MBB / Management Consultancy Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm a V20 biglaw junior. My hours are horrible, particularly at the moment, and I'm dying. Was talking to friend at MBB who is loving life. I then (just now) read a few relevant threads on here (mostly people arguing about minor salary differentials or exaggerating certain elements to make biglaw or MBB seem like the magic bullet). My takeaway is that/ justification of my shitty life choices:

1. Yes, my friend is happy but he is drinking the MBB koolaid - a desk job is a desk job, work is work, it all sucks but we happen to be in the % with a crappy work/life balance and good pay;
2. YMMV - some people in the MBB get pigeonholed into bad projects/work, some get broad experience. Some get bad hours, some don't. Just as it can be in biglaw. Someone's experience of biglaw could feasibly be a 9:30 - 7 day everyday doing somewhat interesting work some of the time. That's not been my experience and equally there are people in consultancy who have unimaginably terribly hours. Listening to an outlier shouldn't make me feel down;
3. Junior work is junior and career changing sets you back - the more senior you are, the more you earn and the more flexibility/ control you have over your workflow and work day. Which is what the battle is all about;
4. People can wibble on and on about big law / MBB pay comparisons - they both pay well, maybe about the same, who cares; and
5. Exits all depend on relationships and blagging your skills /work experience whether MBB or law. Half of those in MBB who I know have moved to corporate strategy roles, half still there. I have a few years of business experience prior to law - I reckon if the average M&A lawyer, some experience in the relevant sector and possessing the gift of the gab could navigate a corporate development role at a Google if they really had to. They don't because they lack creativity - they think more biglaw or smaller law on in-house law. Law, law, law.


Thoughts (if any)?

[QContinuum]

My thoughts:

• MBB requires soul-crushing, 4-days-per-week-every-week travel. Even the most travel-intense BigLaw career pathway pales in comparison. (On the flip side, you end up with a hundred gazillion miles to burn, and elite status & associated perks with any airline/hotel you want it at.)
• BigLaw still pays more than MBB at the junior levels - no clue how partner compensation stacks up, probably very individual at both.
• BigLaw exits, at least, can be made without leveraging a relationship. Plenty of BigLawyers have gone in-house or to the government without having a particular personal connection, though it's true that in-house moves often happen via a connection.

[hatelawandgoinghome]

I'm a V20 biglaw junior. My hours are horrible, particularly at the moment, and I'm dying. Was talking to friend at MBB who is loving life. I then (just now) read a few relevant threads on here (mostly people arguing about minor salary differentials or exaggerating certain elements to make biglaw or MBB seem like the magic bullet). My takeaway is that/ justification of my shitty life choices:

1. Yes, my friend is happy but he is drinking the MBB koolaid - a desk job is a desk job, work is work, it all sucks but we happen to be in the % with a crappy work/life balance and good pay;
2. YMMV - some people in the MBB get pigeonholed into bad projects/work, some get broad experience. Some get bad hours, some don't. Just as it can be in biglaw. Someone's experience of biglaw could feasibly be a 9:30 - 7 day everyday doing somewhat interesting work some of the time. That's not been my experience and equally there are people in consultancy who have unimaginably terribly hours. Listening to an outlier shouldn't make me feel down;
3. Junior work is junior and career changing sets you back - the more senior you are, the more you earn and the more flexibility/ control you have over your workflow and work day. Which is what the battle is all about;
4. People can wibble on and on about big law / MBB pay comparisons - they both pay well, maybe about the same, who cares; and
5. Exits all depend on relationships and blagging your skills /work experience whether MBB or law. Half of those in MBB who I know have moved to corporate strategy roles, half still there. I have a few years of business experience prior to law - I reckon if the average M&A lawyer, some experience in the relevant sector and possessing the gift of the gab could navigate a corporate development role at a Google if they really had to. They don't because they lack creativity - they think more biglaw or smaller law on in-house law. Law, law, law.


Thoughts (if any)?

Agreed. But the biggest thing you left out is probably the actual work difference btw biglaw and MBB. It's safe to assume that most people who are in transactional practice find the business side more interesting than the legal side in deals. While consultants aren't actually the ones who control the P/L of businesses, at least they are more exposed to the business decision making process. Before someone jumps in and say " don't go to law school if you wanted to do business", most people who went to law school and decided to do transactional work had no idea what the actual job implied, at least until their summer. Back to the MBB vs. Biglaw comparison - while the compensation/hour is more or less the same, the potential exit opportunity upside and more interesting work is probably why more people are drawn to it, even with the crazy travel schedule. At the end of the day, both are service professions, you are going to do [redacted for misogynistic slur] [grunt] work as a junior.

