If you graduated without debt, would you still do BigLaw? Forum

[seashell.economy]

It is generally a good investment for the parents to pay for their children to go to a top law school. Over the course of their career they're likely to make the costs back and much more especially if they were a liberal arts major.

Also, and this is anecdotal, but I got the impression that those from wealthy families outperform their grades. It probably has something to do with talking the talk and walking the walk, and being less nervous at interviews because there is less on the line (they will be wealthy or upper middle class regardless). As others have said, most of the really, really wealthy people are going to have a lucrative business or a lot of real estate, and if their child can get into a top law school then they're likely going to be smart enough to take over the business or manage the portfolio.

You should read 'The Chosen' - it's about how the wealthy mold their children through educational pipelines, especially at Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton.

Is it by Jerome Karabel?

Yes!

[krads153]

The median household income of NYC is $50,000. If you are a single adult making over three times that, you're at a very minimum upper middle class.

Expenses tend to rise to meet income, so good chance you'll never actually "feel" rich no matter how much you end up making.

Nothing is stopping you from living in a shit hole in queens and acting like you only make $30k per year. Sure, your expenses go up but don't act like your money suddenly vanishes. You spend it on countless amenities that the person making $50k in NYC can't.

I'm just saying why people who earn in the top 2% of income don't feel wealthy psychologically despite objective evidence to the contrary.

Right - but expenses in NYC/SF rise because landlords are greedy. It's gone up like 50% in the past 5 years. So you're paying way more (even though salaries haven't risen) for the same shitty apartment. It's not like biglawyers are living it up and spending more on a better apt with each salary increase..you're just getting the same shitty apt but at a lot higher rent than 5-7 years ago.

A lot of people have rent control/rent stabilized apartments in NYC (probably those people making 50k). If you're the average biglawyer you're probably paying like 2-3 times as much rent for a similar apt as native New Yorkers with rent control/stabilized.

Also if you've worked biglaw, you'll understand why a lot of people don't want to commute from Queens....if you have a 9 to 5 job, then by all means commute from Queens. But with biglaw hours, it's almost necessary to live close to work. You dont' want to commute 2+ hours a day on top of working 12-16 hour days...