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

[Desert Fox]

[Anonymous User]

I did consulting before big law and can say that biglaw is drastically worse than my experience in consulting. In consulting, I was at the gym at 6 every night, drinking and eating dinner with partners and directors 3 days a week, earning skymiles and hotel points, talking to clients everyday and was treated like a respected adult who was good at my job. Every job I interviewed for a was able to land (including biglaw at a V15 firm with well below median grades) because I had confidence and was able to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

I've actually regressed from working in biglaw and find that people here are not "professionals", but are pretty much just sad drones who suckle at the tit of the partners, who suckle at the tit of their clients (and BTW, the clients are batshit crazy as well - multi millionaires who need more money). Every interview I go on has been after staying up till 4 am and I am so desperate to get out that even though my resume is solid, I feel like i'm begging for a job. Also, to people who think that those who can't hack it don't have the intelligence or the emotional capacity, I think you are really, really wrong. I've gotten nothing but stellar reviews and am a fairly quick learner, the problem comes from having ZERO life to yourself. The problem comes with being reemed by partners on Thanksgiving holidays for not responding to their emails for a few hours when the email is of no immediate importance. The problem comes with the fact that even though all my peers here make the exact same salary + bonus, people are competitive and talk about others behind their backs like its high school. After a year in NYC biglaw, I just think the whole profession is miserable and that life wasn't meant to be lived this way.

I don't know if its different elsewhere, so if it is, would love to hear.

How can you have stellar reviews after one year? Everyone gets good reviews in the first year unless they literally just don't do work that's been requested. Judging biglaw after one year is like deciding you're asexual as a 9 year old - you're assuming girls will have cooties forever.

FWIW, I only know 2 of the MBB consulting firms closely, but the notion that you're hitting the gym at 6PM with the ones I know is laughable. There may be minimal weekend work but it is grueling, 9-11PM work Mon-Thurs. And the travel is a bug, not a feature - $2000 in FF points is not enough comp to justify seeing your family 3 days a week. It's a better job in your 20s than in your 30s, sure, but that's one reason the attrition rate is vastly higher than law, which is freakin' saying something.

Maybe anon was not at MBB?

I think biglaw experiences vary largely based on the people you work with, the practice group you in, the firm you're at, and how much work your practice group has.

But yeah, it can be awful - zero hours to yourself, working for crazies who are egotistical/mentally ill, etc. I think people are competitive and talk crap because they are insecure - whether because they have partner aspirations and/or have a lot of debt (more likely explanation) and are clinging onto these jobs for dear life. The "rich" kids I know don't seem to dabble in the high school mentality as much since they don't care as much about the job/the money. I will say that I grew up with a lot of spoiled, rich kids and I think biglawyers are more insufferable on average. It's the egotistical types that I can't stand (and for whatever reason I have met so many of these at various firms). We aren't doing rocket science people and we (for the most part) aren't millionaires - no need for the ego.

To the guy above, you understand you said "How can you have stellar reviews after one year" and then immediately wrote "everyone has good reviews in their first year" .... so not sure what you are trying to get at there. Also, i'm pretty sure you know what a job is going to be like after working there for 1.25 years. Comparing it having not gone through puberty yet is sort of strange. I see the lives of mid-levels and senior associates, they seem absolutely freaking miserable. I mean, sure, they may enjoy it, but that live to work mentality is not something I have been ingrained with, especially when the work you do is literally the most meaningless bullshit on the planet.

Also, I never said I did MBB (there are more than three consulting firms in the USA) and yes, I left the client site at 5:30 pm every ... single ... day, unless there was some sort of fire drill. I worked past 11 pm in consulting maybe 5 times in a year. In biglaw, if you are relatively busy, that can be every single day. Also, the people .... the people were so much better. In different industries, you work with all types of people, in big law you work with (i) lawyers that are batshit crazy and (ii) lawyers that are slightly less batshit crazy.

But remember, this is just my opinion. Funny though, you came on here and tried to shit on every single one of my points I was making in a very aggressive manner .... I can assume you are a big law attorney that loves his job very much.

