NY GOES TO 180k! IT HAPPENED!!!! (CovingTTTon does a 180! Holder wept.) Forum

[jingosaur]

Help, this is actually making me think the market will move. (Only to 175, though)

I'm like actually hopeful. Someone snap me out of it please.

Law firm revenue growth is largely flat, expense growth has only been curtailed due to a massive series of one-off expense reductions (minimizing office space/leases, reducing staff headcount, etc.), and employee salaries are the single largest expense of law firms (60-70% of firm costs). Meanwhile, the catastrophic industry reliance on PPP and other similarly manipulable metrics means that firms will put partner profits over other things 9 times out of 10.

Excepting a few dozen firms at the top who are actually growing, the vast majority of BigLaw couldn't handle a move to 190. Those at the top who could move have no real incentive to because, what, people are going to stop coming to work at Cravath, Quinn, SullCrom, DPW, etc.? Please.

Get the fuck out with this shit

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

I truly do not understand the allure of NYC or SF on 160 when you could live in Houston/Dallas/Raleigh/Atlanta etc. on 160. Yes, NYC has good restaurants and theatre and bars and the like. But those other cities have those as well, just in lesser amounts, and it's not as if you have enough free time to be able to experience all that NYC/SF have to offer, anyway. Also I would not enjoy paying $2500 a month to live in a shoebox. But I grew up in Texas, so I'm biased.

But I honestly don't get it.

There are vegan grocery stores and yoga studios and milkbars and mustache grooming specialists in secondary markets. They just will charge you 50% of what one in NYC would.

Houston/Dallas/Raleigh/Atlanta ding people on the assumption that they're all just gonna move back to NYC after a couple years. Is that a thing that actually happens?

[sublime]

..

[dixiecupdrinking]

Some people actually want to live in major cities where they don't have to drive everywhere. And some people are actually just from expensive big city regions and aren't gonna pick up and move to some subdivision in fucking Raleigh because some online COL calculator says it's smart.

[SLS_AMG]

I truly do not understand the allure of NYC or SF on 160 when you could live in Houston/Dallas/Raleigh/Atlanta etc. on 160. Yes, NYC has good restaurants and theatre and bars and the like. But those other cities have those as well, just in lesser amounts, and it's not as if you have enough free time to be able to experience all that NYC/SF have to offer, anyway. Also I would not enjoy paying $2500 a month to live in a shoebox. But I grew up in Texas, so I'm biased.

But I honestly don't get it.

There are vegan grocery stores and yoga studios and milkbars and mustache grooming specialists in secondary markets. They just will charge you 50% of what one in NYC would.

Well, for corporate associates, working at a big firm in NYC offers better experience and the chance to work on headline-grabbing deals. Virtually no deal you work on in Raleigh will be on the front page of The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. This matters less for litigation.

As you mentioned, NYC has better food, entertainment, and nightlife options, and it really isn't even close. New restaurants, bars, and other attractions literally open every week. No, you don't have infinite time to enjoy these things, but when you actually are at home, it's nice to be able to step outside and feel like you have a world of opportunity at your feet.

Also, as someone else mentioned, NYC and SF are densely populated cities that offer great and decent public transportation, respectively. Lol at trying to travel on public transportation in Houston/Dallas/Raleigh/Atlanta for a night out or whatever. Those cities are poster children for urban sprawl and offer exactly the type of city structure that many millenials despise. I for one do not want to be sitting in traffic wherever I decide to go. In NYC you can hop on an express train and be in any part of Manhattan in 20 minutes or less.

Finally, as stupid as it may sound, there is a certain level of "prestige" related to living in a city like New York or San Francisco vis a vis living in Dallas, Houston, or Atlanta. The former two are world-class cities, while the latter three are important cities, but hardly the type to be on the cutting edge of national and international trends. This may sound stupid, but many people--particularly young people--would never want to live in a backwater, even if it is objectively a large city.

[TLSModBot]

Alternative legal industry hypothesis to float by you guys:

Law firms increasingly understand that the PPP metric is toxic at the aggregate level and largely useless for partner lateraling at the micro level. Moreover, as clients increasingly demand efficient senior attorneys to handle their work instead of hordes of useless juniors, retention will be a greater issue (especially considering the heated up lateral market for associates). Lateraling partners and associates will look to firm health and viability in the "new normal" - and what better way to attract/retain clients than offer an impressive associate base who are more likely to stick around (clients vastly prefer this to having an endlessly rotating group of juniors who never spend enough time to really "get" the clients in the same way the partners do).

How are firms going to retain lawyers? Those that can afford it will bump up associate base salaries (at least midlevel pay/bonuses initially, but probably an across the board raise to attract candidates in the first place). That will initially help distance the big players from the middle of the pack - as firm consolidation takes hold and the middle players get comfortable with a lower PPP, funds will open up for these firms to follow suit in raising associate pay (arguably this is what lower AmLaw 200 firms are doing now to catch up to Simpson et. al's 2007 move to 160 by raising their secondary market associate pay to 160 finally).

Law firms will have to understand that associates are what make the wheels turn in the firms, and those firms who develop and care for their associates best will be the firms that foster happy (and loyal) client relationships, and ultimately prosper. It will be a golden age to be an associate - hours, benefits, and pay improvements will be ours for the taking. What a time to be alive!

