How do BigLaw partners spend all their money? Forum

[Buglaw]

The simple answer is that they spend on stuff that’s not all that different from the rest of us. Money has declining utility. The difference between making a few hundred thousand a year and millions in terms of quality of life is not much. The two people can do most of the same stuff, the person with millions just does it nicer. The difference between making $50k a year and 300k a year is massive. The person making 300k a year doesn’t have real money struggles the way someone making 50k a year does. But, once you clear that hurdle, there’s not much benefit to more money. The marginal happiness gained from sending your kid to the best private school vs a reasonably good public school is quite small. The difference between a vacation which costs a few thousand and one that is 20-30 thousand is also very small (same with driving a bmw or Mercedes’ vs a Toyota, etc.).

[Anonymous User]

This must be a New York thing. Every single partner I know at my DC firm who has kids in school chooses to live in a nice suburb (Montgomery County, Fairfax County, or Arlington) rather than DC and sends their kids to public schools out there. Granted those kids (like many others at those public high schools) get tutoring and go off to Columbia, Georgetown, UVA, USC, William and Mary, etc.

I am also in DC and most partners' kids at my firm (that I know of) go to private schools. Even some non-equity partners are sending kids to private schools. And only one of them (again, that I know of) lives in DC proper.

[Anonymous User]

It's very much a NY thing and some other areas. I've seen discussions about this before -- the NE has a weird obsession w/ private schools (I believe parts of the South too) whereas people at the same level of affluence in e.g., the Mid-Atlantic or Midwest are more comfortable sending their kids to public. Some whiz linked it to differences in pubic schooling structure or something I can't remember but I suspect a lot of it is just cultural and keeping up w/ the Joneses.

A little off topic but this also applies big time to colleges, too. From the Midwest, you are pretty smart if you go to Wisconsin or Iowa State or Purdue or Whatever Major State School (and very smart if you go to Michigan or Illinois etc.). In the Northeast, telling people you went to UMass or SUNY gets you looked at the wrong way by the fairly well off.

[Anonymous User]

It's very much a NY thing and some other areas. I've seen discussions about this before -- the NE has a weird obsession w/ private schools (I believe parts of the South too) whereas people at the same level of affluence in e.g., the Mid-Atlantic or Midwest are more comfortable sending their kids to public. Some whiz linked it to differences in pubic schooling structure or something I can't remember but I suspect a lot of it is just cultural and keeping up w/ the Joneses.

A little off topic but this also applies big time to colleges, too. From the Midwest, you are pretty smart if you go to Wisconsin or Iowa State or Purdue or Whatever Major State School (and very smart if you go to Michigan or Illinois etc.). In the Northeast, telling people you went to UMass or SUNY gets you looked at the wrong way by the fairly well off.

I grew up in New England, and one my hs classmates applied to Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, probably a few more similar places, and UMass. The only place he got in was UMass. We were convinced his life was over and he would never amount to anything. We were ignorant little shits and that's completely not true, but yeah, it's a common attitude in that part of the world.

[glitched]

The simple answer is that they spend on stuff that’s not all that different from the rest of us. Money has declining utility. The difference between making a few hundred thousand a year and millions in terms of quality of life is not much. The two people can do most of the same stuff, the person with millions just does it nicer. The difference between making $50k a year and 300k a year is massive. The person making 300k a year doesn’t have real money struggles the way someone making 50k a year does. But, once you clear that hurdle, there’s not much benefit to more money. The marginal happiness gained from sending your kid to the best private school vs a reasonably good public school is quite small. The difference between a vacation which costs a few thousand and one that is 20-30 thousand is also very small (same with driving a bmw or Mercedes’ vs a Toyota, etc.).

Knowing that I could retire in 10 years instead of 20 would be pretty huge for me.

[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?