I think you're missing my the point. I agree that there are step-off-the-gas jobs that are way easier than a law job, or an MBB consulting job, etc etc, and those jobs are unquestionably less demanding and pay less. The advantage of a big law job, especially at a top place, and once you survive the quasi-hazing of the first [3][6] years or so (in transactional or litigation respectively) is that it is lucrative, interesting, and opens the door to a ton of other interesting and lucrative jobs. But any biglaw job - and the other doors it opens - are hard work - no doubt. It's just that law is not MORE unpleasant or MORE difficult than any equivalently renumerative or intellectual option. It is inherent to working at any job with lots of ambitious folks working their asses off. My best friend and roommate for years was an MBB analyst, and I can tell you, he was working past 11 nearly every weeknight and would complain bitterly about how hard and crappy THAT job was. But his track sounds like it was different than yours.

The notion that folks who have worked a year or so can make broad judgments about what working in biglaw is like long term is laughable. I spent my first year making goddamn sig pages and basket charts until the wee hours. It resembles my current job only in that I work in the same building. In all other respects it is like a different lifetime.

[krads153]

I think you're missing my the point. I agree that there are step-off-the-gas jobs that are way easier than a law job, or an MBB consulting job, etc etc, and those jobs are unquestionably less demanding and pay less. The advantage of a big law job, especially at a top place, and once you survive the quasi-hazing of the first [3][6] years or so (in transactional or litigation respectively) is that it is lucrative, interesting, and opens the door to a ton of other interesting and lucrative jobs. But any biglaw job - and the other doors it opens - are hard work - no doubt. It's just that law is not MORE unpleasant or MORE difficult than any equivalently renumerative or intellectual option. It is inherent to working at any job with lots of ambitious folks working their asses off. My best friend and roommate for years was an MBB analyst, and I can tell you, he was working past 11 nearly every weeknight and would complain bitterly about how hard and crappy THAT job was. But his track sounds like it was different than yours.

The notion that folks who have worked a year or so can make broad judgments about what working in biglaw is like long term is laughable. I spent my first year making goddamn sig pages and basket charts until the wee hours. It resembles my current job only in that I work in the same building. In all other respects it is like a different lifetime.

Lol at the bolded. Law pays okay, but law is not lucrative for 99.999% of attorneys. And am I the only one who thinks way less in the practice of law than I did in undergrad (non liberal arts major)? I swear I've gotten dumber. I don't find law particularly intellectual at all. Also "ton of other interesting and lucrative jobs" is an exaggeration. A lot of in house jobs are super duper competitive to get because there are wayyy more qualified attorneys looking than there are available jobs.

If you want a "lucrative" and more intellectual job with better hours and job security, go into programming.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I feel like whether law is more unpleasant or difficult than other equally demanding jobs is pretty subjective, no? Different people liking different things and all that?

[Danger Zone]

I feel like whether law is more unpleasant or difficult than other equally demanding jobs is pretty subjective, no? Different people liking different things and all that?

That's a ridiculous opinion and I won't stand for it.

[Anonymous User]

Lol at the bolded. Law pays okay, but law is not lucrative for 99.999% of attorneys. And am I the only one who thinks way less in the practice of law than I did in undergrad (non liberal arts major)? I swear I've gotten dumber. I don't find law particularly intellectual at all. Also "ton of other interesting and lucrative jobs" is an exaggeration. A lot of in house jobs are super duper competitive to get because there are wayyy more qualified attorneys looking than there are available jobs.

If you want a "lucrative" and more intellectual job with better hours and job security, go into programming.

I'm not sure why programming/CS has garnered this reputation as a unicorn utopia profession. I used to live in SF, and a plurality of my friends were/are in tech. For a number of them, when it's "rollout" time (approximately 2-3 times a year for 2 weeks at at time), they're paged at all hours of the day/night to work on some aspect of coding etc. In terms of comp, even those at highly regarded startups are pulling around 160k after 3-5 years of experience (of course, they didn't waste three extra years at school, so I will absolutely concede that point).

