I wont quibble with you about point a but I know you're exaggerating how much easier it is. Have you tried applying to altnerative options seriously? Or are you just saying this because that's what others have told you? My suspicion is that you're parroting what everyone seems to think is the case: getting biglaw is *much* easier than other gigs. That's absolutely false. Some entry level consulting firms are just the same. Note my comment about promontory group.TheUnicornHunter wrote:No it has nothing to do with prestige, you fucking idiot. There's no prestige difference between working at JP Morgan and working at Wachtell, or if there is... it doesn't cut in favor of being a lawyer.greekdebtcrisis wrote:No it won't be stress free. Very few jobs that pay good salaries are stress free. I do think however if given the option in working 60-100 hour weeks (not billable necessarily but certainly at least at-the-office hours), I'd choose the job that is hopefully more satisfying and definitely switch if the pay is higher. But as I keep asking in this forum and it seems that we are all coming to an agreement, there is little prestige in working in biglaw if you compare it to a non-legal job that pays more. The best anecdotal evidence I have is that associates end up going to non-legal after several years of legal and could have and should have done that earlier.dixiecupdrinking wrote:Also I'm sure this guy's lucrative finance job or whatever will definitely be endlessly fascinating and stress-free as opposed to those sad biglaw associates.A. Nony Mouse wrote:Have you actually read anything on this site? There are tons of threads that basically say "fuck biglaw." There are plenty of biglaw associates who talk about what sucks about it. You're not offering anything novel by saying biglaw sucks.greekdebtcrisis wrote:There must be so many people skimming these posts who are 1st or 2nd year associates and are hating life right now. I actually bet some 3rd years who did a dist and app clerkships hate their lives as biglaw is billing clients at 3rd year rates for doc review lol.
There should be a thread for "fuck biglaw". I haven't seen a single post that justifies working as a transactional associate (unless you're wachtell but you can still beat that bonus + salary straight out of law school if you do things right).
Should this be on jd underground?
The alternatives you're offering, though, are non-legal ones. Some people want to be lawyers. I already explained some reasons why people choose biglaw, but for some reason you keep responding "but why doesn't everyone agree that what I want to do is the best thing to do?"
The points below don't address my original question about biglaw prestige but they are my honest responses:
Re: the folks who say "what qualifications do these k-jds etc have". That's the point, if you don't try you won't get it. K-jd can easily go into consulting, banking, etc if they try hard enough. I know several that did and they're going to great banks in great groups and/or consulting firms. An example of one firm that easily pays more than law firm salaries is promontory group. That's perhaps the one firm that doesn't even require much hustling and takes a ton of recent grads without any experience. You'll definitely make more than most biglaw first year associates exceptions might be the boutique firms and wachtell.
Re: the lawyer comment. That's just sounds like you're selling yourself short given all that is stacked
against you to be a successful transactional attorney eg difficulty of partnership track, etc. Litigation is a different kettle of fish and commendable--in fact there is little competition to replace it eg arbitration. But transactional is very tedious and the work a transactional attorney does at least for the first couple of years is more paper pushing and editing than anything else. If you're interested in transactional, you should for example look instead into distressed debt funds to use your legal knowledge as your strength. If you're good enough for example to get into wachtell, you'd be an idiot not to leverage that to go to better places. If you ask some wachtell associates, they don't have a 100% retention rate of their summer class. Many of the kids who went there as summers go elsewhere on the business side.
HOWEVER:
a: As a law student, it's much easier to get hired as a lawyer than it is to get hired as an iBanker/consultant/whatever else you're suggesting (really not clear what you have in mind here).
b: Even if the partnership track is unlikely, many of these transactional attorney positions at firms will lead to in-house work, as an attorney, down the road. Once you go into a non-legal field, that ship has basically sailed.
Your point b is false too regarding the ships that have sailed. You can always go back to biglaw within a reasonable amount of time and definitely within a year. The hope is that one gets an in house position, but those are also tough. Transactional guys definitely apply broadly and apply to business sector positions strictly. In other words some start afresh even if they didn't want to do that.
