America? Forum

[nixy]

These arguments about the suburbs vs. city and buying butter and whatnot are just silly. “Suburbs” vary a ton all over the country; there are lots of places in both cities *and* suburbs where groceries are convenient and lots of places in both where they aren’t. How far you have to drive and how inconvenient that driving is varies a ton depending on where you are, and whether driving everywhere adds friction to your life is incredibly subjective. Many people find hopping into their car in their attached garage and parking right outside a store much more convenient than walking and hauling stuff back home in all weathers. Others find dealing with the car less convenient. Neither of these preferences is objectively wrong. If you find having to use the car at all creates intolerable friction *for you*, great, stay in the city! That doesn’t make it objectively true.

Like anon already said, there are lots of things that the city legitimately has that suburbs don’t. Access to groceries isn’t a good hill to die on.

[The Lsat Airbender]

completely agree that it's a question of taste

[Dr Tobias Funke]

These arguments about the suburbs vs. city and buying butter and whatnot are just silly. “Suburbs” vary a ton all over the country; there are lots of places in both cities *and* suburbs where groceries are convenient and lots of places in both where they aren’t. How far you have to drive and how inconvenient that driving is varies a ton depending on where you are, and whether driving everywhere adds friction to your life is incredibly subjective. Many people find hopping into their car in their attached garage and parking right outside a store much more convenient than walking and hauling stuff back home in all weathers. Others find dealing with the car less convenient. Neither of these preferences is objectively wrong. If you find having to use the car at all creates intolerable friction *for you*, great, stay in the city! That doesn’t make it objectively true.

Like anon already said, there are lots of things that the city legitimately has that suburbs don’t. Access to groceries isn’t a good hill to die on.

Which was only one example I gave of why the suburbs suck lol

[nealric]

There's a huge variation in what constitutes a "suburb." But if you are driving over half an hour round trip for a basic grocery run, I think where you live is probably more of an "exurb."

For what it's worth, the longest (time wise) I've travelled for groceries was when I lived in central NYC and DC. You could go to the local bodega around the corner in 5 minutes, but if you wanted a more full-service grocery store it was a lot more of a commute. I would actually drive to Virginia when I lived in D.C. because the grocery stores were much better. I can get to a full-service grocery store in my current Texas suburb as quickly as I could get to the local bodega in NYC.

That's not to say there's anything wrong with preferring city life. There are other qualities that are hard to replicate in the suburbs. If you are a v20 biglaw partner, your work is probably taking up an enormous portion of your time. Even an extra 30 minutes to an hour added to your day in commuting is probably taking a serious fraction of your spare time away.

[crazywafflez]

This is very much a matter of preferences.

I grew up in exurbs, lived in suburbs, rural areas and cities. Each has their advantage, fun, etc. For me, the suburbs and cities have been the best experiences. I would be hard pressed to return to a truly rural place (driving 45-60 mins one way to get to a restaurant or a movie theater...)

Also, as nixy and nealric mentioned, suburbs come in a huge variety. Alexandria, as a burb, is way different than Plano, which are both significantly different compared to Scottsdale or Franklin.

[nixy]

These arguments about the suburbs vs. city and buying butter and whatnot are just silly. “Suburbs” vary a ton all over the country; there are lots of places in both cities *and* suburbs where groceries are convenient and lots of places in both where they aren’t. How far you have to drive and how inconvenient that driving is varies a ton depending on where you are, and whether driving everywhere adds friction to your life is incredibly subjective. Many people find hopping into their car in their attached garage and parking right outside a store much more convenient than walking and hauling stuff back home in all weathers. Others find dealing with the car less convenient. Neither of these preferences is objectively wrong. If you find having to use the car at all creates intolerable friction *for you*, great, stay in the city! That doesn’t make it objectively true.

Like anon already said, there are lots of things that the city legitimately has that suburbs don’t. Access to groceries isn’t a good hill to die on.

Which was only one example I gave of why the suburbs suck lol

I mean, I was actually responding to The Lsat Airbender, and your examples were getting groceries, getting Thai food, and getting little Timmy from soccer practice, which are all variations on the same complaint - that you have to drive too far for stuff - so not exactly a multitude of examples.

But you deciding those are multiple examples doesn’t make the argument any less pointless. Different people like different things. No one is requiring you to live in the suburbs. Plus, the idea that “suburbs” writ large all require that kind of driving time is a straw man on par with the arguments that cities are all hellholes of crime or terrible places to raise kids.

[Anonymous User]

Side note: I don't get why. If a litigator gets a contingency fee on a massive judgment, then they get that without anyone having to really agree to give it to them. It seems to me like no one would ever want to give a lawyer $20m, but if Lanier wins the $200m case, he gets $20m, end of story. But why is it worth it to these private equity clients to pay a lawyer $25m a year to do deals? Couldn't they still get the deal done by paying some other lawyer a little bit less?

No shade to transactional folks on this board, just saying.

Not to derail the post, but:
(1) When the deals are for billions of dollars, $25M is a rounding error, so it matters less; and
(2) When the shit hits the fan later, the equity guy can say "It wasn't my fault, I hired [really expensive prestigious law firm]."

This, but also more importantly it’s not like the clients are deciding to pay Calder & co $25m. They are paying standard Kirkland rates across a bunch of deals, as are hundreds and hundreds of other clients, all of which adds up to a massive pool of total profits. Those profits get divided across the equity partners based on their share count. Internally, Kirkland has determined which partners get how many shares and someone like Calder has been given (we all assume) the maximum shares, which results in his piece of that pie being $25m+.

BigLaw at a firm like Kirkland isn’t a matter of “Joe partner personally billed $X and therefore gets paid $Y” it’s far more indirect than that. And for all equity partners, but particularly with the ones higher up the totem pole, it’s abstracted not only beyond their own billable hours but also beyond even the specific deals they’re on (both of which are considered, but also their biz dev/client relationships/other value to the firm generally).

To emphasize the point another way, Calder hasn’t billed his time to a client in years, so that $25m is totally divorced from his billable time.

[Anonymous User]

These arguments about the suburbs vs. city and buying butter and whatnot are just silly. “Suburbs” vary a ton all over the country; there are lots of places in both cities *and* suburbs where groceries are convenient and lots of places in both where they aren’t. How far you have to drive and how inconvenient that driving is varies a ton depending on where you are, and whether driving everywhere adds friction to your life is incredibly subjective. Many people find hopping into their car in their attached garage and parking right outside a store much more convenient than walking and hauling stuff back home in all weathers. Others find dealing with the car less convenient. Neither of these preferences is objectively wrong. If you find having to use the car at all creates intolerable friction *for you*, great, stay in the city! That doesn’t make it objectively true.

Like anon already said, there are lots of things that the city legitimately has that suburbs don’t. Access to groceries isn’t a good hill to die on.

Which was only one example I gave of why the suburbs suck lol

This is like the worst reason to prefer the city lmao. I live in the city and my parents are in the sticks, and I love going out there and driving five minutes to a gigantic wal-mart/Target and loading up the trunk with stuff that costs half what it would be in the city (and from three different stores usually). Grocery shopping in the city sucks. City has more interesting and fun things to do (esp. if you're, unlike me, young and single) and short commute, for every other QOL consideration the sticks win by a mile.

[empknight]

Without a doubt it’s going to be someone who owns a big personal injury firm or a class action firm.

So think someone like Chris Seeger or the people who own Morgan and Morgan, which is basically a claims referral agency.