The ones who love the kind of logical/math-y nature of the job, really enjoy it in spite of the downsides. The ones who don't, really hate it because they say it's like running into a brick wall over and over again, and you have no idea how to fix it or why it isn't working. This is not to make the point that biglaw isn't horrid, but the CS route isn't a cakewalk either.

For what it's worth however, a cakewalk career has got to be sales/account management at places like Google. My friends from college pull over 100k all-in, all of their food/drink is covered, they fly to other Google offices for free to "network," and by their own admissions, their hours are a joke. THAT, my friends, is a unicorn utopia profession.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Except sales, ugh.

[Lacepiece23]

For what it's worth however, a cakewalk career has got to be sales/account management at places like Google. My friends from college pull over 100k all-in, all of their food/drink is covered, they fly to other Google offices for free to "network," and by their own admissions, their hours are a joke. THAT, my friends, is a unicorn utopia profession.

I'd have to agree about sales. I have two friends from college who both make over 100k in sales. One sells mutual bonds and the other sells medical supplies. Both work less than 40 hours a week. They really don't understand how good they have it. They each maybe graduated with a 3.0 from college.

[nealric]

For what it's worth however, a cakewalk career has got to be sales/account management at places like Google. My friends from college pull over 100k all-in, all of their food/drink is covered, they fly to other Google offices for free to "network," and by their own admissions, their hours are a joke. THAT, my friends, is a unicorn utopia profession.

I'd have to agree about sales. I have two friends from college who both make over 100k in sales. One sells mutual bonds and the other sells medical supplies. Both work less than 40 hours a week. They really don't understand how good they have it. They each maybe graduated with a 3.0 from college.

Sales is one of those professions that really only works for certain personality types. If you are good at sales and get into the right position, it's good money without too much work. If you are bad at sales or in the wrong position, you will struggle mightily.

Employment is a relatively efficient market. If there is some profession that is just amazing and easy to get into, everyone will go into it, supply of labor will increase, and it will start to suck. As a result, the best professions tend to have very high barriers to entry (i.e. high-end medical specialties) and/or require 99.999% level talent (i.e. pro sports player). Of course, those professions just push the "suck" part to the pre-entry side of things where hordes of people struggle mightily only to be weeded out before seeing any payoff.

To quote the Notorious BIG: if you are making easy money "you either slangin' crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot."

[krads153]

Lol at the bolded. Law pays okay, but law is not lucrative for 99.999% of attorneys. And am I the only one who thinks way less in the practice of law than I did in undergrad (non liberal arts major)? I swear I've gotten dumber. I don't find law particularly intellectual at all. Also "ton of other interesting and lucrative jobs" is an exaggeration. A lot of in house jobs are super duper competitive to get because there are wayyy more qualified attorneys looking than there are available jobs.

If you want a "lucrative" and more intellectual job with better hours and job security, go into programming.

I'm not sure why programming/CS has garnered this reputation as a unicorn utopia profession. I used to live in SF, and a plurality of my friends were/are in tech. For a number of them, when it's "rollout" time (approximately 2-3 times a year for 2 weeks at at time), they're paged at all hours of the day/night to work on some aspect of coding etc. In terms of comp, even those at highly regarded startups are pulling around 160k after 3-5 years of experience (of course, they didn't waste three extra years at school, so I will absolutely concede that point).

The ones who love the kind of logical/math-y nature of the job, really enjoy it in spite of the downsides. The ones who don't, really hate it because they say it's like running into a brick wall over and over again, and you have no idea how to fix it or why it isn't working. This is not to make the point that biglaw isn't horrid, but the CS route isn't a cakewalk either.

For what it's worth however, a cakewalk career has got to be sales/account management at places like Google. My friends from college pull over 100k all-in, all of their food/drink is covered, they fly to other Google offices for free to "network," and by their own admissions, their hours are a joke. THAT, my friends, is a unicorn utopia profession.

