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An ex-big law attorney told me he wiped out his student loans when his old firm paid it off as a signing bonus. That sounds like a pipedream to me. Anyone else ever hear of this?

I'm sure you could ask for your lateral firm to do this, but it'd be pretty pointless. They're not going to pay off $100k in debt for you to come. Maybe you have $50k in debt, and they go sure we'll pay that off, which is within the realm of reasonable lateral signing bonuses. They still get their $50k deduction, and you get your loans wiped out, but then it's also income to you so you're probably going to have a tax liability of at least $20,000 (assuming the 32% federal bracket + 7.65% FICA + state taxes, if any). Who knows, maybe you rather be on a repayment plan with the IRS if you can't pay your liability in full when your taxes are due, but it all seems kind of pointless.

For the next five years, employers can pay about $5,000 in student loan payments on behalf of their employees without that payment counting as employee income (and with it being deductible to the employer). I’m a little surprised some biglaw firms haven’t offered this as a very low cost benefit - we’ll chip away $5k of student loans each December if you stick around, tax free.