I know we've passed this point in the thread, but I just had to chime in with my appreciation for this, having gone to one of Choate's rival New England schools. As much as it gave me a great laugh, alas Choate is one of the best boarding schools in the country. Probably on par with Andover & Exeter, maybe a tick down. And I have never heard of Dwight. But again, loved this

My .02 overall on this though, I think even some of the replies in here show the strange Yankee thrift and low-key culture of traditional biglaw. Some of the comments are acting like the "right" way to spend money is to deprive yourself of fun/entertainment/lavish spending and to create intergenerational wealth, and like the Ferrari-purchasers are uncouth. Personal preference - there is no right way to do things. If I were a Kirkland (equity) partner, I'd be financing that Ferrari on day 1. Sorry to burn your eyes with this, thrifty folks!

[Anonymous User]

It's very much a NY thing and some other areas. I've seen discussions about this before -- the NE has a weird obsession w/ private schools (I believe parts of the South too) whereas people at the same level of affluence in e.g., the Mid-Atlantic or Midwest are more comfortable sending their kids to public. Some whiz linked it to differences in pubic schooling structure or something I can't remember but I suspect a lot of it is just cultural and keeping up w/ the Joneses.

A little off topic but this also applies big time to colleges, too. From the Midwest, you are pretty smart if you go to Wisconsin or Iowa State or Purdue or Whatever Major State School (and very smart if you go to Michigan or Illinois etc.). In the Northeast, telling people you went to UMass or SUNY gets you looked at the wrong way by the fairly well off.

This. I relocated to the Midwest during the pandemic and make Cravath scale. Kids go to excellent public school and will go to our instate Big Ten School (most likely...wife and I have parked quite a bit of money into 529s, so the "cost" of this won't be too bad since the money is pretty much there for college anyway). We live in a big house with a mortgage that would be a closet apartment on the east coast. Ridiculous cost savings and I only wish my state didn't have an income tax...but I'm not going to complain. So called "flyover" states offer an amazing path to crazy prosperity for big law lawyers.

[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.

La Canada Flintridge, which is crawling with biglaw partners, is the exception

[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.

Came here to lol at this list of Bay Area public schools. Hilariously does not include the actual best public schools in the Bay Area which are in Orinda, Moraga and Lafayette. Many big law partners in that area and definitely are not “conservative” like some other poster mentioned.

[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.

Came here to lol at this list of Bay Area public schools. Hilariously does not include the actual best public schools in the Bay Area which are in Orinda, Moraga and Lafayette. Many big law partners in that area and definitely are not “conservative” like some other poster mentioned.

Also Marin. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure every SF biglaw partner I've ever known lived in Marin.

[Anonymous User]

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.

Lol at head royce. CPS is the clear best Bay Area private school. By a mile.

[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?

I know we've passed this point in the thread, but I just had to chime in with my appreciation for this, having gone to one of Choate's rival New England schools. As much as it gave me a great laugh, alas Choate is one of the best boarding schools in the country. Probably on par with Andover & Exeter, maybe a tick down. And I have never heard of Dwight. But again, loved this

My .02 overall on this though, I think even some of the replies in here show the strange Yankee thrift and low-key culture of traditional biglaw. Some of the comments are acting like the "right" way to spend money is to deprive yourself of fun/entertainment/lavish spending and to create intergenerational wealth, and like the Ferrari-purchasers are uncouth. Personal preference - there is no right way to do things. If I were a Kirkland (equity) partner, I'd be financing that Ferrari on day 1. Sorry to burn your eyes with this, thrifty folks!

I’m going to be getting a chain, Ferrari and fur coat the day I make it. Fuck these weirdos telling me I’m financially illiterate. enjoy FIRE or whatever. I’ll be sipping a 50 year old scotch in my mink.

[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.

La Canada Flintridge, which is crawling with biglaw partners, is the exception

Earlier partner. Yes, fair point - I lumped La Canada Flintridge into the San Gabriel Valley because it's off the 210 but it is a distinct part of town and I agree completely. South Pasadena also has good public schools. As to Bay area public schools, I clearly am more familiar with schools in the South Bay Peninsula but yes, Orinda/Moraga/Lafayette and Marin County also have very good public schools. I think this just underscores the point that good public schools are a real thing in the Bay Area but not so much in LA.