Job security, no grad school, you can easily get a programming job even with a really shitty GPA from a good engineering program, etc., better hours than biglaw, you can work remotely in a lot of jobs, you get equity at companies you work for, a lot of benefits, much easier to be an entrepreneur. Basically all of my programming friends from undergrad landed six figure jobs straight out. To be fair, the undergrad curriculum is much more difficult than [random liberal arts major] but when I graduated people pulling 2.0 GPAs were landing high paying jobs. The average salary out of CS straight out at my alma mater was 100k. You have to be logic minded, but it's probably a much better profession than law on average.

My parents were both programmers - they had their own company for awhile - they'd work at 11 am, could work from anywhere. Work whenever they wanted (or not work if they wanted). Their hours were awesome. My inlaws were programmers too - they sold their company for 20 million. One of my friends from college sold his start up when he was like 24 years old to a huge multi million dollar company. FML, that's what I should have done.

[nealric]

Lol at the bolded. Law pays okay, but law is not lucrative for 99.999% of attorneys. And am I the only one who thinks way less in the practice of law than I did in undergrad (non liberal arts major)? I swear I've gotten dumber. I don't find law particularly intellectual at all. Also "ton of other interesting and lucrative jobs" is an exaggeration. A lot of in house jobs are super duper competitive to get because there are wayyy more qualified attorneys looking than there are available jobs.

If you want a "lucrative" and more intellectual job with better hours and job security, go into programming.

I'm not sure why programming/CS has garnered this reputation as a unicorn utopia profession. I used to live in SF, and a plurality of my friends were/are in tech. For a number of them, when it's "rollout" time (approximately 2-3 times a year for 2 weeks at at time), they're paged at all hours of the day/night to work on some aspect of coding etc. In terms of comp, even those at highly regarded startups are pulling around 160k after 3-5 years of experience (of course, they didn't waste three extra years at school, so I will absolutely concede that point).

The ones who love the kind of logical/math-y nature of the job, really enjoy it in spite of the downsides. The ones who don't, really hate it because they say it's like running into a brick wall over and over again, and you have no idea how to fix it or why it isn't working. This is not to make the point that biglaw isn't horrid, but the CS route isn't a cakewalk either.

For what it's worth however, a cakewalk career has got to be sales/account management at places like Google. My friends from college pull over 100k all-in, all of their food/drink is covered, they fly to other Google offices for free to "network," and by their own admissions, their hours are a joke. THAT, my friends, is a unicorn utopia profession.

Job security, no grad school, you can easily get a programming job even with a really shitty GPA from a good engineering program, etc., better hours than biglaw. Basically all of my programming friends from undergrad landed six figure jobs straight out in the Bay Area. To be fair, the undergrad curriculum is much more difficult than [random liberal arts major] but when I graduated people pulling 2.0 GPAs were landing high paying jobs. The average salary out of CS straight out at my alma mater was 100k. You have to be logic minded, but it's probably a much better profession than law on average.

My parents are both programmers - they had their own company for awhile and barely worked (not a full hour day). My inlaws were programmers too - they are richer than biglaw partners now.

Your parents and inlaws were likely the beneficiaries of being first movers- they would have started their careers when software development as a modern profession was in its infancy. Right now, everyone and their dog is trying to become a programmer. Eventually, there will be serious market saturation problems. Today, if you have a lot of talent, you can get hired by the Google's of the world or win the startup lottery, and do great for yourself. But if you are like me and have no special programming aptitude (I took some CS in college and megasucked), you are going to be competing with outsourced talent for low-dollar scutwork and no job security. Like any profession, the most talented practitioners reap disproportionate rewards that are not reflective of the profession as a whole.

[krads153]

Lol at the bolded. Law pays okay, but law is not lucrative for 99.999% of attorneys. And am I the only one who thinks way less in the practice of law than I did in undergrad (non liberal arts major)? I swear I've gotten dumber. I don't find law particularly intellectual at all. Also "ton of other interesting and lucrative jobs" is an exaggeration. A lot of in house jobs are super duper competitive to get because there are wayyy more qualified attorneys looking than there are available jobs.