[dabigchina]

I think the biggest difference is exit ops. Yes both jobs blow. Consulting might blow harder than big law. However, I have never heard of consultants hating on their exit ops. I have a few friends in consulting and they were all able to exit to pretty good companies with great pay and good work life balance. On the other hand, it seems like these kinds of exits would almost be considered "unicorn" exits for your run of the mill v10 associate.

Granted, I'm a junior and my consulting friends were pretty junior, but I've found exit ops to be pretty shitty compared to their careers and my prior career (accounting).

See: this lovely thread

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=301112

[anonbanker]

At the end of the day, both are service professions, you are going to do [redacted for misogynistic slur] [grunt] work as a junior.

Yes but what it means to be a "junior" means different things

In my profession on day 1 I get analysts on my teams to do the true grunt work (granted there tends to be enough for the both of us). Same is true for consultants whereas the biglaw grad is right at the bottom of the totem pole. Anecdotally the ramp is faster in consulting (or banking) than law. Three years in, you are an "Engagement Manager" or "VP" which for sure is part title inflation but also means real responsibility. What are junior-to-mid biglaw associates doing?

All that said, the most hilarious claim in this thread is that a biglaw associate with hustle can just walk his way into a google corp dev job. All the best

[PMan99]

I'm a V20 biglaw junior. My hours are horrible, particularly at the moment, and I'm dying. Was talking to friend at MBB who is loving life. I then (just now) read a few relevant threads on here (mostly people arguing about minor salary differentials or exaggerating certain elements to make biglaw or MBB seem like the magic bullet). My takeaway is that/ justification of my shitty life choices:

5. Exits all depend on relationships and blagging your skills /work experience whether MBB or law. Half of those in MBB who I know have moved to corporate strategy roles, half still there. I have a few years of business experience prior to law - I reckon if the average M&A lawyer, some experience in the relevant sector and possessing the gift of the gab could navigate a corporate development role at a Google if they really had to. They don't because they lack creativity - they think more biglaw or smaller law on in-house law. Law, law, law.


Thoughts (if any)?

As noted by anonbnaker above, this is where your post goes awry. Your average corporate associate can't even get an in-house role at Google, let alone a desirable corporate development role. Sure, some attorneys can lateral into finance or business or whatever, but those are the vanishingly small exception, not the rule, and if they do it's oftentimes indirect.

Biglaw is filled with people trying to escape the law (hence the recurring posts on these and other boards about leaving biglaw to go to mbb, banking, vc, whatever). The reason people aren't leaving isn't because they lack creativity, it's because no one wants to hire a lawyer (especially litigators, but also corporate associates) to do anything that isn't related to the law.

[Anonymous User]

Original post here. Thanks. Particularly first poster, not so much to the last.

It would be fair to assume that as someone in biglaw that I don't need to be told that people don't like biglaw, try to leave and exits are particular to practice area. I mean, thanks Sherlock. Are you seriously telling me that a lev fin associate can't leave at 2PQE to become GC at Apple?! Get out of here. It's fair to assume I'm talking about corporate/tech transactional/reg etc. or at least give me some benefit of the doubt.

I made a particular statement with respect to specific individuals (like me and I am really the only person I care about) who had a few years of business experience before biglaw. You seem to have missed that. It's of no consequence, I'm right. Consultants also DO have to blag their skillset, their skillset is much more loosely defined and you can be staffed on all sorts of projects - I know people who have gotten corp dev roles in sexy companies when their previous consulting experience was mostly just taking surveys and tweaking powerpoint formatting.

[Anonymous User]

eh, grass is always greener. if you want to leave law, sure I get the bitterness. it's hard to switch out. and if you want to become a billionaire or something, ok I also get that. sorry you're never gonna run your own fund.

but having worked in finance for a few years at a BB (analyst and associate), I think the lawyers have it 10000x better than the most-MBA IB associates if your ultimate goal is ~$200K+ compensation with predictable hours. there are way more in-house law jobs offering that than like, bullshit "corporate strategy" or "finance" or whatever jobs. trust me, literally every single MBA on my old floor was trying to leave to get one, and none of them did. Big Sexy Tech Co. needs, in order of priority: (1) engineers, (2) engineers . . . (10) lawyers . . . (200) MBAs from Tuck making PowerPoint slides.

the problem with this board is people think life is like, fundamentally unfair because they have to choose between $$$$$$$$$$ and "working 45 hours a week." if your