[Buglaw]

The simple answer is that they spend on stuff that’s not all that different from the rest of us. Money has declining utility. The difference between making a few hundred thousand a year and millions in terms of quality of life is not much. The two people can do most of the same stuff, the person with millions just does it nicer. The difference between making $50k a year and 300k a year is massive. The person making 300k a year doesn’t have real money struggles the way someone making 50k a year does. But, once you clear that hurdle, there’s not much benefit to more money. The marginal happiness gained from sending your kid to the best private school vs a reasonably good public school is quite small. The difference between a vacation which costs a few thousand and one that is 20-30 thousand is also very small (same with driving a bmw or Mercedes’ vs a Toyota, etc.).

Knowing that I could retire in 10 years instead of 20 would be pretty huge for me.

(A) you won’t. Think of an equity partner you know who retired at 40-45.

(B) you could do that now. Just reduce your spending. The fact that you won’t reduce your spending now means you probably won’t do it as a partner either.

[Anonymous User]

For posters who require “good schools” for your kids, what does that mean and why? Isn’t your kids result more to do with them rather than the school? Leaving aside long term network effects for boarding schools, this always puzzles me. Going to a “good public school” doesn’t really guarantee anything other than fewer fights and generally less diversity.

[Anonymous User]

For posters who require “good schools” for your kids, what does that mean and why? Isn’t your kids result more to do with them rather than the school? Leaving aside long term network effects for boarding schools, this always puzzles me. Going to a “good public school” doesn’t really guarantee anything other than fewer fights and generally less diversity.

There's a lot of reasons, but here's a few: (1) there's also long term network effects for the top public schools, (2) there's going to be more resources for academics, (3) the parents will care more, and (4) the top public schools have relationships with certain colleges.

[Anonymous User]

For posters who require “good schools” for your kids, what does that mean and why? Isn’t your kids result more to do with them rather than the school? Leaving aside long term network effects for boarding schools, this always puzzles me. Going to a “good public school” doesn’t really guarantee anything other than fewer fights and generally less diversity.

Some people care about academics. Like duh. How can you even ask that question lol?


Also, how does networking even work at schools? I have attended fancy-ass private schools from HS onward and have never felt a networking bump. Are we talking about like trading a week in Vail for a week in St. Tropez at our families’ ostensible summer/winter houses or something into adulthood?

[Anonymous User]

For posters who require “good schools” for your kids, what does that mean and why? Isn’t your kids result more to do with them rather than the school? Leaving aside long term network effects for boarding schools, this always puzzles me. Going to a “good public school” doesn’t really guarantee anything other than fewer fights and generally less diversity.

Some people care about academics. Like duh. How can you even ask that question lol?


Also, how does networking even work at schools? I have attended fancy-ass private schools from HS onward and have never felt a networking bump. Are we talking about like trading a week in Vail for a week in St. Tropez at our families’ ostensible summer/winter houses or something into adulthood?

I think the advantage is that all your friends/peers went to Ivies or equivalent and have jobs at big tech companies, startups, biglaw, consulting, investment banking or PE. The parents also work or worked at those places so you can network and name-drop for interviews.

[Anonymous User]

I think the advantage is that all your friends/peers went to Ivies or equivalent and have jobs at big tech companies, startups, biglaw, consulting, investment banking or PE. The parents also work or worked at those places so you can network and name-drop for interviews.

Person you responded to. This describes my situation in the most literal way possible. I am still wondering what the "advantage" is. Like, I maintain my close friendships and stuff, but they are not instrumental in the sense that we get jobs for each other or manage each other's money or whatever. Nor have we name-dropped for interviews. It is not like FAANG or GS cares about how many people at the company/firm you know.