If you want a "lucrative" and more intellectual job with better hours and job security, go into programming.

I'm not sure why programming/CS has garnered this reputation as a unicorn utopia profession. I used to live in SF, and a plurality of my friends were/are in tech. For a number of them, when it's "rollout" time (approximately 2-3 times a year for 2 weeks at at time), they're paged at all hours of the day/night to work on some aspect of coding etc. In terms of comp, even those at highly regarded startups are pulling around 160k after 3-5 years of experience (of course, they didn't waste three extra years at school, so I will absolutely concede that point).

The ones who love the kind of logical/math-y nature of the job, really enjoy it in spite of the downsides. The ones who don't, really hate it because they say it's like running into a brick wall over and over again, and you have no idea how to fix it or why it isn't working. This is not to make the point that biglaw isn't horrid, but the CS route isn't a cakewalk either.

For what it's worth however, a cakewalk career has got to be sales/account management at places like Google. My friends from college pull over 100k all-in, all of their food/drink is covered, they fly to other Google offices for free to "network," and by their own admissions, their hours are a joke. THAT, my friends, is a unicorn utopia profession.

Job security, no grad school, you can easily get a programming job even with a really shitty GPA from a good engineering program, etc., better hours than biglaw. Basically all of my programming friends from undergrad landed six figure jobs straight out in the Bay Area. To be fair, the undergrad curriculum is much more difficult than [random liberal arts major] but when I graduated people pulling 2.0 GPAs were landing high paying jobs. The average salary out of CS straight out at my alma mater was 100k. You have to be logic minded, but it's probably a much better profession than law on average.

My parents are both programmers - they had their own company for awhile and barely worked (not a full hour day). My inlaws were programmers too - they are richer than biglaw partners now.

Your parents were likely the beneficiaries of being first movers- they would have started their careers when software development as a modern profession was in its infancy. Right now, everyone and their dog is trying to become a programmer. Today, if you have a lot of talent, you can get hired by the Google's of the world or win the startup lottery, and do great for yourself. But if you are like me and have no special programming aptitude (I took some CS in college and megasucked), you are competing with outsourced talent for low-dollar scutwork and no job security. Like any profession, the most talented practitioners reap disproportionate rewards that are not reflective of the profession as a whole.

Ok, whatever, still the average salary coming out of CS from my undergrad is 100k. And nobody I knew had any undergrad debt (or at least not nearly the same amount of debt as law school). And even guys with 2.0 GPAs (or even lower) landed jobs. Tbf, my school was pretty tech heavy and has top ranked CS/engineering programs, but I'm pretty sure a lot of us could have managed a 2.0 GPA....

[nealric]

Lol at the bolded. Law pays okay, but law is not lucrative for 99.999% of attorneys. And am I the only one who thinks way less in the practice of law than I did in undergrad (non liberal arts major)? I swear I've gotten dumber. I don't find law particularly intellectual at all. Also "ton of other interesting and lucrative jobs" is an exaggeration. A lot of in house jobs are super duper competitive to get because there are wayyy more qualified attorneys looking than there are available jobs.

If you want a "lucrative" and more intellectual job with better hours and job security, go into programming.

I'm not sure why programming/CS has garnered this reputation as a unicorn utopia profession. I used to live in SF, and a plurality of my friends were/are in tech. For a number of them, when it's "rollout" time (approximately 2-3 times a year for 2 weeks at at time), they're paged at all hours of the day/night to work on some aspect of coding etc. In terms of comp, even those at highly regarded startups are pulling around 160k after 3-5 years of experience (of course, they didn't waste three extra years at school, so I will absolutely concede that point).

The ones who love the kind of logical/math-y nature of the job, really enjoy it in spite of the downsides. The ones who don't, really hate it because they say it's like running into a brick wall over and over again, and you have no idea how to fix it or why it isn't working. This is not to make the point that biglaw isn't horrid, but the CS route isn't a cakewalk either.

