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Hi all,

I’m wondering about the commute to NYC for big law. I’m considering living in Weehawken so my commute would be 20-30 minutes each way. However my father offered for me to live in the family home for free but my commute would be about 1 hour each way. Is this worth the savings? It doesn’t seem to be but I’m not sure if you just get used to it.

This is really a decision that varies a lot depending on your personality/what you value. I personally would not in 100 years live with my parents (if that’s what you’re talking about by family home?) and commute an hour into nyc, but depending on your situation it might make sense for you. Do you like to go to the gym if possible during the workweek? That will be very difficult to fit in with that commute, let alone be motivated to do. Do you have friends that live in the city that you want to maintain relationships with? Do you want to have time to date or are you already seeing someone...if the latter, what’s their living situation? Could see the commute thing working temporarily if you were in some kind of long distance thing where they were moving to the city in a year or whatever.

not in big law but I commute from weehawken. where is your firm located? my ride into port authority is about 20-30 minutes, but then I still have to cross midtown. feel free to ask questions.

I've been an NJT commuter at various stages of my life and I can say it's thoroughly horrible. Penn station is an absolutely miserable place to start or end the day. The trains to NJ are expensive, infrequent, and stop after a certain hour (can't speak to LIRR or Metro North but I imagine its the same). I can't imagine doing that in conjunction with big law. FYI you may want to consider Harrison, which has its own PATH station but is not as expensive as Hobo/JC.

(anon because personal details)

This would be pretty horrible to do as a junior associate especially if you are a morning person. Your schedule/life has no predictability and I would be concerned about regular delays/problems on the train or bus lines that would result in you missing meetings or calls because of your travel schedule in the mornings, and just be generally aggravating at night. You should definitely check your firm’s taxi policy and make sure they will cover a car home at nights because I definitely would not bank on getting public transport out of the city after a certain hour.

I lived in West New York, which is on the same bus line as Weehawken, as it's the next town north. I have a few thoughts:

Taking the bus in everyday is definitely doable. That being said, one issue is that at peak times the buses going into NYC will full up completely. You have to time when you go in to avoid the worst times, as there will be multiple buses in a row without space (and that's coming from West New York, where there should be more space on the bus). Thus, when you're accounting for bus wait time and traffic, you'll have to end up leaving more time than you feel you should. My girlfriend left the house at 7:40 or 7:45 for a 9:00 AM start time downtown. Getting back, there are days where there are just massive delays coming out of Port Authority, but when it works well it can work smoothly. I don't necessarily agree that you would have to necessarily take a taxi back if you work late; the buses on the boulevard east line continue to run regularly late into the night, and there are also jitney buses that continuously run (although I would advise avoiding taking them like the plague, as the driver quality is very low). Sure, if it's 2 AM, you should take a taxi, but if it's 11 PM on a weeknight, you'd be fine taking public transport.

Weehawken has more stuff going on than West New York, but even so it doesn't have the biggest variety of shops etc.. You'd probably be going into Hoboken or Manhattan for a lot of things (I frequently did my grocery shopping in Manhattan).

Basically, just view it as living in some part of Brooklyn, where the commute is about 20-30 minutes but sometimes there are delays, and you'll have to pay for the bus and the subway instead of just the subway. West New York is poorer than Weehawken, but I never felt unsafe walking around.

I wrote about the bus commute because that's what I'm familiar with, but you would also have:

Ferry service
The New Jersey light rail to the Path Station, and then you could take the Path into Manhattan. It wouldn't be worth it if you are working in midtown, but if you are going downtown that would probably be faster.

Anyway, Weehawken is a reasonable option, and if I move back to the NYC area I would consider living there if I don't have kids. Whether it's worth the money is up to you.