[jagpaw]

eh, grass is always greener. if you want to leave law, sure I get the bitterness. it's hard to switch out. and if you want to become a billionaire or something, ok I also get that. sorry you're never gonna run your own fund.

but having worked in finance for a few years at a BB (analyst and associate), I think the lawyers have it 10000x better than the most-MBA IB associates if your ultimate goal is ~$200K+ compensation with predictable hours. there are way more in-house law jobs offering that than like, bullshit "corporate strategy" or "finance" or whatever jobs. trust me, literally every single MBA on my old floor was trying to leave to get one, and none of them did. Big Sexy Tech Co. needs, in order of priority: (1) engineers, (2) engineers . . . (10) lawyers . . . (200) MBAs from Tuck making PowerPoint slides.

the problem with this board is people think life is like, fundamentally unfair because they have to choose between $$$$$$$$$$ and "working 45 hours a week." if your

That all makes sense and I agree, though my understanding was that ibankers begin to have better lifestyles at the VP level and up (as opposed to big law, where it seems like the lifestyle gets worse with seniority). Was this true in your experience?

[dabigchina]

the problem with this board is people think life is like, fundamentally unfair because they have to choose between $$$$$$$$$$ and "working 45 hours a week." if your

My struggle is less with the fact that in house jobs pay a lot less, and more to do with the fact that in house jobs that offer truly great work life balance seem to be difficult to obtain, regardless of how much money I'm willing to give up because there just aren't that many of them. Hell, I'd settle for 50k/year if you told me that I wouldn't have to work on weekends and didn't have to work more than 8 hours a day.

[Anonymous User]

eh, grass is always greener. if you want to leave law, sure I get the bitterness. it's hard to switch out. and if you want to become a billionaire or something, ok I also get that. sorry you're never gonna run your own fund.

but having worked in finance for a few years at a BB (analyst and associate), I think the lawyers have it 10000x better than the most-MBA IB associates if your ultimate goal is ~$200K+ compensation with predictable hours. there are way more in-house law jobs offering that than like, bullshit "corporate strategy" or "finance" or whatever jobs. trust me, literally every single MBA on my old floor was trying to leave to get one, and none of them did. Big Sexy Tech Co. needs, in order of priority: (1) engineers, (2) engineers . . . (10) lawyers . . . (200) MBAs from Tuck making PowerPoint slides.

the problem with this board is people think life is like, fundamentally unfair because they have to choose between $$$$$$$$$$ and "working 45 hours a week." if your

That all makes sense and I agree, though my understanding was that ibankers begin to have better lifestyles at the VP level and up (as opposed to big law, where it seems like the lifestyle gets worse with seniority). Was this true in your experience?

(1) sure, you have it better than the analysts do obviously, but so does everyone. it never turns into a 9-7pm gig though. MDs are working evenings, weekends, traveling. VPs are working til midnight, weekends, fairly routinely.
(2) IB midlevels have much, much less job security than BigLaw associates. you can't assume you're getting promoted to VP. many/most won't. I think this is because a lawyer hitting his/her hours is net-profitable to the firm even if s/he's like, not particularly good. plus all the BBs and many elite boutiques are public companies, so more cost-conscious, less control over budget for personnel for the group, etc etc.

(2) is super important. iirc industrywide (these are laterally stats), ~35% of a summer class will still be at their starting BigLaw firm five years after joining? unheard of in IB.

[Lurker123]

I'm also a V20 corporate junior (NYC) with a business background who has been kicking the tires on this for the last year or so and have pretty much decided to go full throttle towards making the move.

Speaking/networking with MBB folks who have made the transition all have been pleased with their move. Obviously, there is some or a lot of self-selection bias at play here but it seems as though the people who are generally drawn to making this transition are content with their choices. People like me who did finance/business in undergrad and before law school will probably be more inclined to like consulting work than others.

As stated in a few posts above, both jobs can/will suck but I view it as I'd rather get destroyed hours wise doing something I'm at least semi-interested in. In the same sense that logging a ton of hours in my current practice group (tolerable) is much better than the same hours and unpredictability in the practice group I switched from. But any high paying desk job is going to be somewhat soul crushing so that's certainly something to take into account.

For me, I just looked down the road three years at where I would like to be and even some of the coolest in-house jobs just don't move the needle. Realizing law school was a mistake sucked but it is a sunk cost and I think it will be the right move for me.

Either way, if you're trying to make the move and are interested in case prepping feel free to send me a PM.