For what it's worth however, a cakewalk career has got to be sales/account management at places like Google. My friends from college pull over 100k all-in, all of their food/drink is covered, they fly to other Google offices for free to "network," and by their own admissions, their hours are a joke. THAT, my friends, is a unicorn utopia profession.

Job security, no grad school, you can easily get a programming job even with a really shitty GPA from a good engineering program, etc., better hours than biglaw. Basically all of my programming friends from undergrad landed six figure jobs straight out in the Bay Area. To be fair, the undergrad curriculum is much more difficult than [random liberal arts major] but when I graduated people pulling 2.0 GPAs were landing high paying jobs. The average salary out of CS straight out at my alma mater was 100k. You have to be logic minded, but it's probably a much better profession than law on average.

My parents are both programmers - they had their own company for awhile and barely worked (not a full hour day). My inlaws were programmers too - they are richer than biglaw partners now.

Your parents were likely the beneficiaries of being first movers- they would have started their careers when software development as a modern profession was in its infancy. Right now, everyone and their dog is trying to become a programmer. Today, if you have a lot of talent, you can get hired by the Google's of the world or win the startup lottery, and do great for yourself. But if you are like me and have no special programming aptitude (I took some CS in college and megasucked), you are competing with outsourced talent for low-dollar scutwork and no job security. Like any profession, the most talented practitioners reap disproportionate rewards that are not reflective of the profession as a whole.

Ok, whatever, still the average salary coming out of CS from my undergrad is 100k. And nobody I knew had any undergrad debt (or at least not nearly the same amount of debt as law school). And even guys with 2.0 GPAs (or even lower) landed jobs. Tbf, my school was pretty tech heavy and has top ranked CS/engineering programs, but I'm pretty sure a lot of us could have managed a 2.0 GPA....

Forbes says $66k is the average CS starting salary.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/ ... -salaries/

Now, I don't doubt that people graduating from top schools average $100k. T14 schools still report $160k median salaries. You got a wicked jump shot. Congrats. That doesn't mean coding is shangri-la.

[Desert Fox]

[krads153]

Forbes says $66k is the average CS starting salary.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/ ... -salaries/

Now, I don't doubt that people graduating from top schools average $100k. T14 schools still report $160k median salaries. You got a wicked jump shot. Congrats. That doesn't mean coding is shangri-la.

66k is not bad - isn't that higher than the average law salary? And I bet they have better employment rates (considering like what - the majority of law grads are under or unemployed). And if we're not looking at the entire profession/all schools, it seems only fair to compare top CS/comp engineering programs with the T14 anyway, which both lead to six figure salaries on average. And I'd have to say the top CS/comp engineering jobs knock biglaw out of the park if you look at benefits, equity, hours, job security.

If you have the knack for it, programming is way better than law. Maybe most lawyers don't have the knack, but I bet a fair number of us could have scraped by with a 2.0 GPA at a top program and gotten a 100k job simply because we graduated.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Wasn't the movie Office Space literally about how awful being a programmer is?

To be fair I have no idea what anyone who works on computers does.

[OneMoreLawHopeful]

I forgot to except from my statement that it doesn't apply to sociopaths--like people who pick gordon gekko tars.

Says the guy with the Nazi username. [[Insert generic "Rommel wasn't a real Nazi" remark here]]

You gotta factor in 3 years career advancement and student loan debt. Plus the comparable CS gigs to biglaw pay a lot more than 66k. Remember the average lawyer starting salary is right around 66k too. But with 150k in debt and 3 years lost.

Biglawyers do make more money but its not worth the shitty QOL.

But you're also not counting turnover in CS jobs and the fact that people get pushed out of the whole industry when they turn 40.

If you can make it 3-4 years in biglaw you can probably work in law until you die, even if you have to take a salary cut to lower 6-figures when you move to midlaw later in your career.