[Anonymous User]

For posters who require “good schools” for your kids, what does that mean and why? Isn’t your kids result more to do with them rather than the school? Leaving aside long term network effects for boarding schools, this always puzzles me. Going to a “good public school” doesn’t really guarantee anything other than fewer fights and generally less diversity.

Some people care about academics. Like duh. How can you even ask that question lol?

Also, how does networking even work at schools? I have attended fancy-ass private schools from HS onward and have never felt a networking bump. Are we talking about like trading a week in Vail for a week in St. Tropez at our families’ ostensible summer/winter houses or something into adulthood?

I mean, I have a relative whose kids went to a VERY fancy school where their classmates were kids of heads of industry and Arab royalty and such. My relative's kids definitely benefited by going on some amazing vacations when friends took them to St. Moritz and so on, but can you really not see any benefit from getting to know your roommate's dad, who is highly placed in a Fortune 500 company, when you're looking for an internship in said or similar Fortune 500 company? You might never ask him for a job and he might never get you one, and you might never even drop his name anywhere, but just having dad sit down with you and give you advice about where to look/how to apply could be really helpful.

Or like your kid wants to go to med school and roommate's mom runs the oncology department at [insert name of big fancy hospital]. You, as a lawyer who can afford to send your kid to the private school, have a lot of means to help your kid prepare for med school, but you're still not going to have roommate's mom's insight. Hell, you don't even really need to get your kid involved, you can reach out to roommate's mom yourself. It can just be easy access to the right kind of information, not someone literally handing you a job.

Re: "good public schools" (so first quoted post) - you're doubtless right about less diversity, in most cases. But fewer fights alone is probably a big deal for a lot of parents ("fewer" cracks me up because I went to what would probably qualify as a "good public school" and I don't remember *any* fights, so the expectation that good = some number of fights that's not 0 is weird to me).

But most is going to be academics/general "enrichment" stuff - AP classes, languages taught (do you have Latin, Russian, or Mandarin, or just French and Spanish), physical resources (can your science lab actually do labs or do they not have money for equipment or supplies?), field trips, trips abroad, after school activities (not just sports, but music, art, tech, theater activities are expensive - can you afford to rent costumes for plays or can your kids' parents afford to make/buy them? is there money to enter the choir in the regional choral competition? do you have one choir or three? do you have clay and wheels to teach kids pottery or are you going to go with newspaper + glue papier mache? how many different sports teams can you support? do you have tennis courts? etc etc).

Whether those things all really make a difference in a given kid's life long-term is one of those deep philosophical questions on which people will disagree. But it shouldn't be at all surprising that parents want their kids' schools to offer them.

[Anonymous User]

I think the advantage is that all your friends/peers went to Ivies or equivalent and have jobs at big tech companies, startups, biglaw, consulting, investment banking or PE. The parents also work or worked at those places so you can network and name-drop for interviews.

Person you responded to. This describes my situation in the most literal way possible. I am still wondering what the "advantage" is. Like, I maintain my close friendships and stuff, but they are not instrumental in the sense that we get jobs for each other or manage each other's money or whatever. Nor have we name-dropped for interviews. It is not like FAANG or GS cares about how many people at the company/firm you know.

I'm at the beginning of my career, so I can't speak much to things like business development or even moving in-house. But, I can speak to networking for OCI. For example, I knew a bunch of people from high school who were at various top ranked firms. I didn't even know some of them personally, but I still used my high school to talk to them. If I went to a not-as-good school, I wouldn't be able to network as well since I'd be reaching out cold (which is not bad) without any basis of shared experience.

I will note I did speak with partners/counsel from V10s whose children I knew, but I freely admit that didn't help. The bigger help was being able to talk about the firms with those people I went to high school with and their connections. I hope that answers your question.

[Anonymous User]

I think the advantage is that all your friends/peers went to Ivies or equivalent and have jobs at big tech companies, startups, biglaw, consulting, investment banking or PE. The parents also work or worked at those places so you can network and name-drop for interviews.