[Glasseyes]

If you have to ask why someone would choose NY over Dallas, you clearly belong in Dallas

[Johann]

Alternative legal industry hypothesis to float by you guys:

Law firms increasingly understand that the PPP metric is toxic at the aggregate level and largely useless for partner lateraling at the micro level. Moreover, as clients increasingly demand efficient senior attorneys to handle their work instead of hordes of useless juniors, retention will be a greater issue (especially considering the heated up lateral market for associates). Lateraling partners and associates will look to firm health and viability in the "new normal" - and what better way to attract/retain clients than offer an impressive associate base who are more likely to stick around (clients vastly prefer this to having an endlessly rotating group of juniors who never spend enough time to really "get" the clients in the same way the partners do).

How are firms going to retain lawyers? Those that can afford it will bump up associate base salaries (at least midlevel pay/bonuses initially, but probably an across the board raise to attract candidates in the first place). That will initially help distance the big players from the middle of the pack - as firm consolidation takes hold and the middle players get comfortable with a lower PPP, funds will open up for these firms to follow suit in raising associate pay (arguably this is what lower AmLaw 200 firms are doing now to catch up to Simpson et. al's 2007 move to 160 by raising their secondary market associate pay to 160 finally).

Law firms will have to understand that associates are what make the wheels turn in the firms, and those firms who develop and care for their associates best will be the firms that foster happy (and loyal) client relationships, and ultimately prosper. It will be a golden age to be an associate - hours, benefits, and pay improvements will be ours for the taking. What a time to be alive!

clients dont give a shit what junior is working on their matter. you guys act like these white shoe firms havent been dealing with massive turnover forever already.

[smaug]

clients dont give a shit what junior is working on their matter. you guys act like these white shoe firms havent been dealing with massive turnover forever already.

specific junior maybe not but they do ask for associate bios and sometimes do care about background

[Johann]

yea unfortunately that doesnt change anything wrt to the labor supply or create leverage for juniors unless T14 grads start refusing to work for certain white shoe firms.

[BmoreOrLess]

yea unfortunately that doesnt change anything wrt to the labor supply or create leverage for juniors unless T14 grads start refusing to work for certain white shoe firms.

At least at GULC, I think you're seeing that a lot with regards to NYC in general. I know a bunch of people who avoided NYC at all costs.

[Glasseyes]

yea unfortunately that doesnt change anything wrt to the labor supply or create leverage for juniors unless T14 grads start refusing to work for certain white shoe firms.

At least at GULC, I think you're seeing that a lot with regards to NYC in general. I know a bunch of people who avoided NYC at all costs.

Yeah, I've been continually shocked how many of GULC's class of '17 are going elsewhere, whether it's DC, LA, SF/SV, Chicago, London, or other random markets. Most of ones I know doing NY are going to v5's. NY def has a growing stigma.

edit: sanitized for the protection of the innocent

[Johann]

good shit

[BmoreOrLess]

.

[lavarman84]

If you have to ask why someone would choose NY over Dallas, you clearly belong in Dallas

I agree with him. But I also don't want to work in NY.

[5ky]

you see that a lot at UVA too, but i think most of the reason is just self selection. see a lot more NYC from columbia/nyu/penn/cornell etc than people who choose to live in DC or virginia for school.

[Br3v]

you see that a lot at UVA too, but i think most of the reason is just self selection. see a lot more NYC from columbia/nyu/penn/cornell etc than people who choose to live in DC or virginia for school.

Yeah I know a few people at UVA deciding on DC/southern markets to avoid NY

[smaug]

yea unfortunately that doesnt change anything wrt to the labor supply or create leverage for juniors unless T14 grads start refusing to work for certain white shoe firms.

I don't (and didn't) disagree with this. You just got to that conclusion in a dumb way.

i can't delete this. this is smag accidental anon

[jbagelboy]

yea unfortunately that doesnt change anything wrt to the labor supply or create leverage for juniors unless T14 grads start refusing to work for certain white shoe firms.

At least at GULC, I think you're seeing that a lot with regards to NYC in general. I know a bunch of people who avoided NYC at all costs.

Yeah, I've been continually shocked how many of GULC's class of '17 are going elsewhere, whether it's DC, LA, SF/SV, Chicago, London, or other random markets. Virtually the only ones I know doing NY are going to v5's (besides one shitbird headed to Cadwalader but fuck that guy). NY def has a growing stigma.

I love that I don't know who you are, but I know who this is.

It seems like an unnecessarily specific dig. can we share in the drama?

[El Pollito]

Oh. Well (1) it's harder to get the job in the secondary market most of the time and (2) I think there are people like me who refuse to drive and like being in a city with intelligent high achievers.

The biggest difference between NY and other places I've lived is that the people you meet are just way better

I didn't realize how true this was until I moved. I miss New Yorkers a lot.

[TLSModBot]

I love that I don't know who you are, but I know who this is.

I've apparently had class with you and I still don't know who you are.

Also in some bizarre twist of fate I passed that class somehow.

I feel sorry for [REDACTED]-bound people. Ain't nobody deserves that fate no matter how shitty.

[Glasseyes]

yea unfortunately that doesnt change anything wrt to the labor supply or create leverage for juniors unless T14 grads start refusing to work for certain white shoe firms.

At least at GULC, I think you're seeing that a lot with regards to NYC in general. I know a bunch of people who avoided NYC at all costs.

Yeah, I've been continually shocked how many of GULC's class of '17 are going elsewhere, whether it's DC, LA, SF/SV, Chicago, London, or other random markets. Virtually the only ones I know doing NY are going to v5's... NY def has a growing stigma.

I love that I don't know who you are, but I know who this is.

It seems like an unnecessarily specific dig. can we share in the drama?

Edit: excised for your protection

[Mr. Blackacre]

.

[smaug]

less about gunners throwing away their lives at cadwalader, more about NY 2 190k

[jkpolk]

less about gunners throwing away their lives at cadwalader, more about NY 2 190k

IT'S HAPPENING THIS TIME