By contrast for many CS positions you can end up out on your ass and totally unemployable despite a decade's worth of experience because 28 year old entrepreneurs don't want to hire 45 year old programmers. And even if there wasn't pretty blatant age discrimination, there is brutal turnover of the sort you rarely see in the legal field. For example--I've known people that worked at EA, and laying off the team as soon as the game was released is not unusual. That happens in rare instances in the law (e.g. decades-long case settles), but not nearly to the same degree, and certainly not as a pre-planned business model (i.e. if you can get the 6th year guy billing on something else, you're not going to waste that opportunity just because big case X settled--you only lay him off if you can't get him billing on something else).

But ultimately I'm with Nony on this...it's not that law is "better," it's just that every comparably compensated job has its own unique problems, and the solution for everyone is not "just do compsci bro..." (which, in fairness, may not have been DF's point; I'm not clear why CS comes up in 100% of these discussions, and I would assume finance is the more comparable career).

[Cogburn87]

But you're also not counting turnover in CS jobs and the fact that people get pushed out of the whole industry when they turn 40.

If you can make it 3-4 years in biglaw you can probably work in law until you die, even if you have to take a salary cut to lower 6-figures when you move to midlaw later in your career.

By contrast for many CS positions you can end up out on your ass and totally unemployable despite a decade's worth of experience because 28 year old entrepreneurs don't want to hire 45 year old programmers. And even if there wasn't pretty blatant age discrimination, there is brutal turnover of the sort you rarely see in the legal field. For example--I've known people that worked at EA, and laying off the team as soon as the game was released is not unusual. That happens in rare instances in the law (e.g. decades-long case settles), but not nearly to the same degree, and certainly not as a pre-planned business model (i.e. if you can get the 6th year guy billing on something else, you're not going to waste that opportunity just because big case X settled--you only lay him off if you can't get him billing on something else).

But ultimately I'm with Nony on this...it's not that law is "better," it's just that every comparably compensated job has its own unique problems, and the solution for everyone is not "just do compsci bro..." (which, in fairness, may not have been DF's point; I'm not clear why CS comes up in 100% of these discussions, and I would assume finance is the more comparable career).

You're getting your anecdotes mixed up. Engineering is the profession that has a reputation for pushing everyone out at 40, not coding.

[krads153]

^Yeah, programmers usually just learn new languages/keep up with languages on their own. Some move to business side in tech companies. I haven't known of anyone pushed out of the industry, but I will say that they have to do a lot of self-learning, which is not unusual anyway, esp. if you study hardware and software in undergrad as an EECS (rather than just CS) and a lot of that stuff doesnt even apply to what you do in the real world.

[FamilyLawEsq]

80% of the time it's fine and often interesting. 20% of the time I just want to quit. The money makes that 20% worth tolerating for now. It won't forever.

After 35 years of practicing law, these are the exact same percentages I assign to my legal life. I am small law, however.

[Desert Fox]

[mirage1287]

80% of the time it's fine and often interesting. 20% of the time I just want to quit. The money makes that 20% worth tolerating for now. It won't forever.

After 35 years of practicing law, these are the exact same percentages I assign to my legal life. I am small law, however.

Spending 20% of your time just wanting to quit your job seems like a lot. I think there aren't many people on this board with as much long-term perspective as you. After all's been said and done, are you happy you decided to stay working as a lawyer? Or do you wish you would've made a switch out at some point over the past few decades?

[Johann]

Lol at the bolded. Law pays okay, but law is not lucrative for 99.999% of attorneys. And am I the only one who thinks way less in the practice of law than I did in undergrad (non liberal arts major)? I swear I've gotten dumber. I don't find law particularly intellectual at all. Also "ton of other interesting and lucrative jobs" is an exaggeration. A lot of in house jobs are super duper competitive to get because there are wayyy more qualified attorneys looking than there are available jobs.

If you want a "lucrative" and more intellectual job with better hours and job security, go into programming.

