Biglaw associates: What career would you rather have done? Forum

[Good Guy Gaud]

Recreational therapy

[patentlitigatrix]

I wish I would have gone to culinary school and become a chef/run a restaurant. I love cooking and am actually good at it. Alternatively, I also used to be a personal trainer and was a D1 athlete. So either continuing being a trainer and/or going into collegiate coaching, or something with sports medicine. I used to be an engineer in tech, worked at multiple tech companies. I find it over-hyped. That said, I don't hate my biglaw job.

[BmoreOrLess]

A common thread among biglaw lawyers is the grass is greener in that field or my friend makes just as much as me but doesn't hate his life... So what better way to consolidate all of our complaints! I for one wish I had gone directly into securities/brokerage out of UG, I had an opportunity to join a small highly successful company and chose to go to law school instead .

So what about everybody else? Where did you go wrong?

Dude the brokerage world is pretty awful. Other than for getting a little real world experience I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. If you want to make good money in that kind of work just skip UG all together and go sell cars.

Yea, what does brokerage/securities even mean? Do you mean being an financial advisor? Good luck. Better hope you can build a decent book pretty quickly (which is going to have to come somewhere outside of your network, because your friends either don't have enough to be worth it for your firm or know better than to use a FA). And if it's a small shop, and not like a UBS advisors program, you would have probably been handling a bunch of operations shit (i.e., settlement), which fucking blows.

It's great for law school because people think your smart or something.

Want to know who the people in the financial world who fucking kill it are? Sales traders. But if any of us could sell, we would have never gone to law school.

[Anonymous User]

I wish I would have gone to culinary school and become a chef/run a restaurant. I love cooking and am actually good at it.

If people think law school is risky, try opening a restaurant. Talk about lots of debt, stress, and hard work for a slim chance at a even a tiny profit margin.

Small business/ start ups in general are incredibly risky. Certainly less than a "coins flip chance" of making lots of money. I've seen some do well, and many go down the tubes, others piddle along with owners taking home less than their staff.

[Anonymous User]

A common thread among biglaw lawyers is the grass is greener in that field or my friend makes just as much as me but doesn't hate his life... So what better way to consolidate all of our complaints! I for one wish I had gone directly into securities/brokerage out of UG, I had an opportunity to join a small highly successful company and chose to go to law school instead .

So what about everybody else? Where did you go wrong?

Dude the brokerage world is pretty awful. Other than for getting a little real world experience I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. If you want to make good money in that kind of work just skip UG all together and go sell cars.

Yea, what does brokerage/securities even mean? Do you mean being an financial advisor? Good luck. Better hope you can build a decent book pretty quickly (which is going to have to come somewhere outside of your network, because your friends either don't have enough to be worth it for your firm or know better than to use a FA). And if it's a small shop, and not like a UBS advisors program, you would have probably been handling a bunch of operations shit (i.e., settlement), which fucking blows.

It's great for law school because people think your smart or something.

Want to know who the people in the financial world who fucking kill it are? Sales traders. But if any of us could sell, we would have never gone to law school.

Haha. It means underwriting equity and bond offerings. Securities sales can also be for non-single clients. Think of that asshole who sold your 401k downriver. UBS is for kiddies who can't make break into banking. Go back to "private banking".

Good to know your peak is sales.

[patentlitigatrix]

I wish I would have gone to culinary school and become a chef/run a restaurant. I love cooking and am actually good at it.

If people think law school is risky, try opening a restaurant. Talk about lots of debt, stress, and hard work for a slim chance at a even a tiny profit margin.

Small business/ start ups in general are incredibly risky. Certainly less than a "coins flip chance" of making lots of money. I've seen some do well, and many go down the tubes, others piddle along with owners taking home less than their staff.

Totally agree, and I wouldn't necessarily would have wanted to start my own restaurant for that reason.