Person you responded to. This describes my situation in the most literal way possible. I am still wondering what the "advantage" is. Like, I maintain my close friendships and stuff, but they are not instrumental in the sense that we get jobs for each other or manage each other's money or whatever. Nor have we name-dropped for interviews. It is not like FAANG or GS cares about how many people at the company/firm you know.

I think it's less actual name-dropping and more long-term conditioning of how to behave, talk, act, joke around, etc. in these elite places. Tbh, name-dropping is almost kinda "gauche" among the left-leaning power elite of IBs, consultancies, academia, law firms, VC/PE circles - i.e., it's something you'd expect more from a Tiffany Trump or oil magnate's son. A basic part of conditioning is being able to talk about going to/experiencing the same things - and it doesn't even need to be some exotic vacation spot in French Polynesia over Spring Break, but, e.g., a weekend trip to the Hamptons or Martha's Vineyard or the U.S. Open. A lot of it is just consuming the same goods/services - or at least being intimately familiar with what those goods/services are - and enjoying/or pretending to enjoy particular hobbies (i.e., lacrosse, tennis, sailing, golf). Lauren Rivera does a good job explaining this "conditioning" aspect in her book Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs. The Sum of Small Things by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett also touches on these issues - though less in the context of elite high school/college students and more so of what these people then grow up or graduate to become.

Overall, it's just a sheen of polish that I've noticed my friends who went to top private schools and/or elite colleges possess. Most of them can 100% talk "normally" lol and are amazingly chill to hang around everyday. But when it's time for interviews or networking events or even just office hours with professors, they can easily throw up a super polished facade that I can only attribute to having been marinaded for years with people who talk/act like that. P.S. my friends are all URM/ORM, so I've personally found it to be very obvious who has had the benefit (or burden?) of being placed among "elite" peers for so long. Idk if the differences are less obvious for Caucasian folks. Anyways, just my 0.02.

Edit: All this is to say, I don't think it's stupid for parents to want to send their kids to Dalton or Trinity or Exeter instead of the objectively excellent public school in Scarsdale or D.C.

[Anonymous User]

[…] Going to a “good public school” doesn’t really guarantee anything other than fewer fights and generally less diversity.

[…] Re: "good public schools" (so first quoted post) - you're doubtless right about less diversity, in most cases. But fewer fights alone is probably a big deal for a lot of parents ("fewer" cracks me up because I went to what would probably qualify as a "good public school" and I don't remember *any* fights, so the expectation that good = some number of fights that's not 0 is weird to me).

I went to a good public school (HS offered nearly 30 AP courses, etc etc) and definitely witnessed my fair share of fights, drug deals, and so on. Honestly, I consider that as much a part of my education as calculus and band class. I can’t say the environment made me any tougher, but I do think I emerged a bit less pearl clutch-y.

I had one friend who was sent off to a posh boarding school, starting in 9th grade, because his parents didn’t like the seedier elements present in our public high school. When I finally saw that friend the following year, he had become a huge stoner and was dabbling with lots of harder drugs. Definitely backfired.

[Sackboy]

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.

Lol at head royce. CPS is the clear best Bay Area private school. By a mile.

Incredible douchebag snobbery posted under anon. Just bravo. I never said any of those schools were the best. I just pointed to them as obviously good private schools.

[Anonymous User]

Edit: All this is to say, I don't think it's stupid for parents to want to send their kids to Dalton or Trinity or Exeter instead of the objectively excellent public school in Scarsdale or D.C.

I track your overall point, but that kid going to Scarsdale High School is probably still going on ski vacations over winter break, summer vacations to Europe, maybe dabbling with horseback riding lessons, and learning how to conduct herself comfortably in the occasional Michelin-starred restaurant. There’s still going to be that “sheen” that they can turn on or off as needed.

When I got to college, I do not necessarily think the Dalton, Deerfield, and Brearley students had any more polish than the rest; but they definitely were more at home talking about their ideas (BS’ing) in college seminars, since they had been doing that class format for a while. It was new for the rest of us.