I'm not sure why programming/CS has garnered this reputation as a unicorn utopia profession. I used to live in SF, and a plurality of my friends were/are in tech. For a number of them, when it's "rollout" time (approximately 2-3 times a year for 2 weeks at at time), they're paged at all hours of the day/night to work on some aspect of coding etc. In terms of comp, even those at highly regarded startups are pulling around 160k after 3-5 years of experience (of course, they didn't waste three extra years at school, so I will absolutely concede that point).

The ones who love the kind of logical/math-y nature of the job, really enjoy it in spite of the downsides. The ones who don't, really hate it because they say it's like running into a brick wall over and over again, and you have no idea how to fix it or why it isn't working. This is not to make the point that biglaw isn't horrid, but the CS route isn't a cakewalk either.

For what it's worth however, a cakewalk career has got to be sales/account management at places like Google. My friends from college pull over 100k all-in, all of their food/drink is covered, they fly to other Google offices for free to "network," and by their own admissions, their hours are a joke. THAT, my friends, is a unicorn utopia profession.

Job security, no grad school, you can easily get a programming job even with a really shitty GPA from a good engineering program, etc., better hours than biglaw. Basically all of my programming friends from undergrad landed six figure jobs straight out in the Bay Area. To be fair, the undergrad curriculum is much more difficult than [random liberal arts major] but when I graduated people pulling 2.0 GPAs were landing high paying jobs. The average salary out of CS straight out at my alma mater was 100k. You have to be logic minded, but it's probably a much better profession than law on average.

My parents are both programmers - they had their own company for awhile and barely worked (not a full hour day). My inlaws were programmers too - they are richer than biglaw partners now.

Your parents and inlaws were likely the beneficiaries of being first movers- they would have started their careers when software development as a modern profession was in its infancy. Right now, everyone and their dog is trying to become a programmer. Eventually, there will be serious market saturation problems. Today, if you have a lot of talent, you can get hired by the Google's of the world or win the startup lottery, and do great for yourself. But if you are like me and have no special programming aptitude (I took some CS in college and megasucked), you are going to be competing with outsourced talent for low-dollar scutwork and no job security. Like any profession, the most talented practitioners reap disproportionate rewards that are not reflective of the profession as a whole.

You are thinking about tech wrong. It's actually more of a job where the more coding there is and coding completed, the more programming is needed. Just look at the s-curve of technology. And also lol at first movers, the salary keeps going up and up and up. Law isn't dead because there are too many lawyers. Law is dead because it's not needed anymore and clients know that so they won't pay the bills.

[Mola Ram]

For perspective, I usually look around to my non-lawyer friends and/or family and ask if I would trade what I am doing for what they are.

Generally speaking, the answer is no. Many of their jobs (which I won't all list out) don't pay that well and from the outside, appear to be working with idiots for pay that ranges from "comfortable in their city" to "having roommates when you turn 30 is lame" to "I hope they don't get sick and have even modest medical bills."

Big law goes in cycles and there are times when you plateau and times when you feel like you have a rocket strapped to your back. These are careers, people, and judging them at 3, 6, 12 or even 24 months is really short-sighted. Just realize that it's much easier to make yourself miserable in this profession than happy.

[nealric]

You are thinking about tech wrong. It's actually more of a job where the more coding there is and coding completed, the more programming is needed. Just look at the s-curve of technology. And also lol at first movers, the salary keeps going up and up and up. Law isn't dead because there are too many lawyers. Law is dead because it's not needed anymore and clients know that so they won't pay the bills.

All areas of the labor market are governed by supply and demand. The demand for programmers, while growing, is not infinite. Low barriers to entry mean supply growth will keep up with demand group over the medium to long term. Booms don't last forever for a reason. Going back to the early 00's, there were plenty of tech types (including programmers) who fell in hard times after demand suddenly collapsed.

Demand for legal services is steady to slightly growing. I am a client, and we absolutely still pay our lawyers. The issue is an oversupply of lawyers, especially at the entry level and in non-specialty practice areas (i.e. general commercial litigation). There's still plenty of demand and low supply for very senior and specialized lawyers. That's why the $5 million a year partner exists.